Disqus - Latest Comments for Marc Orchant

Re: Web2Expo

Marc Orchant — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:54:51 -0000

Just try and hide from me! I'll hunt you down.

:^)

Seriously. I'm very stoked to be able to pick up our conversation so soon after ETech. See you in SF.

Re: Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Marc Orchant — Wed, 23 May 2007 00:57:48 -0000

David & you'll be a great asset for Microsoft and a bit of an eye-opener as well I suspect. Kudos to them for recognizing the passion and vision you have to offer and to you for having the courage to move inside to help change the world as Hugh put it. You join a pretty stellar cast of shakers and movers that are being given a unique opportunity to materially change the ethos and attitude of this company.

In my experiences with Microsoft as a content developer, Search Champ, and MVP I have found the people who work at the company to be committed, passionate, and very enjoyable to work with. I expect your experience will be similar.

I'll see you at Enterprise 2.0 and will gladly buy you a celebratory cocktail of your choosing. And I'll see if I can bring more cowbell with me too. ;^)

Re: Movies I'd like? (Scripting News)

Marc Orchant — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 21:06:58 -0000

Hi Dave. My favorites include:
The Usual Suspects
Memento
American Beauty
Pulp Fiction
Good Night and Good Luck
Heat
Goodfellas
A Beautiful Mind
Fight Club

Just to name a few...

Re: Zoho Notebook looks good

Marc Orchant — Tue, 22 May 2007 09:53:14 -0000

Gal: I think you miss the real potential of this application by calling it a "complex note-taking app". I've been working with the alpha for a couple of months and talking with the Zoho team and the potential to create dynamic shared spaces with a variety of information objects transcends anything else I've seen.

The similarities to OneNote (or Circus Ponies Notebook on the Mac) are really skin-deep. With the ability to share at the object level and create interactivity using shared screens, data objects, real-time chat and telephony, and applications (like Writer and Sheet), this is a really in a class by itself.

Re: READER’S SUGGESTIONS: Need a new Tech Geek Gadget a-go-go Bag

Marc Orchant — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 07:23:17 -0000

I agree with Brian. I've been using a Timbukt2 Commute XL for about a year now with my Toshiba M200 Tablet PC (12.1") and Moleskine and it has stood up very nicely. Taken it on a number of flights, drives, etc. and everything has stayed snug and dry inside (it has these little "ears" that seal the top of the bag against moisture when you close it) . It's not too big but has a substantial amount of room. Very sturdy construction too - still looks essentially brand new.

Re: Gmail IMAP and Microsoft’s Desktop Push

Marc Orchant — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:01:33 -0000

You're right Zoli but missed an important dimension to this announcement. While the implications are indeed big as far as desktop work is concerned, IMAP in Gmail is also a huge win for users of smartphones and other mobile devices (iPhone, Nokia N800/810, Treo, etc.) who'd like to manage all of their e-mail transactions in a single client.

Re: Gmail IMAP and Microsoft’s Desktop Push

Marc Orchant — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 11:01:33 -0000

Re: How To Use iSync With Unsupported Nokia Phones

Marc Orchant — Sat, 06 Jan 2007 19:51:22 -0000

Thanks for the tip! My brand new N93 is synced up with my MacBook and I am one happy camper. At the risk of sounding preachy, if you do find the mactomster iSync plug-in useful, please send the developer a donation via PayPal. He's solved a huge problem for us Mac folk.

Re: A New Time Budget

Marc Orchant — Sat, 19 May 2007 10:11:08 -0000

Chris:

It's a very interesting model. As some of the previous comments point out, 20 minutes is not an ideal productivity time block for some people and/or tasks. When I'm in a good writing "zone", I can go for 45 minutes to an hour before my body starts telling me to move into Get Up mode to stretch the muscles and relax the brain.

But the larger notion of developing a rhythm for your work is very intriguing and I can see this working nicely on "task days" when I'm doing lots of small chunk, next action work. I think in microcosm, this is also a great idea to overlay on the weekly review as a template for working through reviews of actions lists, calendar, tickler file, etc.

Re: Connecting People

Marc Orchant — Mon, 21 May 2007 11:20:00 -0000

Chris:

Spot on, as usual! Yes... being a connector (and a storyteller) is how I tend to think of myself quite often. And, not surprisingly, I tend to gravitate toward other connectors as well which increases the network of connections. A virtuous loop if ever there was one.

