How to Empty Your Inbox

I got a call from Claire Suddath at Bloomberg Businessweek a few weeks ago. She told me about their upcoming second annual “How To” special issue.  We talked quite a bit about the history of email and various approaches to manage it. By necessity, the story had to be edited down quite a bit to fit the available space. (The nice thing about the Web is that space is unlimited. See my original story that caught Claire’s eye below).  My little story is called “How to Empty Your Inbox” and it appears here.  The “How To” special issue includes 55 stories from “CEOs, tech visionaries, U.S. senators, an NFL referee, an artist, and, for good measure, an 11-year-old and a 106-year-old”.  The guest contributors shared a lot of interesting perspectives, and Businessweek did a nice job pulling it all together. The stories can be found here.  

Since I wrote the story last December, I have become more and more dependent on Boomerang.  Whenever I send anyone an email to which I hope for a reply, I click the check box  to have Boomerang send the email back to me if I don’t get a reply to it in X hours or days or weeks, depending on the timeliness needed. Whenever I receive board materials to read, I boomerang them back to me the night before the meeting or the morning of a train or plane ride to the meeting. When an email arrives that I really want to read but don’t have time to at the moment, I boomerang it back to me when I think I will have time. I have numerous periodic emails that I send to myself but where I click the “Send Later” button and have Boomerang send it to me on a specific date or once a month, quarterly, or annually. Boomerang is more than an email manager — it helps you manage your tasks and workflow. 

Original story about Boomerang as published on patrickWeb on December 3, 2011

I wish I had a dollar for every task management application I have used over the last few decades. There are many good ones, but the task manager that consistently works for me–and that I always end up relying on the most–is email. It is not true for everyone, but for me, an email in the inbox is a call to action. If there are more than a handfull of emails in my inbox, I do not feel I am in control of my life. When I have answered an email or taken some action based on that email and I then delete the email, I feel I have accomplished something. When the inbox is empty I feel very good — I have things under control. The problem is that on many days, getting to an empty state for the inbox is just not in the cards. Enter Boomerang!

Boomerang for Gmail is a browser plugin (for Firefox or Chrome) that I have found to be a great productivity tool. It is not a task manager, per se, but it greatly enhances my ability to get to the empty inbox state. If I receive an email invitation to attend an event and the RSVP date is two weeks from now and I don’t have time at the moment to consider it — Boomerang! I click the boomerang button and select “return to my inbox in 4 days”. You can click on choices such as in an hour, four hours, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, in a week, in a month, or at 3PM on March 14, 2013. A couple of clicks and the email is out of your inbox — but it will be back at a time when you are ready to deal with it. You can also send yourself an email and click the boomerang button to have it sent to you every Saturrning as a reminder to put out the trash. I have one email that comes to my inbox on the first of every month to remind me to update a Google Doc that I maintain as a log with my business use car mileage. Another one on the 15th of the month reminds me to update my steps database from my pedometer. If I am really busy when one of those mails arrives, no problem, just click the boomerang button and have it come back to you in a day or two or next week.

Boomerang also helps with workflow. For example, I may  read the news on the iPad with Pulp and see a story that I think would be of interest to others.  I hit the share button in Pulp and it sends me an email with the story link. I see the email later but I am not ready to write a story just yet — Boomerang! A couple of clicks and the email comes back to me Saturday morning. Another very powerful feature helps with follow-up. You can send someone an email requesting something and select a boomerang option to have the email return to you in four days if there has not been a reply to your email. A few clicks and you get a follow-up system. Boomerange also works with the iPad and iPhone. Maybe something better will come along, but for now, Boomerang for Gmail is helping me organize things the way I want and allowing me to stay on top of things and keep a feeling of being in control.  If you overuse it and everything gets boomeranged and nothing ever gets done, well then you have other problems that technology can’t solve!

Tags: bloomberg, boomerang, businessweek, e-mail, email, inbox, john patrick, productivity, task, task manager

My Doctoral Journey – Part 4

I really appreciate the support from my friends and family for my decision 17 months ago to begin the doctoral journey. I promised periodic updates and that is the purpose of this posting. I have now completed 27 credits of coursework out of the rquired 62 — approxmiately 43%. I completed a course in health care marketing in January and am now taking a course in health care economics. In December, I attended a second residency in Atlanta. The third residency will be in October. It will be an important step as it is the launching point from which I will be able to submit a proposal for my research study and dissertation.

