Disqus - Latest Comments for olivierBlanchard

Re: A turning of the tide: How Apple v. Qualcomm became Qualcomm v. Apple

olivierBlanchard — Tue, 18 Sep 2018 15:36:34 -0000

Very soon.

Re: Apple’s China Syndrome

olivierBlanchard — Fri, 27 Jul 2018 17:28:54 -0000

Solid.

Re: On Apple, the iPhone X, hype bubbles, and adjusting our expectations

olivierBlanchard — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 11:47:36 -0000

Clever. :D

Re: On Apple, the iPhone X, hype bubbles, and adjusting our expectations

olivierBlanchard — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 11:47:24 -0000

Yep. They could if they wanted to. I think the problem is that when you put a really COO in the role of a CEO, what you end up with is a shift from innovation and vision to supply chain logistics. Competent COOs rarely make good CEOs at B2C companies for the same reason that CEOs rarely make good COOs. Different DNA. Different mindset. Different instincts.

Re: Why protecting Intellectual Property is vital to the economy

olivierBlanchard — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 16:13:49 -0000

Thanks for the comment, Jim. You read my mind.

I'm not a QCOM investor, so I am looking at this from a slightly different angle, but you're spot on: Apple appears to be trying to surgically weaken IP protections that favor companies not named Apple, and Qualcomm looks to be at the center of that strategy. It's been worrisome and frustrating to see so many business and tech journalists completely miss this in the last 8-10 months, and I'm not sure what's worse - that they just haven't caught on yet, or that they are deliberately blowing it off.

To be clear, I'm not an Apple hater. I'm a long-time fan of Apple, warts and all... but we have to call a spade a spade when the spade acts a spade. I would really like to see Apple change course, for the sake of the entire industry (Qualcomm, Apple, and consumers included). It's only hurting itself in the long term anyway. Let's hope that reason triumphs in the end... But until then, we have to stay vigilant. Especially when so many journalists don't seem able or willing to be.

Cheers.

Re: Qualcomm Fights Back: Defending The Future of Innovation and IP Laws

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 16:33:28 -0000

I don't think many people use Siri. Unfortunate, because if Siri worked like we would like Siri to work, iPhone experiences would be out of this world.

Re: Asleep At The Wheel: Lazy Journalism and The Apple vs Qualcomm Dispute

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 16:28:47 -0000

No need to comment anonymously, TWF. We don't bite. Don't be scared.

To answer your question, no, Qualcomm did not invent the air we breathe. They did, however, invent a pretty sizable number of technologies they hold patents for. Some are SEPs (standard essential patents) while some are not, but let's save that for another time. Generally, the way patents (or IP/intellectual property, if you prefer) work is, when a company wants to use another company's patents/IP in their products, they have to pay a fee to the patent/IP holder. It can be small or big or somewhere in the middle. If they don't, they're breaking the law.

Apple is usually a big fan of protecting its IP from competitors - like HTC, for instance - so this should not be a foreign concept to them or to you. It doesn't matter if you're Apple, Nike, BMW, IBM, Coca Cola, Facebook or Starbucks: if companies use your IP without your permission, or in breach of their licensing agreement, that's a problem.

Of course, you already knew that, but it's worth bringing up again.

Qualcomm, as far as anyone can tell, isn't involved in a dispute about air. It's involved in a dispute about its IP being used improperly by another company, which happens to be Apple. Very different situation. A dispute about air probably wouldn't hold much water. This dispute, however, does.

What other questions can we answer for you?

Re: Asleep At The Wheel: Lazy Journalism and The Apple vs Qualcomm Dispute

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 12 Jul 2017 16:16:04 -0000

With respect, Suf, two things:

1) Understanding a situation well enough to find yourself leaning towards one side instead of the other isn't bias. Bias is driven by prejudice. When dealing with bias, what you have is prejudice informing a viewpoint or an argument. This is not that. There's no bias here, only analysis based on the facts available to us. So to recap, Daniel's analysis (and mine as well, by the way) is that Qualcomm is right about this, and Apple is not. That doesn't make us "heavily biased" against Apple, nor is that analysis the result of "bias" against Apple.

Let me help you reboot this thread: You're welcome to argue that Daniel is wrong in his analysis, and explain why. (Don't forget to support your argument with whatever material or rhetorical artifacts you need though.) But to just call him "heavily biased" to invalidate his analysis? I don't think so. You don't win your argument by impugning him. You win by showing him where he is wrong - if or when he in fact is.