A great book to add to the pile is Tim Sanders' Love is the Killer App". He talks about being a "love cat" which has much in common with the model you're defining in this post.

Re: Connecting People

Marc Orchant — Mon, 21 May 2007 11:21:41 -0000

One more thing... I love Dan's phrase "notes in the margins of our lives". That's one of the best summarizations of the microblogging many of us are doing on Twitter and Jaiku.

Re: Robert Scoble is My News Source

Marc Orchant — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 13:37:54 -0000

Chris - I tend to agree with Goldie. More than one curator makes for more balance. Robert's pretty influential on what I read these days (not so much as your Trends show) but I find he tends to narrow-cast when he finds a bright shiny object. That's his prerogative of course and in no way diminishes the value in his links blog in the big picture.

I currently rely on a variety of curators in the different interest areas I'm focused on and, based on what I see in my Reader Trends, they do constitute the majority of where my clickstream originates from.

Re: Newbies Guide to Twitter

Marc Orchant — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 18:06:27 -0000

Nice job buddy - a great little primer. I agree with what you've written and it aligns nicely with how I use this medium as well. One thing I wanted to add was what we participated in at Gnomedex last week - where Twitter became a "front channel" to the proceedings for those of us who were there as well all of the people we all collectively interact with who weren't. Some of them were watching the proceedings on UStream, others via Twitter, the IRC channel, and/or blogs. It was really quite fascinating.

Chris Pirillo said on his blog that he didn't think Twitter was a positive for Gnomedex. I disagree. I think it provided another way for the community of participants to extend beyond the physical venue in a mostly positive and inclusive fashion.

Re: Nicholas Carr says Web 2.0 “amoral”

Marc Orchant — Mon, 17 Oct 2005 08:19:22 -0000

Maybe Carr should have called Web 2.0 agnostic and avoided the morality play. I suspect, having read him for a long time, that part of his very careful choice of words was to breed exactly the sort of "read-it-quick, misinterpret, and comment" storm Robert is potentially starting here. Now that Robert has posted his negative comment/review, a bunch of Scoble-link-loving bloggers will pile on, repeating what he's said.

Can't you just see the posts already?

"Scoble says Nick Carr is tired..."
"Scoble says Nick Carr is immoral...:
"Scoble says Nick Carr is the devil!"
"Scoble says Nick Carr is the antichrist!"
"Scoble says Nick Carr is going straight to hell!"

;^)

Re: Talking Tablet PCs from the Red Couch

Marc Orchant — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 16:08:12 -0000

It was great fun Robert. Thanks for visiting with us.

Re: Foldera, 400,000 beta signups in 12 days?

Marc Orchant — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 08:03:22 -0000

They're not downloads. They're requests to get an account. According to a comment Richard Lusk (one of Foldera's principals) left on my blog yesterday, they're planning to show Foldera publicly at TechEd. Until then, this number is nothing more than people who want to take it for a spin. It's still an impressive number but it's representative of nothing more than people willing to trade an e-mail address for a peek behind the curtain.

Re: Foldera, 400,000 beta signups in 12 days?

Marc Orchant — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 08:19:03 -0000

Correction: ETech, not TechEd ;^)

Re: Was Origami overhyped?

Marc Orchant — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 16:29:07 -0000

I think the comparisons to the Nokia 770 are pretty appropriate - the difference being the quality of the software available for each. Frankly the Nokia software is horrible IMO. The device itself with better software (which will happen - Nokia is listening to early adopter feedback I'm sure) will be a strong competitor to the UMPC - especially given the price delta.

PSP is another matter. It does not scale to the same breadth of audience that UMPC and the Nokia have the potential to because it is a gaming system first and everything else second. Also, it's from Sony which, given recent history, is a death sentence in terms of finding mass appeal beyond the niche of game playing media consumers. That company is so locked into their own proprietary peripheral system that many people simply will not play (or pay). Priced Memory Sticks lately? Remember the Clie? I have learned after being burned repeatedly by Sony that buying anything from that is a serious gamble and an expensive proposition.

Re: Hey, Steve Gillmor…

Marc Orchant — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 12:13:56 -0000

Robert:

Great discussion here and one that mirrors my experiences showing both Vista and Office 2007 to my team. The one difference is that we make network security software and so the improvements you point to in the stack are meaningful and we know that we have to develop against the next version of Windows so there's less pushback but only a little more excitement that what Eddie describes.