The goal that every doctoral student shares is to successfully complete a dissertation as the final step in earning their degree. Some say that at least half of doctoral learners never complete their dissertation because of the incredible detail required to get a research topic developed and approved for research. A typical dissertation is 200-300 pages in length. Some consider the process more than challenging – a friend of mine told me he had an ABD degree – all but dissertation. A visit to Amazon and you can find a lot of books on how to “survive” a dissertation. I still remember the meeting with the academic review committee when I had to defend my masters thesis forty years ago. It seemed challenging at the time, but I can now see that it was nothing compared to what lies ahead for the doctoral dissertation.

I have completed a concept paper, which is the precursor to a proposal for a quantitative research study that I have in mind. The study relates to the cost of care and lives lost due to congestive heart failure (CHF). My mother passed away from CHF a few years ago and I learned a lot about the disease during her final months. As a member of the board at Western Connecticut Health Network, I can also see the impact from a hospital point of view. The concept paper is eleven pages long. Following are a few excerpts from the paper to share a few of the things I am considering.

Chronic heart failure (CHF) is the leading cause of hospitalizations and readmissions for the elderly, and accounts for a large share of developed countries’ healthcare expenditures. Although CHF is a condition for which hospitalization is often avoidable, nearly 20% of Medicare patients discharged from hospitals are readmitted within 30 days at a cost to Medicare of $15 billion annually.

The problem is that the frequent readmission of CHF patients to the hospital has a negative impact on the patient and the hospital. For the patient, it results in a reduced quality of life and a negative impact to their psychosocial and financial condition. For the hospital, it means using extra capacity for care while facing the risk of not receiving reimbursement for the associated cost. The purpose of my proposed quantitative research study will be is to answer the question of whether home-based telemonitoring with coordinated care could improve mortality and reduce hospital readmissions for patients with CHF.

Experimental research attempts to identify cause-and-effect relationships between variables by conducting a controlled experiment. The proposed research method I am considering would use a randomized controlled experiment in which patients are randomly allocated into two groups; one that receives pharmacological treatment with coordinated care (control group) and the other, which receives pharmacological treatment with telemonitoring and coordinated care (enhanced care group).

Telemonitoring makes it possible to gather daily data from patients in a consistent and automated manner. A wireless gateway device similar in size to a cellular telephone can automatically capture data from other wireless devises such as a weight scale, a blood pressure cuff, and a pulse oximeter to measure pulse and the level of oxygen in the blood (oxygenation). Since my last update, I have discovered several companies that have interesting technology for monitoring. These include cardionet.com and corventis.com. Around-the-clock access to a patient portal could display patient data and enable caregivers to respond proactively to the patient. For example, if the data from telemonitoring shows a sudden increase in the patient’s weight, a nurse might make a dietary suggestion or obtain authorization to make a change in medications.

There have been a number of similar studies but none have shown a significant benefit from telemonitoring. The research I have in mind would be focused on whether the right combination of healthcare delivery and technology can improve outcomes. The result could be improved quality of life for patients and, if the care plans are implemented in a cost-effective way, reduced financial risk for hospitals and the ability to invest more in their community healthcare mission.

I will have a further report on the proposal in a few months. In the meantime, I will be continuing with more course work. Since the program began one year ago, I have written 47 papers. Many more to come and then the big one! If everything goes right, I could be just a little less than two years from completion.

Index of stories about My Doctoral Journey

Tags: chf, dissertation, doctorate, e-learning, hospital, scholar, telemonitoring

Boomerang Your E-mail

I wish I had a dollar for every task management application I have used over the last few decades. There are many good ones, but the task manager that consistently works for me–and that I always end up relying on the most–is email. It is not true for everyone, but for me, an email in the inbox is a call to action. If there are more than a handfull of emails in my inbox, I do not feel I am in control of my life. When I have answered an email or taken some action based on that email and I then delete the email, I feel I have accomplished something. When the inbox is empty I feel very good — I have things under control. The problem is that on many days, getting to an empty state for the inbox is just not in the cards. Enter Boomerang!

