2006 December 20

PC Sales Growth Slumping in US but Smartphones Growing

Just read this article in Macworld online about PC Sales Growth Slumping in the US:

PC sales growth in the U.S. sputtered to a halt in the third quarter of 2006, showing zero increase compared to last year, as vendors turned to strong overseas markets to generate revenue.

Worldwide, PC shipments grew 9.1 percent in the quarter, thanks to 13.5 percent growth outside the U.S., according to a report released Wednesday by IDC.

Knowing that smartphones are growing, I did a quick search and discovered this article about smartphone growth from Monday:

According to The NPD Group, the U.S. smartphone market has entered a significant growth spurt. October 2006 sales soared 230 percent from January of this year, rising from 216,000 units to nearly 715,000. On a quarterly basis in 2006, smartphone sales have risen more than four percentage points to more than 6 percent of new phones sold through October in the fourth quarter of 2006.

So if you’re developing a Web asset/application or buying commercial software for your organization, wouldn’t it be prudent to prepare for the certainty that your customers will be expecting and demanding to interact with you online from a variety of device types?

Virtual (and real) Friends: Importance of Authenticity

A common mistake people whom I mentor make is thinking that it’s them — and not their big-deal job, the company they work for or the access to others they possess — which is attracting people to them. Granted, sometimes true, authentic friendships are forged in business, but I’ve worked with people again-n-again that take it personally when people have no time for them once their connection with that big deal job ends or the incentive for others to come after them dissolves.

Same thing happens virtually. This is increasingly problematic as more people invest their personal value into blogs, podcasts, vlogs, social networks and other places where seekers congregate. Instead of people being attracted only to those in big deal jobs or with big deal or hot companies, it’s now increasingly your big deal value or thought leadership attracting others.

For example, I’ve had people connect with me and “pick my brain” over some initiative they’re undertaking. I enjoy these connections and often receive considerably more than I give. But I have a finite amount of time each day and I charge top tier hourly rates for that time. When people ask me how long it took me to learn all of the stuff I know about technology, media and the internet, my reply is, “more than 25 years.” I’ve been doing this all of my adult life and I can give all of my time away for free…but it has tons of value and I’m not a non-profit.

I’ve been with wildly successful companies and had big deal jobs within them. It was actually fairly easy to discern who had inauthentic and spurious motives or who I was actually connecting with as a human being. For the former, I’d be gracious but not personally engaged. For the latter, I still have friends from my first tech sales job that I talk to frequently.

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