Office 2007, OTOH, just blows people away. The improvements go beyond the ribbon. Outlook is much more useful and OneNote simply rocks in its second incarnation, especially on the Tablet PC.

One the question of "Lite" versions and the 5% feature issue, I think it's inevitable that Microsoft is going to have to get more modular as the suite continues to evolve to better address the usability, complexity, and power consumption issues that 330angelo raises. This could start with a smarter installer that lets me self-select the kind of user I am to use a profile that installs an appropriate set of features. Back that up with an easy way to add additional features (or sets of features) as my needs evolve and you have a better user experience without changing the economics.

And yes, Mike is right. Modders hate the new UI. If you're in the beta, read the newsgroup discussions. There's a lot of vehement discussion about the lack of customization available in Office 2K7. The consensus is that the QAT doesn't get the job done for power users.

But the vast majority of people don't customize toolbars or build new ones, write macros, or program additional functionality in VBA. And from what I've seen and what the Office team has stated in the interviews you've done with them on Channel 9 and in their own blogs, usability studies show that typical Office users are finding the Ribbon to be less intimidating to use.

Re: Nice Nugget from Marc

Marc Orchant — Wed, 19 Apr 2006 16:54:34 -0000

Hey Bubba - I've really been enjoying your stint here while Robert takes a break. Hopefully you'll swing through the SW again sometime soon and we can do another chile feast. You're one up on Jeremy who's become such a mogul that he hasn't yet found time to visit me ;^)

I'm sure you appreciate that I have very little control (translation: none) over the comments system at ZDNet.

Re: Bad news gets worse

Marc Orchant — Thu, 11 May 2006 00:18:00 -0000

Robert: You and your family are in our thoughts and prayers. Having just had a heart-related scare with my mom, I have a glimmer of some of the emotions you're wrestling with. Be strong - give each other lots of hugs - and know that there are many, many people thinking of you in this difficult time.

Re: Correcting the Record about Microsoft

Marc Orchant — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 08:06:59 -0000

Robert: Congrats of course - it must be quite a relief now that the word is official. It's hard carrying a decision like this around in your pocket. FWIW, I think this is a great move for you and for both companies. Can't wait to see (and hear) the great interviews we all know you'll be doing.

Re: The long goodbye

Marc Orchant — Sun, 25 Jun 2006 10:10:13 -0000

Robert - get an ultralight for your commute ;^)

Seriously - congrats! HMB is a beautiful spot. I used to spend a good amount of time there and always found it wonderfully refreshing. And you're close (traffic permitting) to some great places.

Good luck with the closing, selling, moving, and getting settled. I'm dealing with a lot of the same changes (as you know) but blessedly do not have a physical move in the mix.

Re: We still have the scars… (Jeremy wins award for killer business card)

Marc Orchant — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 16:34:22 -0000

Robert:

Great seeing you at the party. On the business card/event idea, I've been ordering cards with Hugh's designs on them from StreetCards for shows and conferences for a few years now. I select a different design each time (my current fave is the sheep and wolf design). They always elicit a lot of intersting reactions.

Jeremy is remarkable guy - he's doing some great work and is growing his network at a very nice pace. But he never forgets why he's doing what he's doing and is utterly lacking in some of the less attractive traits that were on dsiplay at the TC party.

Re: Office team corrects news about its new “ribbon”

Marc Orchant — Sat, 26 Aug 2006 15:38:46 -0000

Actually Robert, they *are* changing it. What Darren tried to do was correct a misconnception about the how and why. Jensen Harris had announced a while back that an auto-hide function was being added to the ribbon for those who prefer that it not always be on-screen.

A number of bloggers, myself included, assumed this was in response to complaints based on the perception that the ribbon takes up a significantly larger amount of screen real estate than the menua and toolbars in Office 2003. Darren's post states that this was not the driver for the decision to put the function in.

If usability data was the driver, as both Jensen and Darren imply, then the decision is a sound one. Personally I could care less either way. I'm completely at ease using the CTRL+F1 keyboard shortcut to display and hide the ribbon as needed and generally cannot stand auto-hide sliding toolbars, menus, and other screen objects in and out of the screen.

And I think the ribbon rocks! I know serious power users hate the loss of customizability it imposes. But people who just use the core Office apps as part of their day-to-day work are generally delighted with it when I demo the new apps.