Boomerang for Gmail is a browser plugin (for Firefox or Chrome) that I have found to be a great productivity tool. It is not a task manager, per se, but it greatly enhances my ability to get to the empty inbox state. If I receive an email invitation to attend an event and the RSVP date is two weeks from now and I don’t have time at the moment to consider it — Boomerang! I click the boomerang button and select “return to my inbox in 4 days”. You can click on choices such as in an hour, four hours, tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, in a week, in a month, or at 3PM on March 14, 2013. A couple of clicks and the email is out of your inbox — but it will be back at a time when you are ready to deal with it. You can also send yourself an email and click the boomerang button to have it sent to you every Saturrning as a reminder to put out the trash. I have one email that comes to my inbox on the first of every month to remind me to update a Google Doc that I maintain as a log with my business use car mileage. Another one on the 15th of the month reminds me to update my steps database from my pedometer. If I am really busy when one of those mails arrives, no problem, just click the boomerang button and have it come back to you in a day or two or next week.

Boomerang also helps with workflow. For example, I may  read the news on the iPad with Pulp and see a story that I think would be of interest to others.  I hit the share button in Pulp and it sends me an email with the story link. I see the email later but I am not ready to write a story just yet — Boomerang! A couple of clicks and the email comes back to me Saturday morning. Another very powerful feature helps with follow-up. You can send someone an email requesting something and select a boomerang option to have the email return to you in four days if there has not been a reply to your email. A few clicks and you get a follow-up system. Boomerange also works with the iPad and iPhone. Maybe something better will come along, but for now, Boomerang for Gmail is helping me organize things the way I want and allowing me to stay on top of things and keep a feeling of being in control.  If you overuse it and everything gets boomeranged and nothing ever gets done, well then you have other problems that technology can’t solve!

Tags: boomerang, e-mail, email, productivity, task, task manager

IBM at 100 – A Day of Nostalgia and Optimism

I was not exactly sure what to expect when I arrived at the world famous T. J. Watson Research Center at IBM last week. I have been there many times over the years but never to a birthday party. I walked in to the arrival tent where light refreshments were being served and the crowd of 350 invited guests began to build. One of the first people I saw was Allen Krowe. Allen had been CFO of IBM and then Vice Chairman of Texaco. I was his assistant back in 1981. I remember the day that he turned 50 years old and thinking that was very advanced. That was 30 years ago and NOW I am 15 years older than he was then. Then I saw Spike Beitzel. Spike had been a sales manager in Philadelphia for IBM’s insurance industry customers, the same position that I held some years later. Spike is a pilot, as was Allen, and many other senior IBM executives, including Thomas J. Watson, Jr. Spike is 83 and still flies his own airplane. It was nice to talk about aviation. It was a privilege to say hello to three IBM CEOs — John Akers, Lou Gerstner, and Sam Palmisano. There were four current and former heads of IBM Research there. One of them was Ralph Gomory. I am not sure how old Ralph is but he got his PhD in mathematics from Princeton in 1954. Whenb he retired from IBM in 1989 he became president of the Sloan Foundation. The pattern became clear — this was not just a birthday party for IBM; it was an alumni reunion for executives that worked for IBM over the past fifty years. Then I ran into the former heads of IBM Japn, IBM China, IBM Italy, IBM Brazil, and various other parts of IBM from around the world. Former Chairman Thomas J. Watson, Jr., said in 1957 that IBM “is a company of human beings, not machines; personalities, not products; people, not real estate.” That observation was true long before 1957 — and it remains so today. Although every IBMer makes a difference, there is a list of IBM Builders that were the pioneers who helped to fashion the IBM of the 21st century. Most of them were were among those in the tent; it was humbling to be in their midst and a thrill to shake their hands. Everyone had a smile on their face. It was a happy and nostalgic day that none of us will ever forget.

