Michelle A. Heath

I did it. I finally did it. I know, you’ve all been giving me crap forever about my Blackberry. Some made fun of it’s phallic trackball, others it’s lack of app power, still others its inability to play music or even take a darn picture for that matter. Many asked why I wouldn’t switch. My answer? 1) Don’t want to switch from Verizon to AT&T  2) Don’t want to give up my keypad.

Well, on Sunday, November 15th, I did both.

As for #2, actually, surprisingly, it wasn’t that tough of a switch. Mind you, I have small hands (not sure how you big guys do it) and the auto-correction works pretty well, for the most part. I’ve put my thumbs to work and have gotten pretty good at typing pretty fast. The interesting thing I’ve found about typing on the iPhone is that I need to concentrate much more than I did on my Blackberry. My Blackberry was like typing on a computer – you know where the keys are, you could be putting on lipgloss and talking to your boss and still typing fast and furious. On the iPhone? Well, not so much. I have not yet attempted to apply gloss and type but have tried to talk to my boss and type (sorry, Dave) and it requires more concentration on the actual letters I’m trying to press. I know this sounds weird but it’s true and I guess I’ll get used to it so I can, once again, talk to Dave while typing.

As for #1, here’s my opinion. This device is not a phone at all. It is a mini-computer in disguise which is why the zillions of people who have iPhones just say “Yeah, AT&T sucks, but what are you gonna do?” Nada, that’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to fall in love with the slick display and the shiny buttons (mmm…shiny). The swift touchscreen action, the skakey-shakey to refresh Facebook, the endless app store, the iTunes all in one place, and the list goes on. You’ll notice I never said…the phone.

There was an interesting and timely Twitter post today by Jeremiah Owyang where he asked…

What percent of the time do you use your phone to actually talk? I use iPhone maybe only 5-10% for talking.

To which @Aaron Strout RT’d and said he uses his phone “about the same” and @jspepper said “Talk on iPhone??!”. Jeremiah later posted…

Most responses were they use their “phone” as a device/computer now. And the iPhone voice capabilities are substandard.

But isn’t the thing called an i…Phone?

You see, I talk on the phone. Alot. I have blown-out every wireless plan I’ve ever had. The interesting thing that happened on Sunday when I got my iPhone is that I started talking on the phone less and using email, text, chat and other communication methods to “talk” to my peeps. I guess between email, text, Facebook, Twitter, Four Square and the other apps I haven’t even discovered yet, I can know where they are, what they are doing, what they had for lunch, where they’re meeting for drinks (mmm…drinks) and how they feel about the lastest celebrity drama. I can open attachments of all shapes and sizes, browse webpages and take pictures and share them on Twitter.

So, I ask you my new lovely, are you really a phone? I hear you ring every once and a while but, IMHO, you are not a phone. You are a shiny, beautiful gateway to helping me share more stuff with more people. Whether that sharing is through a Word doc, text message, song, photo, geo position or a simple virtual gift, it’s less about talking on the phone and more about sharing on my device.

Maybe you should have been called the iShare? Hm, that has a nice ring to it.

*iPhone photo credit: weboptimiser.com; Rotary phone photo credit: cornbreadandbeansquilting.wordpress.com

TechCrunch reported yesterday about an interesting new iPhone app they came across in the App Store. It’s an official app made by the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), the American stock exchange. In the words of TechCrunch writer, MG Siegler, “That itself is interesting, but perhaps even more interesting is a key functionality of the app is to highlight tweets about various NASDAQ stocks.”

Wait, this is the NASDAQ, right?

Here’s the scoop. The app is called NASDAQ Portfolio Manager and, according to TechCrunch, it’s pretty slick. In addition to providing all the real-time quotes and data you’d expect, it also has some pretty cool charting features and, IMHO, the most interesting part of the whole app is that it has a special view that integrates all the latest tweets about that stock, coming in from StockTwits. If you don’t know about StockTwits and you’re a Forex trader, you need to check it out. The service is organized in “streams” and they recently launched a Forex stream, where you can see all the latest Forex tweets. A Forex tweet is denoted with $Currency pair (i.e. $USDJPY), and what’s even cooler is that you can sort the Forex stream by pair. Say you’re only interested in tweets about USD/JPY, click on the pair and just see that stream. We use StockTwits with our @Currensee Twitter stream to connect with influential Forex traders from around the world.

