Z Tejas

I happened to be in Scottsdale for the annual Demo Conference and on the last night before heading home I had dinner with some friends and family at Z Tejas Grille in Tempe, Arizona (20 W. 6th Street - +1 480 377-1170). This was a very unique restaurant that I would highly recommend -- and have added to my restaurant list. The food seemed to me like a blend of Mexican, Southwest, and Japanese. It was really tasty. They have twelve restaurants in seven states. I suspect they are highly profitable.

Favorites February 24, 2003 09:25 PM

Customer Retention

Everyday we get more reminders that we are just a few percent of the way into what the Internet has in store for our business and personal lives. A friend in IBM UK Ltd., just wrote and told me about his experience in applying to re-mortgage his home. The bank, which I will call UKBank Ltd. here, offered an online application process. After filling out the application, my friend received an email that said, "Thank you for submitting your recent online application. >From the information on the application, I understand you are an existing account holder. Therefore you would need to make the application via our Customer Retention department.The contact number for the Retention team is 0825 7021347 and they are available Monday-Friday 8.30am-6.00pm. Sorry for any inconvenience caused and thank you again for your interest". They didn't even pass the details on to their "customer retention" department to call my friend. In other words, it is up to the customer to call the customer retention people so that they can be "retained" as a customer! (read more)

e-Business February 23, 2003 02:08 PM

Conference Update

The snow on the ground was was beautiful during the return flight from Phoenix to the East last night. Lifting it in a snow shovel today was not quite as nice an experience. Here are two additional links about the Demo 2003 conference...

IDG (the organizer) press releases
Press releases by companies who were at Demo

On Sunday I'll be heading to Dallas to speak at Share. (read more)

Conferences February 20, 2003 05:16 PM

Demo 2003

Demo is one of a few conferences I attend regularly -- this year was the eleventh year for me. The program this year was very interesting as usual including 61 companies showing off their technologies and solutions. Forty nine companies were on stage and another 19 got a "hot seat" where they received sixty seconds to describe their value propositions. The best part of the conference was to see so many old friends among the 500+ attendees and share our latest business cards. For the first time in 36 years, mine didn't say IBM on it. (That doesn't mean I didn't talk about IBM to everybody I could though). It was a special treat to be on a panel with Dan Bricklin, Mitch Kapor, and Les Vadasz to discuss the future of technology and innovation. Much of our discussion focused on blogging and WiFi. It isn't possible to describe all the exciting new things I saw at Demo but I am appending a list of my crib notes with links to the various companies. If you have any inkling that innovation has dried up, you should take a look. (read more) 

Blogging February 18, 2003 05:49 PM

The Home Office

The Hartford Courant ran a story this morning called, The Home Office, by Rebecca Reisner. I was pleased to be able to spend an hour on the phone with her to offer my thoughts. Since I have been spending most of my waking hours in my home office for some years I have a lot of thoughts about the matter. She reflected a couple of my thoughts along with those of others in her short story. She did a nice job. There are some more details about the technical parts of the office in patrickWeb, but it needs some updating -- a project I plan to do soon. (read more)

Personal Computing February 16, 2003 12:01 PM

My Phones

I appreciate the feedback that my last story helped clarify GSM and SIM for some readers. The main question I am getting is about what phone I use personally. For most of 2001 and 2002 I used the Kyocera Smartphone with service provided by Verizon. The Smartphone is an excellent phone but the screen is very difficult to read unless you have excellent lighting. I now use a Samsung i330. The 256 color graphic LCD is brilliant and easy to read under any circumstances. I also prefer having the single touchscreen with no lids or hinges. Like the Smartphone it has the Palm OS built in and allows me to keep my address book, calendar, to do list, and numerous documents synchronized with my ThinkPad. Verizon has the best coverage where I live but they don't support the i330. My new service provider is Sprint PCS. When out of the country I use a Motorola L Series+ GSM phone with service provided by T-Mobile. Someday I will have the "wifi global phone".