The main event took place in a really big tent. There were 2,000 members of IBM Research in attendance. During the opening ceremonies Sam Palmisano asked the thirty members of the Watson family in attendance to stand; everyone appreciated the heritage of the company. The family must have been proud to hear about Watson, the advanced Q&A system that triumphed at Jeopardy, and will surely change the way medicine is practiced as it transforms anecdotal medicine to personalized, evidence-based medicine. The program included some excellent videos about the past, present, and future of IBM. Senior VP Jon Iwata interviewed three journalists, Kevin Maney, Steve Hamm and Jeffrey O’Brien about the research they had done to write their new book about IBM called Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company. I have known Kevin for quite a few years. When he quoted someone in his columns at USA Today, you always knew that he would not use information out of context. Steve Hamm wrote the story about my home when he was at BusinessWeek. He now works for IBM. It was an alumni event with journalists too! Another panel with Senior VP John Kelly focused on IBM research efforts around the world, in particular about IBM’s advanced work on environmental and healthcare initiatives. Sam and senior vice president and group executive for sales, marketing and strategy Ginni Rometty painted a rosy picture of IBM’s future.  IBM also cares about the future of others. As part of its Celebration of Service, 300,000 IBMers around the world — nearly three quarters of its global workforce — volunteeried in more than 5,000 projects in 120 countries, helping millions in need. Since the beginning of the year, IBMers, retirees and their families have donated more than 2.5 million hours of service to communities worldwide. A lot of conofidence was exuded that another 100 years of innovation and growth are underway.

Tags: akers, Aviation, beitzel, evidence based medicine, gerstner, gomory, Healthcare, IBM, IBM Research, kevin maney, krowe, palmisano, personalized medicine, research, rometty, steve hamm, supercomputing, watson, yorktown

iPad – Part 4: What You Can’t Do

There are many things you can do with the iPad and we are only at the beginning — but there are some things you can’t do. Although I have been accused in jest that my enthusiasm for the iPad makes some wonder if I am on the Apple payroll. I am indeed very bullish about the iPad but this story is to highlight some of the things that — at this stage — you can do or not do very well with the iPad. Will the iPad replace the laptop? At some point, yes, but at this point I am writing this post on my ThinkPad (running Ubuntu Linux with the Google Chrome browser and WordPress). There is a reason why I am unable to write the story on the iPad. Inhiibitor #1 for the iPad is the browser. Steve Jobs has said that Safari is the world’s best browser and the iPad was introduced with no other choice. Many people think that Internet Explorer is the #1 browser — some think it is the only browser. Let’s start with some facts. In 2005 IE had 65% market share — even though many people, myself included, think it is the worst of all browsers. Fast forward to March 2010. IE8 had 15% share, IE7 had 11%, and IE6 was at 9%. The total for IE was 35%. Firefox was 46%. Google Chrome (my primary browser) has gained every month since it was introduced in 2008 and now stands with a 12% share. Apple Safari is at 4% and Opera Software at 2%. I think Safari is a good browser but not a great browser. Perhaps it will become great if Apple continues to invest in it but based on the numbers they have a long way to go. When it comes to the iPhone and iPad the Safari share is 100% since that is all that is offered. One exception is that Opera Mini is now available on the iPhone. If they can get an iPad specific version approved that would be nice. So one thing you can’t do with the iPad is surf all the sites you can surf on the desktop. I have found a number of sites that do not work properly with Safari. That is what forced me to be writing this story on the ThinkPad.

Even if Safari worked flawlessly with WordPress and MovableType, writing any significant blog post (or other document) is not as productive as using a PC or laptop with a large flat screen. I typically have a dozen tabs open on my flat panel — gmail, iGoogle, calendar, a few spreadsheet projects, WordPress, wikiPedia, etc. It is easy to copy paste links and info from other pages into the blog post. You could do it on iPad but it is a lot more tedius.

I also have discovered that a number of iPad apps that have come from the PC or Mac world are not inclusive. For example eBay on the iPad is very nice but there are things like adding a reputation or preparing an invoice for the buyer, etc. that are not there. The Apple calendar, contacts, and mail applications are very nice and freshly updated from the iPhone versions. They are a joy to use but they do not have the full functionality of the PC versions — can’t send to groups in gmail, can’t add group designations in contacts, can’t add text message reminders in calendar. I use usps.com to do a mailing and stamps.com to mail packages. They both require printing. The iPad can’t print. Although it can handle pdf files in emails, it doesn’t support creation of pdf’s which is what both the mailing apps do. I did find one iPad app called PrintCentral that boasted that it enables the iPad to print without installing any printer software on the iPad. I bought the app ($9.99) and then found out that it does require software to be installed on your PC and then that enables the iPad to print to any printer on your LAN. Not even as easy as it sounds however, and to use it your PC or laptop has to be on and connected to the LAN. Handling of files, generally, is not a strong suit for the iPad. The file system is closed so you have no visible directories, you can not detach attachments and put them somewhere (except for pictures). Everything is handled through iTunes which is clearly not optimized for file sharing. I expect this to get easier as clever app developers find ways to get around the various impediments. GoodReader for example is a great tool for managing PDFs. You can access the GoodReader app from a PC, create folders on the iPad from your PC, and upload PDF files into the folders. This gives you a repository for documents to read offline on the iPad. I use it mostly for board papers and find it extremely valuable. Others at the conference tables are attracted to the idea — I should get an Apple commission!

