October 30 was the day after Sandy devastated the New Jersey and New York coastlines, setting the living conditions of millions of citizens back 100 years.

So here’s my idea…

If either candidate had COMPLETELY suspended all campaigning, redirected ALL funds at their disposal to the recovery, and spent the remaining days working in the devastated areas, they would have shown an unquestionable commitment to the American people.

The sound bite “American people in need are more important than any government office, even the presidency of the United States” would have been the most viral piece of information in history. The video would have over 400 million views, the message retweeted 100 million times, and featured on every news channel and water cooler across America.

Transforming the machine from self-promotion into helping others would have been so outrageous, so shocking, that everyone in the country would have been forced to pay attention and give credit where it was due.

Risky?  No question!  Some would consider it political suicide. But the courage shown would have pushed the candidate over the top with unprecedented heroism and dedication to the American people.

Do you think I’m right?

This story about two boys being suspended from school

But my point here is not so much PC vs. Apple as it is a technology trend where decisions are made for you vs. doing it yourself.

I’ll be the first to admit in my PC world many tasks are harder and take more steps to complete. Syncing phones, tablets, and backing up all take longer for me because I’ve chosen to make these tasks more manual than automatic.

One of the biggest issues I’ve had with Apple products is they want to do everything for you. For some people that’s fine, but I think it also invites trouble. Would the teacher mentioned above consciously make the decision to sync topless photos of herself from her iPhone to her iTunes to her iPad? I doubt it. But because it’s easy to automate these processes, people forget what goes on behind the scenes.

I’m glad I have my systems more manual. It forces me to consider what I’m doing every time. It forces me to choose the most important photos to back up and exactly what music I want on my phone.

I’m more aware of how everything is working, not getting caught off-guard because the technology made a decision I wouldn’t have made.

For me? Harder is better. I think more people should choose hard over easy when it comes to their technology management.

UPDATE: Before posting this I had to do a factory reset on my Android phone. Certainly a pain in the butt. But I’ll take being able to do that reset over having to take it to the store for some supposed Genius to fix it.

Mazda

For way over a year I’ve been seeing Mazda commercials that tout their SkyActive technology.  Flashing cars and well-produced ads cover up what is not being said… anything about what it really is.

I’ve been waiting a while thinking eventually they’ll tell me what it is. Is it more performance for the same mileage?  Is it hybrid technology?  Is it magic?

It may be any of the above.  They won’t tell me with their ads, so I’m left to wonder. The problem is I don’t buy things I have to wonder about.

Samsung

The new Samsung Galaxy S3 supports short-range communications called Near Field Communication (NFC).  Did you know that?  Have you ever heard of NFC?  Neither have most people. Samsung evidently figured that out before they started working on their advertisements.

Instead of talking about NFC or trying to explain it, their ads show people instantly sharing pictures or playlists by the phones being close to each other or actually touching.

By giving an easy to understand example of NFC, they totally avoid having to explain a hard concept.  Unlike Mazda who chooses to not explain anything at all, just throw some branding words around.

The effect is dramatic.  I can’t wait until I’m eligible for a phone upgrade so I can get some Samsung, but I’m not remotely interested in SkyActive since they’ve never told me what it is.

The lesson for all of us:  If you have to explain or sell technology, spend extra time coming up with a great example that’s easy to understand – easy to show your customers doing. You’ll show the people who understand the basics exactly what to do.  And you’ll save those who don’t understand it from your confusing explanations.

UPDATE: My suspicions below have been confirmed! Here’s a post that references this survey of 1,000 Facebook users. One of the issues the site is dealing with is increasing boredom.

I was reading this post about some teens spending more time with Twitter than Facebook and thinking about the future of the world’s largest social media site.

In the midst of this thought, for a reason I’m not sure of, I thought of an analogy I’d never considered.

I thought of all the hugely popular TV shows from years past.  Shows like Cheers, Friends, Seinfeld, Desperate Housewives, and even the Ed Sullivan Show to name a few mixed examples.  Each of these shows had huge followings, were funny or dramatic, and were watched by millions.

They’re also all gone.