2) "Neither company is being completely honest" isn't an argument either. For starters, it's a false equivalence, so points off for using a logical fallacy as an argument. Second, no one is claiming that both or either company is being completely honest. You're arguing a point that no one here is trying to make. That's called a strawman argument. (Another logical fallacy.) Third, being "completely honest" as a benchmark has no bearing on Dan's analysis. That's called a red herring. (Yet another logical fallacy.) Three logical fallacies in one sentence, Suf? Impressive. I've never seen that before.

In closing, please feel free to elaborate if you feel the need. I don't want to assume that you weren't just rushed when you posted your comment. I just want to be clear about how discussions of this type should be handled if you really have a serious and salient point to make.

PS: We value these exchanges all the more when we know who we are interacting with. No need to post anonymously.

Re: 65 Percent of Marketers Still Lukewarm About New Digital Technologies

olivierBlanchard — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 12:10:03 -0000

"There is a lack of expertise, a lack of interest in exploring some of these things, a definite lack of buy in from senior leaders (including those charged with business development), and an absolute lack of budget commitment. Without those things, it's hard to innovate."

Yep.

- Lack of expertise: Inadequate hiring focus.
- Lack of interest: Inadequate management.
- Lack of buy-in from senior leaders: Inadequate leadership.
- Lack of budget commitment: All of the above.

Working our way backwards, we get this:

- An absence of clear vision from senior leadership.
- No clear vision = no clear direction or focus. Company defaults to operating in an incremental and familiar YoY, QoQ, MoM model instead of building itself for Y+1, Y+2, Y+5.
- No vision = no direction = no incentives. Without incentives or signals from senior leadership that innovation and transformation are on the agenda, management defaults to existing and predictable business & incentives models.
- No operational focus on transformation = no need to hire for change-related expertise. Company stays the course, remains insular, pursues the same models QoQ, YoY.

So... we have to find a way to reach the senior leadership stratum to a) trigger the eureka moment they need to snap out of this vicious cycle, and b) provide the guidance and operational lift they need to rebuild their organizations to be agile and innovative on their own inside of 24 months. That's CEOs and COOs, but boards of directors too, since they also inform strategy and senior leadership hires.

When you compare Boomers and early X'er CEOs to Millennial and late X'er CEOs, it becomes pretty obvious that generationally, you are dealing with very different leadership and management cultures. It isn't all about those generational lines obviously, but it's a good place to start since so much of the agility and innovation pieces of this puzzle touch on relatively new technologies and operational cultures. I just don't think that older CEOs, for the most part, have been sufficiently exposed to these new models to be aware of them, let alone understand them well enough to grasp their value.

We need to reach that stratum if we want to help jump-start laggard organizations. There's no way around it. Or we can wait for ineffective leaders to retire, but by then, it will be too late for most of these orgs, and that doesn't really work for anybody.

Grrrr.

Re: Civil Rights Hero John Lewis Just Slammed Bernie Sanders

olivierBlanchard — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 13:24:43 -0000

Joe Lewis is "the establishment" now? Since when?

Re: Barbara Kay: Janay Rice confounds feminists by failing to conform to their theories

olivierBlanchard — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 22:36:28 -0000

"According to feminist theory, all domestic violence scenarios involve a controlling male and a submissive female." Um... what? Come again?

1) What "feminist theory" are you talking about? There's an official handbook? Really? Can you point us to the passage in this secret Feminist Bible where this is stated? Seriously, a link would be nice.

2) "Submissive..." You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (Tip: getting your face bashed-in by a bully and/or a violent spouse does NOT make you submissive. That's not what "submissive" means.

You really don't know what you're talking about, do you.

Re: Controversial men’s rights conference canceled at DoubleTree in downtown Detroit

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 19:47:32 -0000

Not sure about the 'hate group' classification for MRM. They should fall more into an 'association of losers, by losers, for losers' classification (sort of like NAMBLA). That's it: a 'loser group.' Because it isn't hate exactly, is it? No. Hate is the wrong word. What's going on with the Men's Rights Movement is far more pathetic than that.

Re: Would I Use a Traditional Publisher Again?

