You may notice that I have been quiet as of late…

There is, in fact, a good reason.

Read the rest of this entry »

As I sit in the hotel prior to heading over to meetings at the National Retail Federation “Big Show” (known on twitter as #NRF11), I’m following a somewhat standard pre-conference routine. The process is relatively simple and includes:

• A cup of coffee
• A music list set on random
• A view from a hotel window
• An open computer (or iPad) reading the conference hashtag and press releases from the event

The goal is simple…a bit of insight into the prevalent themes at the event prior to walking onto the show floor. The routine is only employed, and useful for that matter, when I am an attendee…but it has served quite well in the past.*

Read the rest of this entry »

• Marketing Tea Party – My New Year’s Resolutions: Being A Pro In 2011
  January 3, 2011 – Quite possibly the best set of New Year’s Resolutions of the many that I’ve read.
• Chaordic Mind – Your Security Left Behind : How compliance and security can play well together
  January 3, 2011 – An excellent post with a conclusion I appreciate…”Excellence within an organization is not achieved by measuring the compliance of an organization but by measuring the compliance of individuals and employees.”
• TechCrunch – Take The Red Pill: The Rise Of The Hybrid Startup
  January 3, 2011 – I rather like the term “hybrid startup”. The applicability of the term to the world of IP Commerce lies in the fact that the majority of companies leveraging our Platform are, in fact, hybrid. The strict, assumed division between eCommerce, retail, mobile, etc is simply not that clear any longer. These “hybrid” models are here to stay…
• Global Neighbourhoods – The importance of measuring relevancy
  January 3, 2011 – Well worth the read…relevance is key to understanding influence. However, it is quite a bit more difficult to logically measure.
• CloudAve – Speaking At Conferences, Should You Be Compensated?
  January 3, 2011 – This! “The big problem we see today is the whole notion of “pay to play,” meaning “you can speak at our conference if you pay us thousands of dollars.” Which many of the top conferences out there employ because at the end of the day they need to make a profit, but sadly the audience members are left with hearing sales pitches and product demos by the “speakers” who paid to speak! In an ideal world speakers should be selected based on what they can bring to the event not based on how much they are willing to pay.”
• Digital Money Forum – Why?
  January 3, 2011 – Intriguing. This speaks to the concept of consumer affinity and has been ticking in the back of my brain for over a month now…Just sharing now as I feel I, finally, have fully formed thoughts on the topic.

• Superconductor – The very first spam?
  December 22, 2010 – Remind me, at some point, to tell you about the time a family member printed out a series of email forwards (in full colour) and mailed them to me via USPS….
• Apigee Blog – RESTful API Design: Teach a Dog to REST
  December 22, 2010 – Rather enjoyed this!
• PYMNTS Voice – Musing from “Cartes 2010”: Is the NFC glass half-full or half-empty?
  December 22, 2010 – A compelling statement…”At times, I had the impression that the destiny of the industry was decided elsewhere, where operators and startups could be found.”
• Apigee Blog – Apigee’s API Console Gets a Shiny UI/UX Upgrade
  December 22, 2010 – Definitely worth a look. I remain impressed with Apigee’s technology as well as their involvement in the development community.
• The Catalyst Code – Point of Sale Revolution: Transformation of Payment Acceptance
  December 22, 2010 – This is worth reading…I have some additive thoughts and will comment, in greater detail, next week.

• Securosis Blog – What Amazon AWS’s PCI Compliance Means to You
  December 10, 2010 – Intrigued by the AWS announcement as it relates to PCI Compliance? I thought about writing a perspective…but with quality analysis like this, there is really no need.
• James Governor's Monkchips – Software Developers: do you think vertical industry expertise is important to your career?
  December 10, 2010 – I’m not that terribly surprised by the feedback that developers find vertical focus valuable in their career. Understanding, in detail, the issues in a vertical can be viewed by some as confining (depth rather than breadth) but it is also liberating in applying the solution to other challenges (pattern matching).
• PYMNTS Voice – Igniting Multi-Sided Platforms and Craking the Chicken-and-Egg Conundrum
  December 10, 2010 – Are you intrigued by the true implementation of Platforms and the multi-sided market? If so, read this.