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UPS CEO States “Someone Else Might Have a Different Fresher Approach”

UPS Celebrated Its 100-Year Anniversary recently. In it United Parcel Service, CEO Mike Eskew was quoted as stating the following:

“”At some point you think, we all think, it’s time to let somebody else do this,” said the 58-year-old. “Somebody else might have a different, fresher approach.””

No kidding! I’ve stated previously that UPS is not customer service focused and I’ve advocated major changes in the way UPS does business for a long, long time! If that board of directors ever wants to build an efficient company that package RECEIVERS love, my contact info is on my bio page.

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Chicago Conference Attendees Point to Chicago Shortcomings

Brian Beutler posts his beliefs on why there are so few electric outlets available here at YearlyKos 2007 conference:

” The McCormick Convention Center is, unsurprisingly, operated by a series of labor groups who, working hand in hand, rip apart the building and put it back together to fit the needs of whichever group happens to be renting space here. So for YearlyKos, the teamsters, and the plumbers, and the electricians all come in to haul partitions, and divert piping, and… lay wiring. One catch is, of course, that the more wiring you need, the more you have to pay. The other, less obvious catch, is that any wiring you try to do yourself–running extension chords and power strips across the room–might well violate your contract and cost you a big fine. So the result is a lot of dead laptop batteries. At a frickin’ blogger convention.”

Matthew Yglesias points out similar sentiment.

Then last weekend Kristy Sammis, the wonderful hard-working conference organizer, pointed out the following issues on her blog in regards to Blogher07:

“The City of Chicago has a lot of rules. A LOT of them. And also taxes. And fines. Like, did you know that there’s a 3% soda tax? Or that our caterer could have lost his license for letting attendees leave with bottles of wine, even though the nice people at Hess were willing to give the extras out? Or that moving one single air wall would have cost FOUR HOURS of labor?”

“The shuttles cost approximately 18 billion dollars. (They would have only cost 17 billion, but we paid that extra billion to have a dedicated dispatcher ensuring that all five shuttles were running all day.)

I do not know why the drivers didn’t know where they were going. I don’t know why they just sometimes stopped showing up. I don’t know why they weren’t labeled, a la BLOGHER SHUTTLE. And I really don’t know HOW you can get into an accident when you’re driving at 3 miles an hour in Pier traffic.

But I, too, would sure like to find out.”

Kristy so would I. Why is Chicago turning off it’s last golden goose, the conference industry? If we can’t run shuttle buses less than a mile for 800 people how can this city possibly even dream of executing on hosting huge events with the current state?

As someone who spends alot of time at Chicago conferences, the time to improve these situations is now – before there are no more Chicago conferences.

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Google Book Search Partners with University of Chicago and Big 10

I was flipping through the most recent University of Chicago alumni magazine and noticed a small blurb about The University of Chicago and 11 of the Big Ten partnering with Google Book Search. The press release states:

“These universities, through their provosts and other key leaders, have worked
together on some of higher education’s greatest challenges and opportunities.
This partnership with Google is one of the most ambitious undertakings in the
history of the CIC, and sets the stage for a remarkable transformation of library
services and information access. We’re opening up these resources as both a
common good shared among the universities, as well as a public good available
more broadly, ” said Barbara McFadden Allen, director of the CIC.”

This announcement followed 5 days after Barry Schwartz reporting about custom search engines. It appears things are heating up again in the Book Search arena.

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Mobile Location Enabled Services 2007

While backing up files to reinstall Windows due to a virus I caught while at Blogher, I noticed that I had not posted my notes from the wonderful inaugural Mobile Location Enabled Services 2007 conference hosted by Abbie Badcock back in May. Apologies Abbie, your conference was both fun and productive.

Without a doubt, Mobile Location Enabled Services is a premier and unique event due to the variety of verticals in one place. Abbie Badcock has brought together a great mix of mobile search, mobile marketing and advertising, mobile local content, mobile social networking and a serious discussion to building the conversation regarding the resolution of the many to the realization of the potential of mobile location. I look forward to participating and driving the conversation in future years.

Symbian – Jerry Panagrossi, VP, US Operations, Symbian

The original STAR TREK Comunicator 1965-69

Fast forward to the 21st Century – PND, GPS Bluetooth, etc

1 Billion mobile phones shipped in 2006

Mobile subscribers projected 3 Billion by YE2007 and 4 Billion by YE 4 Billion!!!

Showed chart migrating from voice, data enabled then 3G phones – many with built in GPS.

Showed chart with why smart phones have high mobility and utility more than other presently available devices. Symbian believes that there is going to be mass market adoption.

Mobile Telecoms + Internet + Location Services + Automotive = Innovation

Emerging Disruptive Market Forces
Mobile Market Saturation
Open Mobile Platforms
Ad$ (advertising)

Data Services Deployment Trend
– Market Saturation
– 3G Deployment
– Service Rollout
– Smart Phone Adoption

Traditional economies are saturated with cell phones while others are not.

LBS ranks highest in consumer interest – survey Compete, Inc.

Services Segmentation – Public Safety, Consumer, Enterprise

Sports Tracker

Pixto, recently acquired my Nokia. Shows amazing technology that will categorize photos by location and combine is with relevant data about the location.