I love that an institution like NASDAQ sees real value in social data. Their new app shows the innovation that comes when you blend the conversation of the crowd with traditional data. The world is moving to a place where “how we always did it” just doesn’t do it anymore. In the old days, if the chart said go long, I most likely would. But today, if the chart says go long while everyone on Twitter is going short, I just might reconsider my position. It doesn’t mean the crowd is right, it just means I have more information and more resources to help me make a much more informed decision. Nicely done, NASDAQ.

We live in a society where everyone says yes. Can you stay late again tonight? Yes. Can you shave two weeks off that project deadline? Yes. Can you stop and pick up milk even though it’s pouring rain and the store is in the opposite direction? Yes. Would you like more pasta with your pasta? Yes. Can you make lemons out of lemonade? Yes.

No.

I know the drill. I get it. I used to want you to say yes too. But there’s a time and place for you to say yes and there are tough calls when you tell me yes but you really should  just say no.

I don’t want you to try to figure out intricate ways to do it. I don’t have the budget for you to source it out to a freelancer or find another guy. I can’t spend the time project managing the vision and task-mastering the execution. That’s why I asked you to do it. Duh.

You see, I have high expectations. If you tell me yes, well, I start thinking about how great the thing is, how much it’s going to rock my world and how excited I’ll be when I have it. I know, there’s therapy for issues like this, but I can’t help it. My expectations are what they are. So, rather than selling me on the fact that you can do it either A) just do it or B) just tell me you can’t do it. I will still love you if you choose option B. Actually, I might love you even more.

What I want is for you to know your limits. Know what you can do and how that’s different from what you think you can do. People worry about letting other people down when they say no. I say show your cards and let me down early. Please, I beg you, if you know it’s no…just say no.

Originally posted on the Currensee blog on Sept. 15, 2009.

I spent most of my career in the financial services industry. Back in the day, when I was working at one of the “big guys”, we were truly innovative. New products, new technologies, first to market on many fronts but then something changed. The big guys got big and when you get big, you get hung up in meetings, politics, reorgs, red tape, managing up, reforcasting budgets and, voila, all the big innovation gets pushed aside for making the numbers and keeping the beast steady as she goes.

When I took the leap into the land of startups I never imagined a financial services vertical for startups. I wondered what there was to innovate in a place so layered in compliance, risk, security and privacy hangups? Well, first I discovered Currensee, and was charmed and delighted by the innovation and technology in the space. Then, most recently, I came across Finovate.

For those of you who know TechCruch50 or DEMO, Finovate is the financial services equivalent. A Spring and Fall yearly event (NYC, Sept 29) that “showcases the best new financial and banking technology innovations from established leading companies and hot young startups.” The Finovate judges hand-pick the companies that get their 7 minutes of fame on stage to show (live demos only, no slideware) their latest and greatest to an audience filled with VCs, big financial services companies looking for ideas and other startups watching the competition.

After checking out several of the companies, I was pretty impressed. I loved Smarty Pig – simple, smart savings plans and accounts you can create with your family and friends. And, BrightScope – transparent information and ratings for your 401k plan. Then there’s my favorite, Bill Shrink – where Dave in Witchita found a cell phone provider that will save him $500 a year. Now, that’s smart.

The best news in reviewing all the Finovate finalists is that they are all in the same business – making life simpler and better. That’s where the big guys often miss the boat. When you connect to the real goal of the average investor it is, quite simply, to have a damn, good life. I am loving the fact that financial services startups are connecting to this reality, cooking up unique products and services and serving up a solid dose of innovation. We’re happy to share the financial services startup space with these exciting companies and putting Finovate on our horizon for 2010.

Originally posted on the Currensee blog on Sept 15, 2009.

Last week, TechCrunch reported that Intuit will acquire the free online personal finance service, Mint, for around $170 million. The deal, which should be announced in the next few days, puts Mint in a new league. As TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington described it, “This is a terrific exit for Mint, which first launched two years ago at TechCrunch50. Mint took the top prize at that event and has been growing fast ever since.” Growing fast, eh? Let’s talk about explosive growth. I’m talking gaining 3,000 new users a day and jumping from 600,000 to 850,000 users in a matter of months. The best part is that Intuit didn’t believe the numbers and sent Mint a threatening letter demanding an explanation for the user sign-up success.

