Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Monday, Apr 30, 2007
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Business Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Monday, Apr 30, 2007 ePaper |
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Internet Columns - Come Again! The message and the medium
A SET OF CUSHIONS each with a different remote function: one for power, one for channels and one for volume. (http://www.didierandnicholas.com/)
Your correspondent had been travelling quite extensively in the last month, and in the course of his travels had the opportunity to meet some top media and technology executives. Two incidents remain fresh in mind. After a long and exhaustive tour of the new media facilities of a top Japanese paper, famous for its new media initiatives, especially in the mobile arena, the visitors were led to a conference room to meet the top executives. The visitors were predominantly European, with your correspondent being only one of two Asians. We had had an awesome tour, and were marvelling at the leadership and resourcefulness of the Japanese, when the director of technology rose to speak. What he had to say was more shocking than all the wonderful things we'd seen his company do: He said that he was ashamed that they had not even scratched the surface of the potential of new technology now available in Japan. And then recently, as part of a product launch event in New York, Brian Wilson, Distinguished Director and CTO Strategic Insight Office, Sun Microsystems, spoke about the state of the information technology industry. He had many points to make, several of which will be covered in future instalments of this column, but the most telling was this: He used an ordinary overhead projector (did you know that they are still around?), writing the points or making doodles as he was speaking. He kept the entire audience of journalists (who are most sceptical and tired of canned presentations) completely engaged. One of the reasons, as we discussed among ourselves later, was that he forced us to listen and take notes. And, as we really listened (knowing that we can't ask for a copy of the presentation), we found that he had many interesting things to say. The funny part is that if he had said the same things with a computer presentation, we may not have paid half the attention, and thereby, not learned as much. Two completely different points - the need to be at the cutting edge, and the need to make certain that people are listening, if only by not using the latest tech - both made by two people from completely different cultures who could make tired media people sit up by just being humble. All that travel made your correspondent fairly tired and he had the luxury of taking some days off, and he was so lazy that he'd rather stare at the bedroom ceiling than get up to fetch the TV remote. But he didn't know, then, about Didier and Nicholas' Cushion Control (http://www.didierandnicholas.com/): a set of cushions each with a different remote function: one for power, one for channels and one for volume.
N. Nagaraj
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