I’ve found that leaving my inbox as an “inbox” helps my productivity. Here’s what I do with emails in my inbox:

1. Rules and filtering: I use the filtering command within my mac email application (which you can also set up on gmail and other email clients) to get all of my daily update/news emails put in folders so it doesn’t get in front of me.
2. Smartfolder for “unread” mail: all email that is filtered automatically remains in my unread smartfolder. Keep in mind that only filtered email is “non critical” so it doesn’t need to be in my inbox, and I can get to my “unread” mail later. For me my unread mail is more of a low priority smartbox as I read my inbox, and later I go into my unread mail.
3. Flagging: I use multiple colored flags (usually just red flags for work, grey flags for personal). Basically if I don’t want to deal with an email right away, I just flag it. I have a smart folder for seeing all of my flagged items. Sometimes I am waiting on someone else to get the info needed, and flagging reminds me to get on it.
4. Delete the email and create a google task: A good chunk of my emails are really someone asking me to do something. I usually delete the email forever and then create a task in my google tasks or in highrise (our Livio CRM tool.)
5. At the end of the day I go through my flagged items chronologically to see if I can unflag (complete) the task in the email. It’s not uncommon to have an email sit in the flagged box for a couple weeks.
6. End of day = 0 emails in the inbox.

In summary, I filter emails before I process and respond to them.

Livio has a no email policy. Whenever we can talk instead of email, we do. Lately some of the crew at Livio have been creeping back into an email mode. I just get off my ass, walk to the person’s desk, call in whoever else is needed, and talk about it. Within the office, this is the true ZERO inbox solution.

1. We all know what an iPhone/Android/Blackberry is
2. We all know that it has apps
3. We all know that it “can change the world”
4. We all know that “these little things are changing the way that [fill in the blank] are [fill in the blank].”
5. We all know that people are going to use them instead of whatever else you are talking about
6. We all know that the can be mounted somewhere to do something
7. We all know that they connect to the world
8. We all know that more and more people have them
9. We all know that they have a data plan
10. Yes, we know whatever other general statement you are thinking I don’t already know here for the #10 spot.

Please stop pulling it out of your pants on panels, in meetings, and in public to explain to me (and anyone in tech) what a smartphone is. I think we “get it.”

The next time someone does that I just might throw up the salute for Capt. Obvious!

If you do pull it out, it better make someone’s jaw drop with what you’re doing with it…

It’s not a prop people, it’s just a dumb smartphone… “just sayin”

I finally had it with Comcast and made the switch to Dish Network with a SlingBox add on. I was holding out on Sling in general due to mobile phone data bandwidth and consistency issues with mobile streaming.

On the AT&T network with my iPhone 4s, video looks pretty good. In the past few months, I find myself using the DISH (SlingBox) application more and more. I’ve been using it on guy ski trips to watch what I want to watch with my headphones, or watching the Red Wings in the playoffs on Fox FSN Detroit on my MacBook Air in the hotel room.

Specifically, for SlingBox, the DVR is the hub, which connects to my TV at home, and then spokes out to Sling, through the Internet, to a mobile app, into my iPhone. There are options to pull down shows On Demand through Dish, but the shows I watch aren’t there.

I use Netflix streaming, but the movie selection sucks big time and I’m always conceding to watch a movie on the go that I’m not super jazzed about. I guess I can afford the extra cost per month for Netflix streaming in the hope it will help Netflix get better movies online. My 2 Blu-ray rentals at a time is the reason I keep Netflix. Last weekend I donated my entire 30 DVD and Blu-Ray collection to my parents as they like to stockpile movies. I just don’t have a reason to “own” any movies anymore, which it’s cheaper for me to just have a rental service. Neflix for me is a hub-and-spoke getting Blu-Rays, as the could service sucks (for content reasons)

My theory is that high data, high value is going to stay hub-and-spoke for a while low data, low value (e.g. Music MP3s are going to be in the cloud) I’m not sure but it’s possible that this theory would apply to B2B software as well. For example, Photoshop would remain as an installed service (expensive to create content, high data), while CRM tools like Basecamp and HighRise (cheap to create content, low data) are in the cloud.