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 07 Aug 2013 14:51:16 -0000

One way for publishers to avoid the problems you mentioned, Danny, is to vet their authors better. You ask: "How do you identify character issues in a previously unpublished author?" Well, in our business/marketing/social media expert world (Que, Wiley, and so on), there are these things called "blogs" that pretty much every previously unpublished author typically has. Most of the time, there are years worth of blog posts and articles that sort of answer most of the questions that an acquisitions editor should be asking:

- Can this person write?

- Can this person write more than 5-paragraph long "Top 5" posts/content?

- Does this person legitimately have time to work on a book project?

- Does this person actually know what they are talking about?

- Is this person passionate enough about the subject matter to be able to write a 250-300 page book about it?

- Is this person professional or is he a self-serving sociopath?

- Judging from the comments on the blog, is this person rational or is he/she a raging asshole?

Sometimes, the author is the problem. Sometimes, the publisher is the problem. And sometimes, the distribution channel is the problem. Most of the time, all three contribute to making a book less successful than it could be.

It's pretty silly to give publishers a pass based on the notion that they tend to be "incorrectly blamed for" things that go wrong. Assuming that it wasn't the publisher's fault for selecting a crappy writer to write a book, or a writer who doesn't really know enough about the subject matter to write a book about it, or a writer who is completely full of shit or guilty of plagiarism, the editing of the book is ultimately the publisher's responsibility. The design of the book, including the cover, is the publisher's responsibility. And most importantly, both the marketing of the book and the distribution of the book are the publisher's responsibility.

If the publisher's sales team doesn't do their job, or if the publisher doesn't want to spend anything on marketing the book, retail chains like Barnes & Noble will only carry one copy per location instead of 3 or 4 or 10. That means 1-2 turns (sales per month), which is a pretty crappy number. And I haven't even mentioned the people attached to publishers who claim to be working in PR. Clearly, they aren't working on commission.

So... let's try to keep things in perspective. Everyone, at every stage in a book's life cycle, is responsible for their part of its success. If anyone drops the ball or doesn't know what they're doing, the book is basically done. Statistically, it is a lot more likely that the publisher will drop the ball than the author.

Fact: if a publisher decides not to invest in a book's success, there isn't much that a writer can do about it. That's why so many authors are turning to self-publishing. Consider that an author gives up 80-90% of the book's revenues to the publisher EXPECTING the publisher to give it exposure, drive distribution, push sales and do some PR ... The problem is that many publishers basically sit on their asses and let books sink or swim once they release them. The PR is nonexistent, the placement in stores is MIA, distribution is shoddy at best (we should talk about the airport book stores racket at some point, which publishers won't tell you about when they are trying to sign you on as an author), and good luck trying to get many publishers to even advertise online, play with SEO or get into the Amazon game. I could write chapters on some of the conversations I've had with editors, PR folks, authors and book sellers.

I was lucky with my first book - it did well - but I have seen some much better books than #smROI fail miserably... and I can tell you with absolute conviction that it was 100% the publisher's fault. (Publishers, actually.) If you are lucky enough to have a great team working with you inside a traditional publisher, that's awesome. But for anyone else, self-publishing might be a much more effective (and lucrative) route. And you know what? Publishers have no one but themselves to blame for the growth of self-publishing among talented, demanding, business-conscious authors.

Re: My First Novel, 19 Years in the Making

olivierBlanchard — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 20:51:06 -0000

Can't wait!

Re: Texas passes legislation that protects women, Life Edit | Create Email

olivierBlanchard — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 18:34:28 -0000

"Protects women?" Seriously? How does having to return to using a coat hanger protect women? Shame on you.

Re: Texas passes legislation that protects women, Life Edit | Create Email

olivierBlanchard — Sat, 13 Jul 2013 18:32:13 -0000

Justin, no one wants to have an abortion. Not one human being. But abortions are sometimes necessary, and so they happen. This new bill won't save a single fetus. It'll just kill women. And if you care so much about babies, why don't I see you supporting a single-payer healthcare system or the Affordable Care Act so that all those newborns and children - even poor ones - have access to adequate healthcare?

While you're thinking about that, Justin, let me remind you that the US is a secular nation with laws that guarantee freedom of and FROM religion. Just like you don't want Shariah Law becoming the law of the land in the US, most of us don't want the Christian version of that to become the law of the land. If you don't want or need an abortion, just don't get one. 300 women's health clinics in the state of Texas wouldn't impact your life one bit. Nobody would be forcing YOU to have an abortion. But strangely, you want to force poor women NOT to have access to adequate prenatal care (and occasionally, when necessary, access to safe abortions). Your argument is invalid.

