Tucked away in a press release yesterday was news of Rogers selecting Amsterdam-based Gemalto for their mobile contactless (NFC) payment systems.
In the life of a person who consults, there will clearly be many struggles and stresses – but, one of the biggest will be what he or she does with the time that they aren’t actively working or pursuing work. To most of us, this time is called “down time”; a time to get away from work and do other things. But, to a consultant, this can be some of the most important and valuable moments.
So many in technology and consulting are amazing at what they do. They can figure out things no one else can. But, they, like the rest of us are at war with one of the most difficult obstacles. Is is their own internal dialog? Is it the other companies that want the business? Is it the client that second guesses them? No, they’re at war with the one thing that levels the playing field. You might call it clarity, understanding or transparency, but with this simple piece missing, the most brilliant person is reduced to ineffective.
Are you an early adopter? If you’re reading this, you likely aren’t the pure definition of this category, but more of a combination of two or three of the categories (depending your risk tolerance). Based on my experience, there is a kind of category that seems to be missing from all this. Let me explain.
The question is, from day to day, what fits inside of this circle and what should be placed outside of it? That’s a tougher questions to answer than you might think – everyone is different in how they would answer. When related to Consulting, the idea of a empathy circle has to be inflated for you to succeed.
Oh, how you have fallen. You were the tablet that was going to challenge the 90%+ market share of the iPad. You were going to link from an existing Blackberry to create a secure, bigger kind of Blackberry. You were going to be the promise of accessing a bazillion applications from two different App Stores all running on your sleek, thin easy-to-multitask package. You the promise of so much, Playbook, what happened to you?
Horrible crimes are being committed with guns in what feels like increasing frequency. Parallel to this though, is a news story that a man has successfully created and fired a .22 pistol with a 3D Printer. The printer used was apparently created in the 1990’s, which is real test of enduring technology. Given that 3D printing is becoming cheaper and cheaper, and access to blueprints is apparently more readily available – it appears as though we’re on the cusp of a major technological shift.
Recently, I met a 70 year old former engineer, who by all accounts was in great shape for his age. I remember thinking I’d like to look that good at 70. He had been a mechanical engineer for more than forty years and recently left the industry he enjoyed to retire. These days, he tells me travel and leisure take up a good portion of his time.
“Today’s Windows is almost absurdly configurable” – with that phrase, the recent Microsoft Windows Engineering blog gave me the answer I was looking for. This was the reason for the new “Metro” style interface, the active square tiles and the removal of the “Start” button in Windows 8.
As you’ll see, the dangers of people that will sell and handle these sales unscrupulously are so very real. After this experience, I think I’ve learned that that buying a product that you can’t fully test (at the moment of purchase) is a dangerous undertaking.