I am a post-CES-zombie

Just got back from CES.  Vegas, baby, Vegas.  I have about 2 parts love, and 20 parts hate for that town.

With three and a half days of intense presentations, technical discussions, and sales & marketing mania, I can honestly say that this is going to be an amazing year for us. The feedback we received on our technology was mind-blowing. What can I say, when you have good stuff, people notice.

So for four nights, I totalled 15 hours of sleep. I am wrecked.

In the coming days I will post some impressions I received about what technologies and trends will be fueling the user experience for the next year or two. There is a lot of noise to sort through after the show, but I can think of a few concepts outright that stuck with me…

1. Internet in, satellite out – I just don’t see any compelling reason for satellite radio or satellite television any more. It’s an expensive network, and there is nothing defensible about it’s content… It’s dead. Goodbye. Portable audio players with wi-fi, and connected speakers and radios that access internet radio and online media are the future. See Sansa Connect. Zune should follow.

2. Wireless in, wires out – Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will continute to be in everything, PCs, mobiles, portable audio players, cars. Mind you, Bluetooth still promises more than it can deliver, but the marketing machine is too powerful, and the mobile handset numbers are just too attractive to speaker-makers and automakers. Also, Atheros, Marvel, and Broadcom are making 802.11 chips with less and less power consumption, and applications for audio and video transport are compelling, if not a bit pricey for now. Like it or not, standards are useful. My only appeal relates to my next point, and that is, if you are selling me a device that does audio and video… and includes one of these standards… don’t underdeliver what its capabilities promise… if you use a standards-based wireless technology, give me the benefits of its bloat. If you give me BT, make it do headset, A2DP, and data… seemlessly. If you give me Wi-Fi, make it do streaming audio/video, VoIP, and feed-widgets, seemelessly. If you can’t offer me this, I am paying too much, and getting short changed on experience — by definition.

3. Killer-experience in, feature-spam out – Consumers demand a good experience. Ease of use. Robustness. There is fatigue and cynicism now about devices that are long on features and short on “f*ck yeah!” great experience. Stuff has to just work! Product makers, quit yanking our cords… more on this in future posts…

Dell offers factory installed personal migration… brilliant.

Dell has built an amazing service, by the sound of it.  I spent a few years working as an engineer in Dell’s incredible build-to-order operational environment, I was always amazed at the logistical precision we were able to offer our customers.  But this takes their build-to-order model one step beyond amazing.

At CES, Dell talked about their new products and services… Dell now offers an online backup service that lets you store your personal files out on internet accessible storage, useful, great, nothing too unique, however.  The greatness comes when you order a new Dell system, they will automatically download your personal content onto your new computer so it is there on your harddrive the instant you boot up your brand new system.  Reducing barriers for people to upgrade their hardware is a stroke of brilliance.

What an innovative application of their factory install capabilities.

Kathy Sierra of “CPU” antes up worthwhile questions… I’ll bite

Creating Passionate Users, usually thought provoking, poses some interesting questions that more marketers, friends, individuals should know about others. Rather than the normal survey blather, questions like these can tease out something you didn’t know, but maybe ought to…

Seems to me like an interesting thought exercise, which is about as complicated as I can muster in the wee hours…

0) What’s your name and website URL? (optional, of course)

Micah Collins, http://alivematters.wordpress.com

1) What’s the most fun work you’ve ever done, and why? (two sentences max)

Defining an innovative new product for my current company during its startup… because I was able to learn, draw on experience, and work on product that my family and friends will use (very soon).

2) A. Name one thing you did in the past that you no longer do but wish you did? (one sentence max)

Play baseball.

B. Name one thing you’ve always wanted to do but keep putting it off? (one sentence max)

Build a race car and race it.

3) A. What two things would you most like to learn or be better at, and why? (two sentences max)

(1) Surfing, so I could be in better shape and have a bona fide excuse to live near the beach. (2) Practice patience, so I wouldn’t drive myself nuts so often.

B. If you could take a class/workshop/apprentice from anyone in the world living or dead, who would it be and what would you hope to learn? (two more sentences, max)

Tough one… hmm… what does this say about me that I can’t answer quickly… ok, seeing as I was already fortunate to learn how to be a good man from my dad, I would say, I’d love to chill with Jesus for a bit to see whether he thinks the world today is really just tied up like bollocks…

4) A. What three words might your best friends or family use to describe you?

(1) Funny. (2) Smart. (3) Handsome. What can I say, I know they love me.

B. Now list two more words you wish described you…

(4) Happy. (5) Respected.

5) What are your top three passions? (can be current or past, work, hobbies, or causes– three sentences max)

(1) Family. (2) Making difficult things look easy. (3) Having a good idea early.

6) (sue me) Write–and answer–one more question that YOU would ask someone (with answer in three sentences max)

What would be two things (one practical, one fanciful) you could observe in your lifetime that would restore (or sustain) your faith in humanity?

(1) Practical: Landing a man on Mars.  (2) Fanciful: Free market solution to eliminating demand for fossil fuels.

Cheers.