What happened?  Seinfeld may be a bad example as the actors decided to stop doing it.  But the rest slowly faded as ratings dropped then the shows were dropped. But why? The writers were still writing and the same actors still acting, right?

The thing that killed each of these shows was boredom. The audience got bored enough to do something else. Whether that something else was another show or another activity, these shows no longer had the pull they once did because people got tired of them.

This brought me back to Facebook. I agree with most who say it won’t happen overnight, but once I realized their biggest enemy may be something as simple as boredom, problems become much more possible.  If the previously mentioned TV shows that once commanded our attention couldn’t hold it, do we think a website can?

I’d love to hear some thoughts.  If you have an opinion, please leave it in the comments.

You’re probably thinking I’m nuts.  Thousands and thousands of apps are available for almost every mobile phone out there.  ”There’s an app for that” is a phrase that’s become commonplace. Surely I’m joking or spewing crazy talk.

But I’m serious.

Let me start by taking you back to the beginning of all things computer. Not mobile, but desktops.  Those boxes that used to sit on our desks.

Back in those days all programs were created to run on the computer.  You had to know how to program for Windows, or Apple, or maybe DOS.  Then along came this thing.  This Internet thing. And ever so slowly programs began moving off the computers and onto this Internet.  Now web app is how we create most stuff for use on the computer.  Think of all the things we used to do only on our box on the desk that we can do online now – balance the books, edit images, create a presentation, edit the report that’s due tomorrow.

Do you see the parallel?  I’m saying our phones are the new desktops.  Now you have to be able to program for iOS or Android if you want to build an app.  But with HTML5 and responsive web design becoming more popular day by day, soon our apps will move to the Internet and away from running only on our phones.

Think of the benefits…

1. - I design one app with one interface. No worries with the quirks of each system’s display.
2. - I’m not affected when Android or iOS goes through a major update that would have affected my app’s performance.
3. - 10% of my users have a Blackberry. Do I spend the money to support them or leave them out in the cold? My web app works for everyone.
4. - Over time the chances an app won’t work on older phones becomes a real concern.  Not for my web app.
5. - No waiting for market approval only to have it rejected based on the whims of someone who doesn’t understand it.

Powerful benefits right there. One exception? Games. They will run much better on the device than in a browser.

I’m not saying this will happen overnight, but I think we’ll see a trend in the next three years of more phone tools being online rather than on phone.

So what do you think? You think I’m off my rocker?  Let me know your thoughts.

UPDATE: LinkedIn has spilled the beans that 95% of its new iPad app is HTML5 pulled from the web.  Not native app code. Thanks LinkedIn for being a great example.  Read the post here.

The problem? Remembering to do it every day. At least long enough to make it a habit. I would start and stop, but never get off the ground. Then I setup a rolling daily email that sends me a chapter every day. No way I can forget now.

Want to join me reading Proverbs every day? Just complete the form below and you’re in. Of course you can unsubscribe anytime.

I setup an account for @tnstorms. The point is to be a central place to share Tennessee (where I live) storm info. Not a big deal on the surface, right?

However, bring in a new tool I found called GroupTweet and it gets more interesting. With GroupTweet I can let anyone post to @tnstorms by starting their tweet with the account handle.  I can also set it to work with a hashtag.

Now we’re talking.  Or tweeting.

Is there a chance for abuse? Sure. But I’m going to trust the world until it proves me wrong. I’ll update with my experience as we move forward. If it works, feed free to try your own state.

If you haven’t already noticed, the new design is 100% responsive.  Serious coders will know what that means, but for everyone else…  it means it will work on a computer AND a tablet like an iPad AND a mobile phone with no changes in code.  The page will adjust to the size of the screen.  Feel free to drag the browser smaller to see what this means. Dang cool.

In my opinion, by summer 2012 responsive design will be a web standard.  I can think of no downside, especially when you can get themes already built and ready to go.

Since it works great on mobile, I’ve included the QR code in the sidebar for you to click and load this site on your smartphone. You know you want to!

Anyway, here you can find out more about me and what I’m up to these days.  If you need more, send me a note here.

Have Fun!