Meanwhile I finished reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough using the iPad iBook reader. What a great book. After reading a few books on the iPad I can confidently repeat my enthusiasm for the Kindle. The light weight really makes a difference. It is also superior when reading out in the sunny weather we have been having lately. For now at least the optimum reading for me is to use the Kindle app on the iPad while on the treadmill and x-trainer or at the reading stand in front of my easy chair,  to use the  Kindle on iPhone while in a supermarket line or killing a few minutes at the train station, and the Kindle while curled up in bed. Once the iPad iBook novelty and fascination of the curling page flips with text on the back of the pages wears off, one thinks about the reason you read books — the content, not the page flips. the Kindle wins hands down — for now. On Wings Of Eagles was recently released on Kindle and that has been my read this week. Ken Follett doesn’t write much non-fiction and he did a spectacular job of taking a factual story of the EDS rescue in Iran in 1979 sound like a legitimate novel. One can’t wonder how the mission would have gone differently if iPhones had existed back then.

Bottom line, the iPad is a great device and I love it. It can’t do everything — no camera, no phone, no usb keys, weak printing and file handling — but it can do almost everything. And, it is very personal. You show it to friends and family but you don’t  let it out of your site. You let them play with it, but not much. It contains your personal information of all kinds. It knows where you are. In time, it will be watching you and you will be watching others with it.

iPad stories on patrickWeb
Other gadget related stories on patrickWeb

Tags: apple, blog, cloud, Gadgets, ipad, magazine, newspaper, publishing

iPad – Part 3: Other Reading

Many of us have weighed in on the various aspects of e-books and e-readers. The jury will be out for quite awhile as the publishers, Apple, Sony, Google, Lenovo, Dell, and numerous others refine their strategy for what goes into a book, how it is displayed, and how it is priced. While the book war heats up, there are other dimensions of the e-readers to consider.

Reading magazines and newspapers on the Kindle can be quite convenient  – especially if you travel a lot — but I can’t say it is enjoyable or even natural. On the iPad reading magazines and newspapers is enjoyable and increasingly will seem the natural way to read them. The New York Times got good press at the launch of the iPad but I find it weak. The WSJ, however, is quite good. Easy to navigate and you get the full “paper” as it was published in the morning plus updates during the day. The ads are annoying and it doesn’t take long to realize that it takes two swipes to go to the next page if the page you are leaving is an ad. I would rather not have the ads but having them is the publishers only hope of making money which they need if we want good journalists. The NPR and BBC news apps are pretty good also. The Zinio ipad app is home to a large number of magazines. A few are free. Pricing is reasonable — Popular Mechanics, for example, is $7.99 for tweleve issues. Flipping Zinio pages is smooth and natural. Bottom line is that reading newspapers and magazines on the iPad is a pleasing and natural experience. My friend Jim Kollegger at Genesys Partners says “the iPad will do for publishing what the ATM did for cash”.

Aside from books, magazines, and newspapers there is an infinite amount of material to read on the iPad. Even the uninitiated organizations of the world are distributing their documents in PDF format. Not my long term favorite format but it is far better than receiving a doc file that wants to open some “bloatware” to be read. In cases where I must receive a fax I have it sent to my efax number and it shows up in the gmail inbox as a PDF. When checking out of a hotel I ask the desk to fax a copy of my room bill “to my office, no cover sheet required”. The PDF in my inbox can then be archived or used for reimbursement purposes. For more significant PDF’s that are important for future reference or even a board packet for a meeting I use the GoodReader iPad app to store and read the files. I would prefer that things were synced in the cloud rather than iTunes but the process of moving PDF’s from my ThinkPad to the iPad over the home LAN is easy now that I have done it quite a few times. The storage of the iPad allows nearly unlimited documents for most of us and having the documents “local” is nice for travel plus partaking of the great zoom and pinch features lets you have whatever the optimum view for you may be. This is especially important for charts and graphs.