Internet Technology February 14, 2003 03:23 PM

The Global Phone

A fellow director at a recent board meeting asked me what phone I would recommend he buy that could be used anywhere in the world. My answer was that there isn't one today but soon the answer will be a WiFi phone. More on that shortly. The closest thing available today would be a phone which is supported by T-Mobile. The question my friend should have asked is what service provides cell phone coverage in the most places around the world. The secondary question would be what phones are available that use that service. T-Mobile operates the largest all digital, nationwide wireless network based on GSM -- Global System for Mobile Communications . T-Mobile covers most of the U.S. (more than 8,000 cities) and because it is based on GSM, it also works in 179 countries. GSM is the most widely used digital wireless standard in the world with more than 700 million subscribers.

It is often said that GSM is far superior to the various other cell phone provider choices in America. For most people the major benefit of ubiquitous GSM service would be the ability to pick whatever kind of phone you want to use. With other cellular plans you can't do that. You must first pick the service provider in your area and then find out which phones they support. This can be extremely limiting, especially if you like to have the latest and greatest phone. (read more)

Internet Technology February 14, 2003 02:58 PM

Tangled Up in Spam

The New York Times published a comprehensive story about Spam by James Gleick. It is a really good read. February 9, 2003 - Magazine section. See patrickWeb public policy archive for related stories.

Public Policy February 12, 2003 02:45 PM

WiFi - Update No. 6

There is so much going on in the WiFi arena that it is hard to keep up -- even if you are more than a little interested. I am using these updates as a way to share what I have been able to learn with some opinions and observations thrown in at no extra charge! Overall, things in the WiFi space look very much like things looked in 1993 with the Internet. Grass roots, standards based, things moving very fast, were the watchwords then and are today. Some say it is out of control and will fall of its own weight. It is comments of that nature that tell me there is no stopping it. One other thing I am quite sure of is that the major telecommunications companies are in for a much bigger surprise than they may think. WiFi has much more in store for everyone than any of us realize. This update will report on five areas. (read more)

WiFi February 12, 2003 02:19 PM

Favorites

We all have our favorites and I am no different. I have been keeping a list of books, concerts, plays, and restaurants here at patrickWeb for a number of years. The lists are growing and I can't say that each and every item remains an absolute favorite. However, the feedback I have received convinces me not to prune it. At a social event recently, a gentleman came up to me and thanked me for the reference to Café Salsa in Alexandria, Virginia. He happened to be there on business and stopped in for lunch. He said it was outstanding! I appreciated knowing that the list was valuable to him. Today in New York was incredibly cold but the board meeting at Knovel Corporation was productive and lunch at Tavern On The Green was exquisite. It now joins the restaurants list -- even though they need to work on their e-business implementation.

Favorites February 11, 2003 09:42 PM

Integration - But, Don't Forget To Call

We are really making progress in the world of e-business. Maybe I'll update my talk about The Future Of The Internet and say we are 3% of the way there instead of 2%. A board meeting this month will take me toNew York City and I decided to go to Tavern On The Green afterward. I haven't been there for quite a few years and thought it was time to try it out again. I am sure it will be a pleasant experience as it was in the past. I headed on over to their web site and was not surprised to see it was comprehensive -- pictures, menus, history, and even online reservations. (read more)

e-Business February 10, 2003 04:09 PM

patrickWeb Is Back On The Air

February 1, 2003 was a really bad day -- one that I will never forget. I am still deeply saddened about America's loss of seven great heroes and I feel the deepest sympathy for their friends and families. I have been thinnking about them for a week and will continue to do so but now it is time to resume blogging and share ideas. The patrickWeb weblog has more than a dozen categories (see complete list). There is also an archive of all postings organized by month and year. I have a long queue of things to write about and will start posting on Monday.

Blogging February 9, 2003 11:10 PM

Thoughts and Prayers

I am deeply saddened by the Columbia space shuttle accident as I am sure all of us are. It is hard to imagine the grief that the families must be dealing with. My heart aches also for the incredibly dedicated team at NASA. The astronauts were great heroes but also extraordinary individuals in every dimension -- the best of the best. Seeing and hearing the excitement they exuded over the space mission brings tears to my eyes. I hope that knowing the thoughts and prayers of millions of people around the world are with them makes it a little easier for the families to find the strength they will need in he days ahead. I will have more to say about NASA and space travel later but for the next week or so I will not be posting anything in the weblog out of respect for the astronauts.

People February 2, 2003 09:31 PM