Re: Productivity Tips from Merlin Mann

Marc Orchant — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:30:56 -0000

Take an apparently much-needed blog break, process your stacked up e-mail in a DA-style purge day where you let everyone know, in advance, that you will offline, and then saty on the wagon. It's a question of priorities and discipline.

You and I have talked about the calculus of e-mail and GTD before. I understand the volume of mail you get and the inherent problem you facewith applying a two-minute rule to actionable e-mail when you're getting four more during those minutes. Hopefully, now that you're out of the MS e-mail culture (at least on a FT basis), your flow has stabilized at a lower level.

Ultimately, you have to decide how important e-mail is relative to your other activities. If going to conferences, site visits, blogger dinners, camp events, Apple stores, hanging with your son, being good to your lovely wife, and helping to build your new company all trump e-mail -- admit it. And change expectations by being less accessible to everyone because you can't get it all done. Create an e-mail address for your public persona and another for your most important people and share it only with them.

While I don't get nearly as many e-mails as you do (apparently), I never go more than two two or three days without getting back to empty. And I'm not talking about hiding "e-mail" in triage folders (no slam on ClearContext which I know you have been using). I'm talking about real processing where the actionable e-mail is converted to tasks or appointments.

Read (or reread) Mike Linenberger's book Total Workday Control. Hire one of David Allen's coaches to come work with you for a day or two (not cheap, but less expensive than hiring an assistant). Use the action features in ClearContext to make a decision about the actionable e-mails you receive in a processing run several times a day (15 minutes, four times a day is my formula).

Good luck pal. It surely isn't easy but you'll find your way.

Re: Hello from a taxi in Chicago (Mary Jo leaves Ziff)

Marc Orchant — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 23:47:22 -0000

Nope. She's joined the blogrool at ZDNet - not exactly leaving, just changing mediums. Should be fun to watch what she does with a blog. She wrote in her first post:

"Yep, this is my new gig. No more Microsoft-Watch for this Microsoft watcher. I decided it was time to move to a place that reflects my opinion that blogging is the future of journalism."

Re: Where is Chris Pirillo moving to?

Marc Orchant — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 08:22:09 -0000

Te craziest thing Chris could do is declare Outlook (any version above 2000) a masterpeice worthy of immediate upgrade with no reservations. ;^)

Re: 2007 Scoblecars

Marc Orchant — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:09:14 -0000

Couple of thoughts:

Matt - Chrysler is now part of Daimler, not the other way around. The Germans bailed the American company out by coming in an throwing awesome prodct knowledge and technology at a company that had lost its way.

I drive a late-model 325i (2003 that I bought this year with only 38K on it in pristine shape). Cost-wise, my payments are about the same as if I'd bought the Saturn Robert's driving. No question in my mind which I'm happier with (even without the backseat radio).

Robert, if you seriously aren't sure which of the three Scoble cars handles best, we'll take a drive on PCH next time I'm in the Bay area and I'll show you in about 30 seconds why Maryam's car is in a completely different class from the other two. No contest.

David - have you ever driven down to Half Moon Bay where Robert lives? Depending on the route, it can get pretty dark/ Have you driven a car with zeon lamps? I live in the high mountain desert of New Mexico where it is pitch black once you're out of the city and I will never drive a car without blue lamps again.

Re: Pissing off the blogosphere…

Marc Orchant — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 11:08:15 -0000

Robert - There's been more than enough commentary on the central topic. I do feel the need to chime in just to point out that you ought to be a bit more discriminating about the size brush you use when you paint these rants.

Making any kind of a statement about ZDNet as a one-size-fits-all, for example, is just plain silly. I use this as an example because that's where I hang my blog shingle of course. I certainly link to other blogs all the time. So do most of my fellow ZDNet bloggers. So any unilateral "ZDNet doesn't link" or "ZDNet's Dan Farber does link" statements are either just plain wrong (the former) or specific (the latter) as to be relatively meaningless. ZDNet is a massive network of content in every shape and variety you can imagine from podcasts and video to blogs to straight up news and reviews.

You've castigated and ignored most ZDNet bloggers because we don't have full text feeds. Fine. That's your prerogative (despite the fact that we have no control over that - it's a corporate decision that we discuss frequently but are pretty much resigned to). But you miss out on linking to some great content as a result of that decision. Again, it's yours to make.