I suppose the next big move for me will be in another 10 years when I drop satellite and just go Internet only. I hope by then everything will be (useable) in the cloud.

Finally after four years I have made a small mark on campus by successfully adding an entrepreneurship track to the engineering focus disciplines. (As far as I know, this is the first in the history of the OU engineering college.) I’ve been outspoken on the value of “creating jobs” as compared to OUs traditional “get a job” attitude.

The best thing about Industrial Engineers is most of us don’t have “engineer” anywhere on our business cards. We are a select bunch of folks that have the chops for engineering, but care more about applying engineering techniques to be more effective than efficient. This certainly is in-line with the required skills to startup a tech company.

At our board dinner I listened to Michael Drevna from Oracle give a speech to the senior class in attendance and his speech, titled “Raise Your Hand” really grabbed my attention. In 15 minutes, Michael basically outlined one of the most important skills I know, engaging.

Nobody likes a brownnoser, but creating an environment where a group of talented people can engage with each other, is more important than the actual results that come out of that group. More specifically, the process of working with the right people engaged around the table, is better than having one genius with all the answers, EVEN if the answer from the genius is technically better than the groups response.

At Livio, at the end of a interview process for a new candidate, I have two questions. First, is this person better at doing their job than anyone else currently in the company? Second, are they going to be able to make a significant contribution to the team to help us grow? (Can they raise their hand?)

Well-said Michael. I hope senioritis didn’t distract the graduates from paying attention on that one.

1. Driver Safety – Having a car stereo that runs the iOS and Android operating system is essentially mounting your iPhone or Android phone in the dashboard with a different screen size. If this was to happen every app in the android market would have to be censored by car companies (which would be a car company PR disaster) or you get angry birds in the car. I imagine that teen drivers would probably think that is cool. I know when I was young and dumb, I’d be down to have that in my car.
2. Developer Nightmare – One of the biggest issues at Livio with Android is developing for multiple types of phones that run Android. Now imaging having to support different screens and different feature sets for a car mode. Add on top of that the possibility of having ONE application that has to go through approval (referred in point 1) from every car company. It would take months to do a simple app update. What a cluster!
3. Customer Confusion – Paul, our sales guy at Livio, told me a story recently about a neighbor that has Ford Sync in their vehicle and asked him for a Livio car kit, not knowing that the Ford Sync system would do everything the Kit would do. There are a lot of different types of people driving cars, my guess is that only 10% would understand how to, and probably less % would actually, download applications to their car stereo. Then there is the explanation of how to connect your phone to the stereo or why a consumer should pay for another Internet connection for their car. Suddenly for Paul’s neighbor, the aux in jack seems a lot more convenient to stream Pandora through their car speakers from their iPhone.

1. The Status Quo: Today, drivers are using audio cables or basic Bluetooth audio streaming. This puts every app in the car, eyes and thumbs on the phone instead of the road and contributes to the importance of defensive driving.
2. Superapp Cloud Strategy: This is the approach that car companies are taking to have a closed system under the cloak of calling it “open.” Specifically, only a handful of content businesses have the technical resources to connect and provide ongoing automotive support for these superapp services.
3. App to Car Strategy: This is a safer version of the status quo (above) and offers the choice of greats like Ford (AppLink™) and Pandora (PandoraLink™). The idea is that users are going to use content they already have on their phone, regardless of whether the auto company integrates it into the car or not. Working in the car extends the distribution for apps to be used in cars, safely.
4. Embedded modem vs. mobile phone data plan: What Audi has done with embedding a SIM card in the car is solid.  The only problem this presents at a macro level is the expectation for all (including non-luxury) drivers to pay for a secondary data plan on top of their mobile phone data plan.
   1. Are consumers financially able and willing to pay an additional bill for a mobile data plan?  I think it’s too big a leap to make.
   2. “What about users that don’t have a smart phone?” Do you really think that someone that doesn’t have a smart phone would have their first mobile monthly data play payment be the one in their car? No way. Give a non-smartphone owner a choice between spending $60/month for an iPhone data plan or even $10/month for a car data plan (that is only used in the car) and guess what they will choose.