LBS Deployment challenges
– Locations indoors, underground, tunnels
– Reflection with large buildings
– A-GPS evolution
– Wifi
Database fragmentation
– Traffic updates and POIs
– Mobile data roaming – predictable billing when roaming internationally

A glimpse of the future
– Improved smartphone car communication

Trueposition – Joseph Khoury – VP of Business Development

$200 Million in Revenue, 480 employees, 100 international patents, subsidiary of Liberty Media

Incorporates all location technologies

History of company started with E911 emergency services in the USA.
Asset Tracking
Secure inter-carrier location information provider

Trueposition offers high accuracy Finder System, 75,000 Base Stations Deployed, 270 million POPs covered in the US.

High Accuracy Wireless Location System – best in class platform.

Finder System Benefits
Consistent accuracy across entire network – better than 50 meters most of the time – also incorporates velocity, heading power level signal to noise ratio.

Consumer interest – Turn by Turn Navigation

Market growth is happening again, but has conditions in a complex cross-industry ecosystem.

Drivers of LBS demand ramp up are many and they are complex.

Is getting into the business of building devices.

Mark Jacobstein, EVP, Loopt

Amazing privacy advocate, doesn’t store what they don’t need.

Monetizing Local Content for the Mobile Marketplace

Presentation was rapid fire short statements – amazingly engaging – hard to take notes on though.

Peter Friedland, Analyst, Soliel Group
Charnsin Tulasthien, Product Manager – Consumer Application and GPS Solutions, Sprint
Michael Nappi, VP of Media Development, Traffic.com
Christ Hazelton, Senior Analyst – Mobility Device Technology and Trends, IDC

Charnsin – How do we provide relevant POIs?

Michael – There are other areas to discuss in regards to bringing in advertising in context.

In regard to traffic, we brought in traffic information to you originally via alerts. The data can be brought into mobile and GPS applications. When traveling it’s an informational thing. I might be looking for more information in an unfamiliar information. These models will flourish.

Charnsin – Traffic is just another piece of information. We can provide not only alerts, but rerouting information.

Will it be the walled garden? The Google or Yahoo! approach?

Charnsin – There are things that are accessible via our phones.

LBS Advertising will users accept it?

Michael – We deliver information on an opt-in basis. Click per Route. Advertising based alerts. We own the content and vertically integrate it all the way up. Phones are becoming multimedia devices more each day. There is a lot of useful advertising models. There is an integration from focus groups that will lead the way.

Mobile Search Panel – Mobile Search + Location = Fulfilled User Expectations?
Jeff Rice, VP Market Development, Skyhookwireless
Matt Ward-Sheinman, Director of Product Management, Medio Systems
Neal Karasic, Director of Product Management, Jumptap
Steve McGuigan, VP Business Development, Hallmark
Peter Classen, Director of Business Development, Infospace

How is it appropriate?

Matt: The advantages of having it in your pocket is great. The comparison to the Internet is not accurate.

Steve: It comes down to relevancy and speed.

Peter: I aggress as well. The difference between web vs. mobile. Frisbee is a good example. If someone is typing that in a mobile phone they probably want to buy one at a store.

Location based, which ones are tied to a search.

Peter: 90%+

Matt: Statistically not very good. 15% percent are local search, though this is undercounted. You get ringtone content and other related items.

Steve. A search can be about sports,

Neal: User supplied location is not ideal. Most people search near home, so that is important data. Yesterday, I looked for a taxi in Detriot even though I was still in Boston. There are things around that.

Peter: I agree with Matt about the Madonna. It’s better when you can add the local context to the search.

Pizza, question on voice search

Peter: It would be great but it’s complex. We partner with Voicebox.

Peter: Human assisted search won’t work. Mobile search only when it’s free. Consumers are free.

Matt: Search on the Internet and advertising. I expect a rich client app to be there. There is a cost to a GPS fix. It needs to be free and advertising supported. Put them in when appropriate. Never sacrifice the user experience.

Neal: I basically agree. Search being free. That is the model that is going to work and users expect. We bring advertisers to the table. We want the ecosystem to work.
Steve: Local search and directories haven’t changed enough for mobile. Until we get there we need to use the directory model.

Jeff: We are reworking the paid model in Internet, I understand that is changing….

Matt: Carriers want to defend their advertisers. It’s hard to go across the operator networks. Google and Yahoo! have tried. They have large groups.

Neal: We partner.

Profit from Proximity Based Marketing
David Williams, CEO and Publisher LBS Globe
Jay Gould, VP of Business Development, Profilium Inc.
Scott Pearson, VP Sales, Enpocket
Brian McNiff, Vice President of Marketing, Technocom Corporation

How fast is locational proximity going to factor in?

Jay: We believe that throwing location in the mix is critical.

Brian: We believe it’s vital to mobile marketing. I got 4 Starbucks sms messages today. For small business to justify moving away from the yellow pages, we need to see it.

Jay: We need to build the value chain going up.

Brian: The operators are giving

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Skype Follow Up

I was contacted this morning by Chaim Haas, VP of PR at Kaplow, the PR firm that represents Skype regarding my previous post on Skype and Microsoft Outlook interaction.

After sifting through what occurred, we figured this to be the current state:

1) Skype appears to now install as the default setting integration of your Microsoft Outlook.

2) This only displays and you only have the option to change this when you have Microsoft Outlook open.

We discussed my preference for this to be an opt-in with a large text encouraging the opt-in. Chaim said he would pass this onto the Product Management team and get back to me at some point in the future. He also said that Skype has had over 5 million downloads on Windows Mobile platform! That’s alot. We also talked about the N800, if you haven’t checked out my interview with the Nokia N800 product manager Victor Brilon please do so.