In preparation for a board meeting this past week, I received the normal FedEx package containing the agenda and board papers. It was 38 pages, and including the binder clip, weighed a half-pound. I emailed the person organizing the meeting and asked for a PDF. After saving the attachment on the ThinkPad and uploading it over the LAN to the GoodReader app on the iPad I was good to go. Both reading the papers in a comfy chair the day before the meeting and following as needed at the conference room table were a welcome approach compared to fumbling with the paper. I reminded some people about the time, cost, and environmental impact of the old approach. In theory the same thing could be done with the iPhone but I have to admit that it is difficult with tabular information and graphs. It has certainly been feasible with the laptop but then you have to worry about battery life and the bulk of the device on the table. The iPad fills the bill really well. Another handy document reading tool on the iPad is the Memeo Connect Reader which syncs your Google Docs folders to the iPad app. This is really nice when you are on an airplane or somewhere that doesn’t have a WiFi signal.

And then there is reading what bloggers have to say and the thousands of news feeds. I am using both NewsRack and Early Edition on the iPad. Both are evolving, listening to feedback and continuously improving their products. You can read patrickWeb, BusinessWeek, The Economist, Engadget or any of the millions of feeds that are out there. You can add new feeds on the iPad or use Google Reader on the desktop and have the feeds automatically sync to your iPad reader. The size and clarity of the iPad makes it quite enjoyable to scan through the feeds and read stories of interest. Another nice iPad app is the Wiki (squared). You enter a word of interest, read the article about it just like an encyclopedia but then follow the links and read to your heart’s content. A real bargain for 99 cents.

How about creating documents? There are more tools to read than there are to write but there are some incredibly sophisticated writing tools available on the iPad. Apple itself features Keynote, Pages, and Numbers. I was skeptical about creating and manipulating a spreadsheet on the iPad but with Apple Numbers and no training I have learned how to do it. It is mostly intuitive. What surprised me is the breadth and depth of the functionality. I have a couple of other favorite iPad tools for writing. First is the CarbonFin Outliner. I have always liked outliners as a way to organize thoughts for a meeting or discussion agenda. You can add bullets and sub-bullets and then move them up or down or promote or demote them in the outline. The Outliner is available on a web site and you can sync your outlines. That enables you to make a change on any computer or on the iPad and everything is synced. This is the beauty of the Cloud and the way all applications should be (and will be). I have been using the Outliner for more than a year with the iPhone and I can highly recommend it. Another nice app is Things. Aside from being way overpriced ($19.99), Things provides a well organized way to capture your to do’s in buckets — Today, Next, Scheduled for a specific date, Someday, and Projects. As things get completed or moved around they show up in the Logbook. I have tried dozens of task list managers over the years and end up using scraps of paper and email as the dominant tools. Maybe Things, with the personal relationship people will have with their  iPad, will make it a winner. I especially like the “Someday” category as a way to capture those things you think of that you want to do but you know you are not going to do anytime soon.

Meanwhile I am still reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough. Among my friends and recent acquaintances it seems I am the only one who has not read this great epic book. Both the political and engineering complexities encountered in the project are mind boggling. Even though I can’t seem to find the time to finish this great book in a timely manner, I am getting used to reading on the iPad.

iPad stories on patrickWeb
Other gadget related stories on patrickWeb

Tags: apple, blog, cloud, Gadgets, ipad, magazine, newspaper, publishing

iPad Thoughts

I confess — the doorway did not get out of my sight for the entire day yesterday. I had placed my order early in the morning on March 12 and when the first tranch of thousands of iPads left China for Louisville, KY and then to Orlando and on to Daytona and then onto a big brown truck, I did not want to be the unreliable part of the distribution scheme that Apple had planned with precision. By 4 PM the doubts were arising but at 5 PM my iPhone rang and it was the UPS driver at the front door with an iPad in his hands. Here are the thoughts about the new tablet so far.

Initial Thoughts
Reading Books
Reading Books
What You Can Not Do
Printing
File Sharing And Printing
Tale of Two Readers
In the Sun
Kindle 456

Tags: books, e-readers, Gadgets, ibook, ipad, Kindle, temperature

iPad – Part 2: Book Reading

If the financial analysts are right, Apple may soon have a market capitalization of more than $250 billion — that is one quarter of a trillion dollars. Apple stock is up seven-fold in the past five years. People were skeptical of the stock price then and some are now but it is quite possible that the iPhone and the iPad have changed the game for the company in a very positive way. The “spillover” effect is that Mac sales are also booming and half of the buyers are first-time Mac buyers. Can Apple sustain such a high growth rate? The world is a big place and more than half of the iPhone sales last quarter were outside of America. The iPad sales outside the U.S. have not even started yet. The potential is very large — many billions of dollars.