Business on a Crash Coarse

1. Who pays? – Simply put, car companies expect to get the applications to do the work to get on their system for free, as application companies (mainly Internet radio) make “all this money” from advertising. App companies feel the opposite way. As cars cost thousands of dollars, the car companies can afford to do the custom integration work to their specific system in the car. App companies should not have to pay.
2. Maintenance costs – The elephant in the room (or car for this discussion) is that change is the only constant in the CE industry. The variables: phones, operating systems, consumer choice, technology, laws, royalty rates, and customer preferences change about every 8-12 months. Why is the industry ignoring the maintenance costs with business plans and technology strategies that are doomed to fail? Most startups are racing to get to a milestone in users so they can sell or provide an IPO. This is a crash waiting to happen for the car built in 2012, and on the road in 2015
3. Bottom Line on Free: Both content providers and cars will get what they have paid for in terms of integration.

For the Consumer

1. Who controls the HMI for infotainment in the car?
   1. Ask an app company, they will tell you they want the control, but don’t want the liability.
   2. Ask a car company and you’ll hear that they have full control over everything that comes in the car.
   3. The unpopular truth is that the consumer ultimately controls the HMI in the car by their ability to bring in a 3.5” (or larger) touch screen. The only way for a user to give up their mobile device in exchange for what’s in the car is to offer the customer something better than their 3.5” touch screen. Regardless of how an auto company or an app company works on this design, ALL OF THE CONTENT/APPS that a user is going to use while driving need to be able to be controlled in this environment for the user to switch from their 3.5” HMI in their pocket to the one on the dash.
2. Legal restrictions
   1. The challenge here is more technical in nature. It’s impossible to know (with 100% certainty) whether someone is riding in a car or driving. Additionally, regardless of the technology embedded into a car, there will always be a workaround to bypass driver distraction devices. Additionally, there is the issue of emergency use of the phone. For example, if the phone is safe-driving disabled by the car before an accident, how would the phone be unlocked to make an emergency call after the accident?
   2. The solution:
      1. I predict that there will be laws preventing anyone under 18 to use a phone or any device while driving, without exceptions.
      2. I predict that Bluetooth specifications will be available to move the important items to a driver (phonebook, navigation, and music) to their dashboard, while disabling all other functions on the phone when the phone is connected. In this scenario, a user could “unpair” their phone and do whatever they way, but the benefit of pairing the phone to the car and getting the essential features will outweigh the costs of not being able to do other non-essential features on the phone.
      3. Additionally in the next few years, a significant but non-majority of drivers will want a setting on their phone to batch their messages while driving and then alert them when the car has stopped moving.

What needs to be addressed before CES 2013

1. Technical scalability – If thousands of worldwide apps are going to be used in cars, there must be a system that allows those apps to communicate with cars regardless of the mobile operating system, or vehicle system. The current 1:1 technical integration doesn’t scale. 30 car companies working with 30 different apps require 900 engineering projects at a 1:1 level.
2. Addressing the app of the month – The commercials used to sell cars are all about what consumer want today (to get the car sold) what about in three years from now, when your warranty is just about to run out and you still have another 3 years left on your car payment? Who’s going to ensure that the apps 3 years from now are going to work?
3. A business model that doesn’t pass the buck needs to be adopted on both sides of this equation. Ultimately the consumer will continue to buy new cars with or without the technology they are asking for.  If the new car comes with tech not built to stand the test of time, the consumer will unfortunately be the ones stuck holding the check if things don’t change.