Oh wait... you're a guy. You've never been impregnated against your will by a rapist. You've never been told by your doctor that you have a high risk of dying in childbirth. How convenient for you.

Re: If Google Glass Fails, It’s Robert Scoble’s Fault

olivierBlanchard — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:28:23 -0000

You might be overestimating Scoble's influence... or clout (yes, with a C). Right now, yes. The image of Google Glass is indivisible from that photo of him in the shower. Too many people saw it and now it's burned into our collective brains. But you know, if we had been as excited about Google Glass as the small stable of tech bloggers who promised us that Google Glass was the biggest product since the iPhone, we would have thought that photo was hilarious, cute, fun, whatever. We didn't because we were already not buying the hype. Scoble didn't ruin Glass for Google. Scoble only validated a gut feeling we already had about the premature rollout of an overpriced and overhyped product that still doesn't work properly, doesn't really do anything particularly interesting or novel yet, doesn't solve a legitimate problem for anyone so far, and has very little point (read: real value) that we can put our finger on.

Glass is a gadget right now. Nothing more. Hell, it isn't even a gadget yet. It's a gadget prototype. In a few years, it might be pretty awesome, but right now, it's not awesome at all and it doesn't matter how much some tech blogger named Robert Scoble wants us to believe otherwise. When Apple released the iPhone some years ago, they released a finished product. It worked super well. It did really cool stuff. It was truly revolutionary because it was more than just an idea, a concept. It was a realized product that did everything it promised to do. Google Glass isn't there yet. Scoble hammered that home with his self-inflated and vacuous BS, but the fault wasn't his. The Google Glass team should have never shipped out prototypes. They jumped the gun. They should have waited.

I still blame you for the segway though. ;)

Cheers,

Re: No More Steubenvilles: How To Raise Boys to be Kind Men

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 12:58:25 -0000

Great piece. I have a question for you though.

Nobody really taught me how to be kind, or at least empathetic but I turned out to be a very kind little boy. So... do boys become rapists because they aren't taught empathy and kindness, or do they become rapists because they are taught that it's kind of cool to be a rapist (or rather... "a sexually assertive stud who gets what he wants from b*tches")?

Steubenville wasn't a guy discretely taking advantage of a drunk girl in a broom closet somewhere he wouldn't get caught. It was a bunch of guys raping for effect, for validation from their peers. They took pictures and walked around to get pats on the back and high fives. They sexually assaulted that girl because they thought it would make them awesome in the eyes of their peers. So I'm really asking. Is the bigger problem that we don't have a very strong culture of kindness and empathy, or that we still have cultural pockets where rape culture is actively practiced, promoted and perpetuated as a means of defining masculinity?

The first is an easy fix. The second is not.

Re: Why Welcome to the Fifth Estate Failed

olivierBlanchard — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 02:41:26 -0000

So... what you're saying is that my copy is a collector's item?

Re: On 'Senseless' Violence

olivierBlanchard — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 18:08:09 -0000

1. That isn't at all the argument that you were making in your previous "article." Here's a recap of what actually happened:

In his speech, President Obama implied that he doesn't support Nazis or the Holocaust. Since you can't bring yourself to have anything in common with him, your position immediately shifted to defending the Nazis and the Holocaust. That wasn't enough, so you punctuated your shameful history lesson with an absurd generalization about "the left" and added a random connection to Benghazi for good measure.

We're not hysterical, Eliana. We're just disgusted and shocked that you would stray that far from common human decency. Even you. And while you may barely be capable of stringing two coherent thoughts together in your blog post, you aren't so lousy of a writer that we would all get misunderstand your argument. We understood you just fine. There was no confusion on our end.

2. Just stop.

Re: The Future Of Business – “Everyone” Is Not Your Customer!

olivierBlanchard — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:54:39 -0000

Right. Note that when I talk about calculating "value," I am talking about $$$. I am not talking about abstract value like being awesome or inspiring, or supportive on a bad PR day. I am talking about a purely business-oriented definition of value. That's the context. (So I'm not being cold. I'm just being specific.)

"Liking" a page makes you a very basic kind of fan. It's the free trial version of a fan. It's just a "like." There's no value there, as of yet. Nothing tangible anyway. Nothing measurable. It's at best an acknowledgment of positive awareness. Nothing more.