Tim Cook, the COO at Apple, said that he is addicted to his iPad and that he could not live without it. I have to confess I am in the same state of mind. Many friends have asked me why I am so enthusiastic about it. Is it the music, beautiful photo display, dazzling graphics, watching movies, the greatly enhanced iPhone applications that have come to life, a great new email program, effortless web browsing, the elegance of the device, the simplicity of using it? Yes. All of the above and much more. (See “iPad Thoughts” for an index to patrickWeb iPad stories).  The main thing about the iPad is that it is personal. A bit hard to describe but the personal factor is what will make people tell their friends about it and proudly show it to them — but not let it out of their site. Curling up in a comfy chair and being able to do almost anything in the digital world — almost everything — but not everything is what the iPad is about. Stories to come will focus on the personal and other aspects of the iPad. The purpose of this story is to offer some thoughts about book reading.

Will the iPad dethrone the Kindle? I don’t claim to have the answer but I may have some clues. I would like to share the experience of reading e-books in six ways. The PC is one and categorically not a candidate to be considered, as I am sure we all would easily agree. Second is the Barnes & Noble Nook. I had one of the first and after a couple of books it was sold on eBay for what I paid for it. See the epilogue here. That leaves four — the iPhone, the Kindle, the iBook reader on the iPad, and the Kindle reader on the iPad. I selected one of David McCullough‘s outstanding pieces of work and read chapters alternately on the four readers. Following are my thoughts.

Not that many years ago I said in speeches that I “would never read a book on my cell phone”. I was wrong. Reading a whole book is unlikely for me but reading a chapter here and a  chapter there is for sure. Standing in line at the supermarket or waiting for a subway train or maybe sitting on a park bench offers a chance to consume something you are really anxious to read. The iPhone Kindle app provides a landscape view and it is quite readable and simple to navigate. The beautiful thing is that when you later pick up your Kindle or the Kindle app on the iPad and open the reader it asks you if you want to continue where you left off on your iPhone. The Amazon Whispersync feature is innovative and extends your reading time and enjoyment. Apple will surely have something similar or better before the year is over and Google Android readers will no doubt have a sync feature as well.

One disadvantage of the iPad as a reader is that at one and a half pounds — not a lot compared to a laptop or even a netbook — it is five times heavier than a Kindle. The weight is concentrated in a thin flat device and I find it uncomfortable to hold after a while. The other thing is the back-lighting. The iPad screen is actually bright — perfect for flipping  through photos, watching a movie, or surfing the web, but for a couple of hours of reading it can be hard on your eyes. The positive aspect of the iBook reader is the graphical representation of the bookshelf and the flipping of the pages. It is truly incredible that as you slowly “flip” a page with your finger you can see the words on the back of the page. You have to see it to believe it. The processing power to perform the page turning is equivalent to what was called a supercomputer not long ago. The iBook reader also has some very nice content related features. The brightness can be adjusted — helps with eye fatigue — and there are five selectable fonts with variable sizes. I really like the display at the lower right of each page that shows how many pages remain to be read in the current chapter. An icon at the top brings you the table of contents of the book and a listing of all your bookmarks. Adding a new bookmark is very simple. You tap tap on a word and a menu pops up asking if you want to look up the word in a dictionary, search the book for occurrences of the word, or make the word be a bookmark. When I show someone the iPad iBook reader I always make sure to place a bookmark so that after they get finished paging around I can get back to where I was.

The Kindle reader on the iPad is an updated version of the iPhone reader. It takes good advantage of the larger screen and also allows you to change the color of the pages — white, black, or sepia. The content controls are good but not as slick as the iBook reader. Ditto with the page turning. The Kindle reader has the graphical page flip but it doesn’t show the words on the back of the page. Certainly not something you need but it makes a distinction for the iBook reader that people find impressive.