I guess Intuit got the answers they wanted given today’s news. I can see exactly what they see in Mint. As Rob at Regular Geek points out, it was born in the glory days of Web 2.0 and comes without all the baggage of Web 1.0 software products. Where Quicken is desktop-like, heavy and complex to use, Mint uses light graphics and is focused on spending against a budget versus the dull and overwhelming focus on bill payment and tracking. They’ve done a lot of things right with the Mint product and have made personal finance accessible and and even fun for the average Joe.

This acquisition bodes well for those of us in the social trading and investing space. It shows that a serious player like Intuit finds tremendous value in the product and the users of an innovative Web 2.0 company. It proves that breaking the model of the way trading, investing and saving have always been done creates market opportunity, revenue opportunity and innovation opportunity. What a great way to start a Monday. Congrats to the Mint team on this exciting accomplishment.

Dear Twitter,

I am writing to you on this steamy New England day to vent my frustration, annoyance and overall dismay at the increase in porn spam over the past two months. I joined Twitter on October 29, 2007, long before Oprah joined and spam bots found yet another channel to clog up with their crapola messages.

As Chris Brogan penned in his recent post on Twitter spam, “…This is less-than-useful. This is the kind of behavior that will encourage me to pull back my participation on the platform.” Amen, Mr. Brogan.

Even with all the celebrity hype, jump the shark commentary and bandwagoning going on, I am in the camp of people who happen to find Twitter useful and I Tweet on a pretty regular basis. For those of us who do find value in your service, you need to figure out a way to keep the spam out, especially the porn. If half of my followers in a day are named Ellie69 or HotChick87 with messages like: “Bored!add me: myspacecica69@hotmail.com”, I will quickly grow tired of blocking them and cleaning-up after their mess. It degrades the experience for avid Twitter users and is something you guys need to focus on, especially considering that most Twitter users never tweet and don’t follow anyone.

So, what’s it going to be Twitter? Do you care to invest the time, money and energy to ban the porn spam? Or, do you let it continue and watch your frequent users fall into the never-tweet abyss?

The mission: Tell your target audience who you are and what you do.

I’m the marketing chick. I come equipped with a designer bag full of tricks. There’s Twitter, Facebook, blog posts, email campaigns, partner marketing, affiliate programs, you know the drill. But, there’s alot of noise. If you post a Tweet to 1,000 followers, do they hear it? In my opinion, not so much. So, my mission is less about getting the message out and more about standing out.

I watch my six year old with her friends. They pretty much do everything that the other person is doing, wearing, saying. Their mission? To be the same. Standing out is scary when your six. You could be placed on exile island during recess by the mean girls who are all the same. Most brands act like six year olds. Oh, we can’t say that or someone might be offended. Hm, we can’t show that or we might get sued. Jeez, we can’t suggest that or someone might think we’re not professional or perhaps semi-crazy.

What a load of crap.

Isn’t the whole point to create your differentiator and stand-out? As my friend, Alex Neihaus, so poignantly penned in his blog post yesterday:

In high tech marketing, the “blend” is everything. You gotta have creativity… you gotta have authenticity…and given that small tech startups are either a) a completely new idea and/or b) trying to unseat titans, you gotta have balls to make your point. Big ones.

And my friends at currensee.com have ‘em. Watch this video. In just 1:02, you get it all in the blend. The beans (what currensee.com is), the roasting (it’s a social network for currency traders) and the infusion of…well…tush into the blend. If you don’t smile — and then head right over to the site — it’s definitely your problem.

My hat’s off to Dave and Michelle for ignoring all the reasons marketers come up with not to stand out and delivering their message (make more money trading money with a group) with a liberal dose of authenticity and humor.

As you’ll see from my latest “project”, I put the big ones to the wall and admittedly teeter on the edge of controversial, sexist and down-right inappropriate. At the end of the day, producing another campaign or line of copy can only get you so far. I say, take a risk, put it out there, make your mark and have some fun. I sure did.

I’ve been trying to give Alltop a chance. It has content. I like content. It’s all in one place. I like convenience. It’s a Guy Kawasaki venture. I like Guy.

But I’ve gotta say. I’m just not a fan. I’ve been trying to figure out the point of this seemingly dumbed-down headline aggregator launched in March. I keep hoping maybe I’ll be surprised with some great gem or some great nugget of information. But I keep coming back disappointed and, quite frankly, feeling a bit appeased.