The point is, no one at ZDNet is throwing a hissy fit because we don't get Scoble link love and we do, by the way, get quite a bit from many of the Weblogs, Inc./AOL blogs. Disclosure: I used to write three blogs for Weblogs, Inc. and have nothing but great things to say about working with Jason, Peter, Ryan, and the rest of the crew.

You know how much affection and respect I have for you and everything you've accomplished. But you went over the top, under the bus, or somewhere else on this one and I really wish you'd think things like this through for... oh, I don't know... ten minutes before you publish. You sometimes end up eroding the legitimacy of the point you're trying to make because you work yourself into a frenzy.

Re: I’m not going to MVP Summit, SXSW instead!

Marc Orchant — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 19:13:34 -0000

Ah... too bad. I was hoping to catch dinner with you and Buzz during the Summit. Have fun in Austin and buy Jeremy and Aaron a beer for me ;^)

You going to Etech or Web 2.0 Expo by any chance?

Re: Onward!

Marc Orchant — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 13:11:13 -0000

Good to have you back buddy! You hit two big points with me in this post (and raised a question I hope you can answer):

1. Not only are flames hard in 140 characters, the general temperament on Twitter is much more positive (at least for now). While I'm sure there are flame wars going on, they're not in my neighborhood and anyone who practices that sort of behavior will not make it onto my friends list.

2. More rules is not the answer. I understand Tim O'Reilly's motivations in talking about guidelines but suppression of speech, even with the best of intentions, is still a road that leads to totalitarianism hell.

3. Can you explain the difference between "frequently" and "often" please? (sorry - couldn't resist)

Re: The $10,000 Gnomedex

Marc Orchant — Mon, 07 May 2007 11:12:29 -0000

Robert: I was faced with a similar, although less lucrative decision recently. One of my favorite bands is doing a final tour before breaking up and their last shows are the same time as Gnomedex - and they're being played at Red Rocks which is one of the most magnificent places on the planet to see live music.

But Gnomedex beckons. So I'm trying to decide with Sue whether she'll join me in Seattle or go dance in the mountains with all of our music friends while I do the geek dance with all of my tech friends.

Life is full of choices – you made a great one in this case. And despite his protestations, I know it means a lot to Chris that you made the decision this way.

Re: The better iPhone: Nokia N95?

Marc Orchant — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 12:23:03 -0000

The N95 is a very good phone LayZ. The speakerphone quality is exceptional (stereo speakers and very loud volume when needed w/o too much distortion). The integration of features in the phone app is also outstanding, allowing me to generate video calls, voice calls, Skype calls (with Fring installed), or SMS text messages.

There's also, in addition to a great Gmail client, Widsets for content aggregation, a Jaiku client for microblogging, and the aforementioned Flickr and Vox integrations Nokia began offering last year on some N series devices.

Battery life could be better but can be enhanced in the US by turning off UTMS scanning and keeping WiFi scanning off unless needed. The first firmware update seems to have helped in this regard as well. Wifi performance is very, very good and it makes a great Bluetooth modem for both my Tablet PC and MacBook.

Not perfect, but definitely the best all-in-one device I've used so far.

Those iPhone commercials sure do look good though. I thought I was going to be able to resist the siren song but I feel my resolve beginning to waver.

Re: Thanks so much for all the kind words…

Marc Orchant — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 12:47:23 -0000

Mazel tov Robert to you, Maryam and Patrick on the newest Scoble! Sue and I are so happy and excited for all of you. Glad to hear both Maryam and Milan are doing well. Enjoy every moment!

Re: Think Different Apple

Marc Orchant — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:56:18 -0000

Got to agree Robert. Not sure what it is you think constitutes "bad" behavior here. When the iPhone platforms opens (and I remain convinced it will), developers can have at it and do some great stuff. Until then, this is just pointless melodrama.

Re: Blog business opportunity: overseas blog networks

Marc Orchant — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 13:57:55 -0000

Thanks for the shout out Robert. We're still in the early stages of getting the network built out (Russia just came online and we have a few other countries in various stages of development). When I had the chance to join Oliver Starr on the US blog and work with Sam, I jumped at the chance (and I don't need to tell you that leaving ZDNet was not an easy decision!).

We are assembling a great team of well-respected bloggers from around the globe and have some exciting things planned for the coming months. Stay tuned!

Re: I’m Mentioned on ZDnet.com

Marc Orchant — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:28:37 -0000

Better than Digg Jason. There's only one vote (it's mine) and you got it!

Glad I brought you a smile.