Last but certainly not least of the four is the Kindle itself. The Kindle uses e-ink —   it is reflective — like paper. The more light the better. Like millions of others, I am Kindlzed — since 2007. The 5 once device never burdens the wrist. The Kindle is monochrome but we don’t need color to read a novel. The Kindle is simple and intuitive to use. Not flashy, compared to the iPad, but dependable with long battery life. For extended reading sessions the Kindle remains best, in my opinion — for now. I expect things to change. The multi-purpose ability o
f the iPad is important. I find myself jumping over to check or send an email when I think of something while reading. Rather than just look up a word in the built-in dictionary I sometimes want to visit the Wikipedia or explore a web site. The iPad has personal appeal and you get attached to it. Publishers are busy working with authors to create multimedia content to be integral to new and backlisted books — audio in the background, video interviews with the author or clips of content relevant to the topic of the book may make books more appealing and also may make them worth more — which brings us to the pricing.

The McCullough book was $9.99 on Amazon and $14.99 through the iBook store at Apple. Same book. No multimedia content. Is Apple’s version of the book worth 50% more? Publishers really don’t like the idea of people getting used to paying $9.99 for a book. They want a new model. Apple is accommodating them — so far. Time will tell how things are going to shake out. Ken Auletta’s piece from the April 26, 2010 issue of The New Yorker explores the state of book publishing with excellent analysis of the strategies of the  two digital behemoths — Amazon and Apple, and also describes how Google will soon follow with it’s readers and online store. There is a very large fight beginning for control of the e-books market.

There will be much more to say about the book market but in the meantime the iPad will be selling briskly. No doubt in my mind that there will be very large adoption — tens of millions for sure — and it will make a big dent in PC’s. Also, more to say about what the iPad can not do and about the bigger question of iTunes. When will it be in the cloud? The iPhone will continue to be an important part of my life — for calls and picture taking. This morning I had an appointment at a place that had no WiFi (fewer and fewer of such places) so I turned on the iPad and took a minute or two to download my email inbox and the Wall Street Journal before leaving the house. It was more than enough to occupy my subsequent idle time.

iPad stories on patrickWeb
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Neonatal Healthcare

We can all picture a hospital neonatal environment where a plethora of
medical monitors connected to babies are used to alert hospital staff
to potential health problems before patients develop clinical signs of infection or other issues. There are breakthroughs on the horizon for how this will be done. Today the instrumentation generates huge amounts of information — up to 1,000 readings per second — which is summarized into one reading every 30 to 60 minutes. The information is stored for up to 72 hours and is then discarded. If the stream of data could be captured, stored and analyzed in real time there would be a huge opportunity to improve the quality for special care babies. 

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iPad – Part 1: Initial Thoughts

I confess — the doorway did not get out of my sight for the entire day yesterday. I had placed my order early in the morning on March 12 and when the first tranch of thousands of iPads left China for Louisville, KY and then to Orlando and on to Daytona and then onto a big brown truck, I did not want to be the unreliable part of the distribution scheme that Apple had planned with precision. By 4 PM the doubts were arising but at 5 PM my iPhone rang and it was UPS driver at the front door with an iPad in his hands.

If you know how to use an iPhone then you know how to use an iPad. I would not agree with some who say the iPad is *just* a “big iPhone”.  In fact I see the iPad as the beginning of the end of a lot of things as we know them today. It will not immediately replace laptops, netbooks, magazines, Kindles, and televisions — not immediately. Over time, however, it is easy to see how the world will change.
When we introduced the ThinkPad in 1992 it seemed like a huge deal just to get everyone at IBM to agree with the name. No one, certainly not me as VP of marketing at the time, had any idea that more than 30 million ThinkPads would be sold. The iPad will surely sell multiple times that number but more important the iPad will change the model of personal computing — not immediately and not for everyone, but for many millions of people the PC will begin to look like a dinosaur.
One of my reasons for such a bullish view is the number of skeptics coming forward to say that the iPad is not what it is cracked up to be. Skeptics have been a reliable predictor of the next big thing — the Internet is too insecure to allow for banking and insurance. WiFi is too expensive and slow and will fizzle. Blogging was to peak out some years ago. Social networking is a fad. The iPad is just a big iPhone. Those with decades of experience with PC’s may find it difficult to master the iPad but the younger generation which grew up on Nintendo will find it natural. They will use it not just for games, music, videos, and browsing but for creative work — writing, drawing, composing, authoring, building, creating documents and web sites and multi-media content.