But as that fan grows into more of a real fan, a "true" fan, you can start to track changes in their behavior. Are they talking about you more? Are they sharing your stuff more often? Are they starting to spend money on your stuff? Is that amount growing over time? Etc. Fanhood is always in flux. Fanhood isn't stationary. A business should aim to develop fan loyalty, not just expect it. Sure, you'll always have your core fans, but they don't scale. For everyone else, you have to work at it. You have to earn their attention and preference every day.

So the confusion, I think, often stems from a misunderstanding of the term "fan." The idea isn't to draw a line and assume that it's an A/B model, where you are either a fan or you aren't. That would imply that clicking "like" makes you a fan. That's just not realistic. What businesses need to do is take a step back and answer three questions:

1. What constitutes a real fan? (What does that profile look like? What are key behaviors associated with fanhood?) Come up with your own definition. Don't cut and paste one from some social media guru's blog.

2. What are the degrees of fanhood? (Basic, intermediate, advanced?) -> Now revisit question #1. Assign attributes to each degree of fanhood.

3. What is the path to uber-fanhood? (In other words, how does a newbie fan who kind of likes us gets to a point where he or she would actually get our logo tattooed on their arm or name their first-born after us? What does that journey look like? What are the stages, the milestones, the triggers along the way?)

The alternative is to look at fans as just amorphous masses who click a "like" button on Facebook and blast them with "content" 2-3 times per day. (Which is what 90%+ of companies currently do with social media, and the principal reason why things aren't working out so well with their social media programs.)

Good piece, man. :)

Re: Who are the Top 15 Thought Leaders in Social Media Today?

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 17:20:18 -0000

Not surprising to see you pop up on this list again, Michael.

Re: Reliving Intellectual Flaws with A-List Influence

olivierBlanchard — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 12:03:07 -0000

Comparing A-list bloggers to intellectuals seems to be a bit of a stretch. More than a few genuine intellectuals might be rolling in their graves right now. :D

But good points. The mechanism of "influence" is the same, with or without the IQ, insights or intellectual capacity. Great post, man.

Re: Who are the Top 15 Thought Leaders in Social Media Today?

olivierBlanchard — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 06:28:29 -0000

Neil, if you want to keep catering to the same clique of 15-20 social media blogger/speakers in the hopes that they will pull traffic to your site, go right ahead. You keep publishing the same list over and over again, and it's tiring. You want my take? Here it is:

Who actually belongs on that list:

Solis: Yes.
Owyang: Yes.
Li: Yes.
Kanter: Yes.
Falls: Okay.

Your wild card: Bullas: If writing Top 50 lists of obvious bullet points makes you a thought leader, then okay. Top 15 though? Not really.

Who doesn't belong on that list:

Godin: No. Thought leader, but wrong field.
Oden: No. Again, thought leader, but wrong field.

Stelzner, Mari Smith, Schaefer: Are you serious? "Thought leaders" how?

Vaynerchuk: I like Gary, but please stop dragging him into your linkbait posts. Way to be original. What happened? It wasn't Chris Brogan or Guy Kawasaki's turn this month?

You know what names could have been on the list if you bothered to look past the same 15 people you think will pull the most traffic to your site? Here are a few:

David Armano
Michael Brito
Valeria Maltoni
Christopher Barger
Maddie Grant
Geoff Livingston
Danny Brown
Sam Decker
Frank Eliason
Neville Hobson
Dave Fleet
Keith Burtis
Francois Gossieaux
Scott friggin' Monty
Gavin Heaton
Richard Binhammer
Andy Sernovitz

Should I continue?

You could have started there. And as a bonus, some of them aren't American. Gavin's Australian if you were looking for another Ozzie. How about that. (Oh my God, they have more than one blogger?)

You know what would be nice? If you took this "thought leader" list business a little more seriously. What are you doing here, man? Trying to pull traffic to your site? Looking for validation? Trying to get invited to the rock stars social media speaker club?

Do what you want. It's your blog. But you asked and I'm telling you. Next time you publish a list like this, at least put a little effort into it.

Cheers,

Re: Top 20 Best Brand Timelines on Facebook

olivierBlanchard — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:48:25 -0000

In'n'Out's timeline has a total of 9 updates since September 2011. Can you tell me how/why it made the list? Thanks.