Vanity numbers and phone systems that make you spell first or last names should become extinct for businesses that expect people to dial from a cell phone. 

RIM (Blackberry) has a 41% market share of smart phones and the overall smart phone market is 15.2% of all cell-phone users.  Blackberry’s are great phones (I use one personally), however one thing Blackberries don’t do is show you the alpha keypad translation like a land-line phone.
Go ahead, try calling a company phone system and typing in the name Swatorski, Zlinksy, or even Jones on your first try from a Blackberry.  Call 422-Blue to reach the St. Louis Blues or 1888-GET CHARTER… you get it.  Now try it while driving – whoops, watch out. 

Vanity numbers promise improved sales and brand recognition because a consumer can commit to memory and dial later – that still makes sense for consumers.  However, if your target audience is comprised of business people than give it up.  Companies should be striving to make it easier to buy or service their customers, but, now they are upsetting 41% of business users with a bad brand touch, or worse, no touch at all (I still haven’t figured out how to dial charter!).

Technology has made sending consumers highly-personalized messages easier and less expensive than ever. Whether via web cookies and a nifty database, digital broadcast zones, or variable digital printing, the ability to deliver precise messages is easy enough for even the very-most-middle-manager to do it.

BUT, just because you can do something, does not mean you should do it (see: sex in junior high school).

Sending highly personalized messages without being able to deliver on a highly-personalized experience ruins whatever possible relationship I had with your brand.

For example:

You could be getting super-duper special personalized service right now!
Each month I get at least five solicitations from American Express (some quite elaborate), each one telling me how wonderful their card is, and what delightful and personalized services they offer.

Does AMEX not realize that I HAVE TWO OF THEIR CARDS IN MY WALLET?! Um… hey AMEX ol’ buddy – don’t you remember your pal Dave? I’ve been a member since…

“Welcome back, David!”
OK, but if you know who I am (and have even shipped things to me), PLEASE don’t ask me what country I live in. Really? If I HAVE to fill out another form…do you think there’s maybe there’s a better chance that I live in the USA instead of the United Arab Emirates or Uzbekistan.

Also, once you have my ZIP CODE, shouldn’t your super-duper computer be able to figure out the rest?..like what freaking city and country I’m in?

Do not promise what you cannot deliver. Now come on over here and rub my lamp, baby…

I’ve heard and read a few reports about Oprah admitting that she currently weighs around 200lbs and is very disappointed with herself for getting back up to that weight.  (I’m not criticizing -  as much as I’ve yo-yo’d through the years I can’t criticize anyone for gaining or losing weight)

I saw this ad on yahoo today for Oprah’s diet and thought that was an odd celebrity to base a diet on right now. Then I remembered that this ad is all over facebook advertising as well.

Is anchoring a diet to Oprah a good strategy?  Is her name alone enough to drive sales even if she is on the high end of the yo-yo at the moment?

If she loses weight again and uses another diet do you lose your fad diet credibility?

I thought about all these things and then I clicked the link which took me here. This is a “mom blog” who is linking (via paid referrals I’m sure) to products to sell this stuff. Since it’s multi-level she doesn’t really have her own brand and is trying to leverage Oprah’s name into selling her stuff.  If this mom really exists.

In a time when fake blogs abound – the obvious questions pop out at me – Is there really a Tina Collins, and is she really a mom who lost weight on this diet?

I’m skeptical. This site was started in October, has a bunch of fake looking comments and looks intentionally bad.  I hope I’m wrong.  Regardless if Tina is real or not – Marketing like this makes me feel like I’m being lied to. Good marketing shouldn’t do that.

Dear readers – let’s all agree to never fake it (no fake blogs, no fake moms, etc.).  I think the industry as a whole will be better for it.

Please stop using Internet Explorer 6.  It came out in 2004, is riddled with bugs and forces developers that want to use cool tools like MooTools write CSS and HTML hacks that make me cringe.

I understand you are fearful of change.  I get it.  Don't upgrade to Office 2007.  Doesn't bother me at all. Don't upgrade to Vista.  Heck that OS compelled me to switch to a Mac. I also understand that your IT support staff is not prepared for the onslaught of calls due to the ribbon replacing menus in Office 07. 

But the whole goal of Internet Explorer 7 was to be more secure (i.e. less for you to worry about).  Especially now that it's been out for 2 years.  Also, it's a browser, so it won't crash your network or cause a flood of calls to your IT support center.

In conclusion, this is my plea to you corporate America, to do what's best for web developers everywhere and upgrade to IE7 already.  The world of tab pages and standards based CSS support awaits you.

Sincerely,

Brian Schwartz

I used to be a programmer. 

I used to be a programmer using only Microsoft tools.

I used to love those tools.

I now use a Mac. 

WOW.  After being a "Microsoft" programmer and a project manager for a good chunk of my career, I have now switched to Mac full time. 

If Microsoft can't keep me as a customer, they are in trouble. 
Why did they lose me?  Simple. 
I want my computer to work – all the time. 
I don't like it crashing.
I don't like it going slow.
I don't like having to learn how to fix problems in the registry.

7 month agos I bought a brand new HP Laptop with Windows Vista and Dual Core Intel / 4Gb of RAM.  After a few weeks, I realized it was pretty slow and clunky.  I'd even been using Vista since it came out so those issues were nothing new for me. 

Fast forward a couple months and my HP laptop keeps getting slower and was getting more and more buggy (even with the what seemed like millions of windows updates every week).  Every once in a while it would just crash.  Every time I closed powerpoint I would get an error.  Etc. Etc.  I'd had enough and wanted to find something better.   

So, I bought a used Mac on EBay, just to confirm that it would work for my needs.  It did and after about a month I bought a brand new MacBook Pro.  I was then able to install Parallels, install Windows on my Mac (for a few apps, namely Quickbooks) and have both on it  Guess what?  After a month, I only use the Windows side on Parallels for accounting or testing websites on internet explorer. 

I am a full convert, and unfortunately for Microsoft I'm not alone. 

My wife had never used a Mac and she isn't nearly as technically educated as I am, yet I gave her my old mac laptop with no training.  Two days later I came home and she had printed about 20 pictures using iPhoto and our wireless printer.  It's been a month and she loves it and guess what?  It's never crashed, nor had any problems.  Another convert.

I'm the last person who would have expected to switch, but I did and I couldn't be happier.  Macs used to have 3% of the OS market, now they are around 7%.  Why?  Because they work. Simple. 

What's the lesson here?  I see two of them:
1. Develop a superior product, market it well (as opposed to IBM's O/S 2) and even with a company that seems to have a huge monopoly over you, you can gain market share.
2. Rest on your laurels, release products that upset consumers, and watch your market share fail.