Generalism

I’ve read some great books in my time where protagonists spend their lives in their own futuristic version of “online”, and of course thoroughly enjoyed The Matrix (a few hundred times), and it’s kinda fun experiencing some of the actual first steps in this direction (even more fun seeing how popular some of them are).

I like World of Warcraft. It’s a simulacrum of real-life mixed with a theme park, all bright colours and maps telling you where to go and what to do. If you spend enough time in it you get to experience the best rides, and just like theme parks it does a great job of making people feel good about staying.

It was recently suggested by a friend to also try out Eve Online. This is an online universe rather than a world, where the player joins thousands of people flying around in space, trading, fighting and making merry from planet to planet. I like the premise, and I think anyone of my age that loved Elite on the old 8-bit systems is going to have their interest piqued.

But of course they’re the first steps. WoW is now full of people who have been playing for years, and if you’re not up to the highest level then you’re pretty much left out in the cold by both the players and the developers. The starting areas are starting to feel like ghost towns compared to a couple of years ago.

And EVE makes some classic mistakes that I would call sloppy if I was feeling in a harsher mood. When small things matter, flying through the middle of a nearby planet unscathed, and docking with a space station in the flash of a screen glitch just don’t cut it.

But I shouldn’t be too down on either. They are the first steps after all. Hopefully the next generation should be just around the next bend.

Damnit Damnit Damnit! I had this idea over a year ago!!!

I’m now officially miffed.

I read an interesting news article today about Starbucks. To cut a long story short, they’ve got big, very big, and it’s starting to cause problems. The article sites lack of quality, a lowering of customer service, and a dilution of the whole “Starbucks experience”. I posted a while ago about my disallusionment over Starbucks, so I have had first-hand experience of some of the problems faced. My only question is why has it taken them so long to spot that there is a problem? Just walk into one in, say, Sheffield UK. But it also led me to think about organisational growth.

Germany is a little at odds with the rest of the western world when it comes to organisational growth. Growth is important of course, showing improvement and success amongst other things, but in many German companies, growth comes very much a second place to longevity. It is well known that double-digit percentage growth is unsustainable in any organisation, with the crest of that wave invariably followed by a crash, sometimes fatal, always damaging. In Germany there is an aim to keep sales growth to single digits, providing sustained growth, albeit over a much longer period, but with the benefit of being able to pass something of real value onto children when it comes time to leave.

Another angle on growth is the idea of feeling “special”; the article talks about the “Starbucks experience”. As a comparator, look at the “Apple experience”. Apple users, particularly Mac users, feel special. It may be a design thing, it may be a feeling of exclusivity, of being “different”. So we Apple users really want Apple to succeed, to do well, to take over the world. Or do we? Actually I suspect that we all secretly hope Apple stay the way they are. Just a little outside the mainstream, a little off the beaten track. I doubt shareholders do, and I doubt Apple themselves do, but what would happen to that “Apple experience” if everyone in the world ditched their Windows PCs and bought Macs? I suspect that overnight Apple would suddenly become passe. After all, how is it possible to stand out from the crowd when you _are_ the crowd? The search would of course be on to find something different to make them feel special again.

Is this transformation from King to crash an inevitable side-effect of success? IBM crashed, but recovered in a smaller and leaner form. Microsoft some say are in a perpetual state of crashing. Sony have crashed and have yet to find their way back. Ford, well, the less said the better.

I for one look forward to seeing which direction Starbucks goes, but I have a hunch that their new “1 dollar coffee” is unlikely to be the right one. After all, I suspect people would much rather feel special than cheap…

I take the internet for granted, quite something for a guy in his mid-30’s. My parents find it hard work; my dad is in danger of collapsing under the weight of a dozen viruses every time he connects, and my mum never touches the filthy stuff. I had wondered about getting them onto a wireless network so that I could access the internet through my laptop whilst visiting. I have however considered the long-distance tech-support overhead on such an endeavour and taken a big step backwards.

On the other hand my brother, 10 years my junior, is clearly gunning for the highest number of friends on Facebook, and takes the whole of the internet in his stride, as do the g-zillion friends in his friends list, all of whom are his age, and none of whom he actually knows.

This is the first generation internet, and it’s pretty neat. I find it hard to imagine how I coped even 10 years ago, let alone 15; my thinking, my research, my whole communication setup now revolves around the internet. BUT only when I’m at home. If I’m out, everything reverts back to my mobile phone. I can no longer read/write emails, check Facebook updates, read RSS feeds, play World of Warcraft. Sure no biggy for a trip down the shops, but a week over Christmas sends my RSS feed count through the roof, and my Battleground Reputation plummeting!

Fortunately for me and many people in this merciless position, WiMax (the long-distance version of Wifi) is starting to get some heavyweights on board. Ubiquitous internet is not far away, and not the crummy 2.5G / 3G networks on mobile phones, but the real deal. The only question is how will lives change again when the internet is everywhere? Such a subtle change is going to have such a profound influence that it’s hard to see. Or perhaps better put, things will change EVERYWHERE, but how are we going to make use of it all? Part of me can’t wait. The other part of me worries that I’m going to turn into my dad…