Let me explain. If you haven’t used Alltop, you start by clicking on a category that interests you. You can search for something, click the actual word, or click on the letter. Easy, peasy. Let’s say you want to stay on top of the latest headlines on the topic of “Frugality.” Well, I found a great article with Tips for Stretching Meat (sounds painful) or Removing Tar from Brick (a must-read). If those weren’t enough to satisfy my hunger for content, I tried…you guessed it…bacon. Who doesn’t love bacon? But do I really need to see the Religious Side of Bacon (in bacon we trust) or try out Bacon Ice Cream (um, that’s just gross)?

So, I tried to think about why we need Alltop. Guy Kawasaki is a pretty smart guy so there must be some reason to keep up on the latest bacon news, sappy quotations, quilting tips or even acne articles. Then I realized it must be less about what it contains and more about who is using it. For those of us who have multiple RRS readers, Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and a bunch of other ways to gather headlines, news and the latest goings-on, Alltop seems pretty jay-vee. But, maybe if you’re the type of person who wants to go to one place to search and find the latest benign topics, Alltop could be a useful tool. I said Maybe.

I give it two-thumbs down. Sorry, Guy.

Jumping the shark. Risky, dangerous and often fatal. The question is…can Twitter gracefully jump the shark and survive?

I have love this idea of jumping the shark. It is such an interesting phenomenon – one which doesn’t happen that often. I didn’t know much about where the term came from so I did a little research (god love Wikipedia.) The term was born from a 1977 Happy Days episode where The Fonz jumps a shark wearing swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket. If your shaking your head, your not alone. It makes no sense what so ever and appears that the producer was just grasping for material. Ends up that it was a pivotal episode and the producer, Garry Marshall, later admitted that “that he knew the show had lost something as the crew prepared to shoot the scene.” The show went on to produce another 100 episodes but things were never quite the same as those early Fonzerelli days.

Think about all the shows that you once loved that eventually died a slow death – plot lines thin out, bizarre characters are introduced and the quality of the show plummets. This sad but true happening transcends TV into our everyday lives. In my opinion, Starbucks (tho I love it so) has jumped the shark. Quality is not consistent and they’re everywhere. Used to be I’d literally walk a mile for a perfect non-fat latte. Now, I walk across the street and hope I get the “good latte” barista. As it relates to technology, who can forget the PDA – come on, you had one of these right? Oh, the little stylus and all my contacts in one place but holy crap. They completely missed the boat and got lost in the innovation of the smart phone. My kids now pay with mine and pretend it’s a Blackberry:) And who can forget the Walkman. Man, I thought I was so cool walking around holding my Walkman listening to my 80’s mix tape. Then along comes an MP3 player and out goes my Walkman with the trash.

So, now let’s talk about Twitter. I set up my Twitter account, thanks to the early-adopteritis of my friend Natty B, back in the Fall of 2007. I had no idea what Twitter was, checked it out and said to Nathan: “Who really cares what I’m eating for lunch??” Seriously, I just didn’t get it. But, I am social media girl and decided to give it a whirl. Put up my first tweet and was off following the few people I knew had any clue what Twitter was. I think I had a few handfuls of followers and the conversation was, for the most part, interesting. Lots of social media tips, ideas, news flashes, personal updates – I was in the groove. Then Twitter exploded with the digerati and the music set at SXSW in early 2008. My CEO started tweeting, we set up a corporate account and all my colleagues at matchmine (RIP) got in the groove too. It started to become useful in keeping up with people, getting interesting news and facts and learning more about how people think.

Fast forward to today, April 17, 2008. Some call it “Twitter’s big day.” Ashton Kutcher is on Oprah and is announced as the first “mainstream” user with over 1MM followers. Let’s just stop here – since when is Ashton mainstream? He is not a normal person on Twitter. He is a celebrity. Two very different things. And 1MM followers. BFD. How many does he know personally? I bet 4 – Ryan Seacrest, Oprah, Demi and Oprah’s dog.

Now let’s talk about the Oprah-effect. She can, in one show, make something jump the shark. I have to give it to her – that is some power, girlfriend. She has Twitter CEO, Evan Williams, on the show along with Ashton and BAM, in one day, I got about 50 new followers – 90% of which are, I hate to say it, total crap. I don’t have time to get to know these people and, quite frankly, I have nothing in common with any of them. Do I really care about some lady who likes to knit and is from Nebraska or some former weightlifer-turn-personal trainer who can pump me up? Does that make me a Twitter snob? Maybe. I find myself saying: “Remember when Twitter was…” It must be like the first person to have any of the deadpool devices listed above. Were they so over their Walkman when everyone had one? You betchya. That’s the way this whole thing works. The question now is what happens to Twitter? Can they jump the shark or is it so over? I have another theory on this but I’ll save it for a future post.

In the meantime, what’s your take…has Twitter jumped the shark or do they still have their Fonzarelli mojo?

It seems we are encouraged at a young age to share. I am constantly telling my 2.5 year old to “be a good sharer” and “share with other people so they will share with you”. But, let’s face it. Sharing is just not natural. It’s learned and not everyone get’s on the sharing-means-caring bus.

I’m a good sharer. I love to share food – put a bunch of different plates in front of me and I’m in heaven. I always share my last piece of gum and I will let you borrow my clothes as long as you promise to bring them back in the same shape you borrowed them in (yes, I know). But it wasn’t always like this. Back in the day, I was a horrible sharer. So bad that I wrote the word “PIE” on all of my things – Baby Alive, Malibu Barbi, Easy Bake Oven, Raggedy Anne – PIE, baby. Why PIE? Who the hell knows. Pie is yummie, I guess. So, if it said PIE, it was mine. My sister remembers this phase fondly and didn’t give a crap about PIE and tried to use my stuff anyway. It wasn’t a pleasant stage. Well, luckily the PIE-phase passed (though my mom still has the dolls with PIE written across their foreheads) and I am the sharer I am. How did that happen? What changed? I am sure there are a bunch of you behavioral psych folks out there who can tell me why it changed, so come on and let us in on the secret.

For the rest of us, let’s fast forward to the here and now. So, along comes Web 2.0. The “social” era. What’s it all about….you betchya, sharing. Photos, profiles, music, friends, walls, lifestreams, hobbies, resumes, tweets, videos the list goes on. What makes some share and others adamant PIE-er? Here’s my $.02.

1. Privacy. This is probably the biggest reason. A guy in my office (who will remain un-named) will not disclose a photo of himself to anyone but his immediate family. I completely cannot relate but it’s his right to keep it to himself. I often wonder – is it the worry of what could happen if said photo hits the net and is used to begin stalking him? Or is it something simpler – perhaps a discomfort with putting yourself out there. I’ve even heard of the suppressed “Catholic Guilt” theory. In any case, people have their own reasons and for that they get the PIE stamp.

2. Time. Many of the non-sharers I talk to say it’s a waste of time. Who has time to share photos or tell people what they had for lunch? Well, then, how do you explain the droves of people on Facebook and Twitter? They have time. Some of them, yes, too much time on their hands. Others, like me, juggle a million different things and social media is just a natural part of the day. Like checking my email or sending a text message or getting my latte. It is how I live.

3. Aversion to change. Can’t teach an old dog new tricks. This is true with the people out there who just can’t change. These are also the people who say they have nothing to say. Everyone has something to say. Come on, people! These are also the people who don’t see the value in sharing, they don’t care and they’ll argue till the death against it. To them I say, bleh.

4. Generation. Age definitely plays a factor. How many of our parents are on Facebook? or iLike? or Twitter? or FriendFeed? My guess is a very small percentage. My 60 year old uncle sees Facebook as a privacy disaster waiting to happen and a good way to start a high-school girl fight (he’s a high school teacher). My dad is still trying to figure out how to upload his photos to Snapfish and send me an email to tell me I can view them. Then I see some of my friends’ dad on Facebook and wonder, would I want my dad seeing me out on the town partying it up? Hm, not so much.

5. Lifestyle. There are people out there who just aren’t in the know. Yes, I know, dear reader, it’s hard to imagine. I have a friend from high school who just got email. Yes, I said email. It’s beyond me but some people just don’t have the lifestyle desire to get on the technology or the sharing bandwagon.

So, what does all this lead to. Well, if sharing is caring, what does what you share say about you? Are you a frequent Facebook status up-dater or are you more of a lurker who is present but not participating? If you’re a sharer, what’s the quality of what you share? People are fickle. They want to be engaged and entertained. When your posting, writing, uploading – think about the quality of your content and what it says about you. If you’re a sharer, take the quality of what you’re sharing to the next level. If you’re still in PIE-mode, come on now. Maybe you can take a baby step. Try out a social media site and see what it’s like to connect with a few new people or find out something new about someone you already know. Sharing makes you a contributor. The old way of learning was very one-dimensional. Now, I learn every day thanks to social media and people who share. New websites, products, ideas, personal updates – I have the ability to take it all in and decide how to use it. That makes me smarter and that makes me happy. Be smart. Be happy. Be social.