Innovation should be a part of any normal healthy product and strategy development process. Unfortunately, because it represents the “new” and the “risky” by definition, it is often treated as some type of magic goal, where normal rules do not apply. This “otherness” makes us jump to wild conclusions as we feel totally out of our element as business people.

Broadly, there are 5 major steps to any innovation initiative:

• ideation
• evaluation
• implementation
• integration
• monetization

At any point along the chain, something may go wrong to prevent innovation, even if it has nothing to do with innovators or good ideas.

Today, my wife replied to a tweet of mine and a few minutes later, I noticed an odd retweet of her response.

“@rolfsky The OpenOffice version is worse, though”

Without the context that I was wrestling with Microsoft Office’s bulleted list implementation, it didn’t make a lot of sense to RT. Something only a bot would do.

Another curious element was that the retweet by “unixland” was made with the Perl Net::Twitter package, not by any recognized twitter client. Suspicious.

A quick check of unixland’s feed shows a fair number of retweets that seem to have little common thread, and then liberal inclusions of links to “Computerhulp” in Amsterdam, and the owner’s personal photography website. Bogus.

This got me digging a little deeper, and I clicked on the hashtag for eBay’s recent developers conference, #eBayDC10. Bizarrely, though the conference had ended, there were several tweets about it not having happened yet. Bizarre.

10 Tips for Identifying Fake Twitter Accounts

1. tweets seem to follow no central theme or narrative, perhaps referencing conflicting locales or geographies
2. tweets reference items in the past as if they haven’t happened yet
3. many tweets begin with an ascending series of letters (an attempt to fake uniqueness)
4. first name is filled out as “Name” or username is in the form of “firstName_lastName” or a string followed by digits “fooBar1234”
5. posting application is some type of automated or command line driven method such as just “API” or “Perl Net::Twitter” (needed for automation)
6. many/most of the tweets contain links
7. the recurring links lead the same place (or even the same tweets, repeated!)
8. no web, bio, or location information
9. are only following popular individuals
10. are only followed by other accounts that have very few/no tweets

Of course, this is now a cat-and-mouse arms race, escalating the conflict between the virtuous Twitterers, and the despicable spammers that want to profit off everything. And even writing down this list will help the spammers, as a number of these items are easily resolved, such as adding in additional stolen information for web, bio, and location links, creating more varied tweet schemes, and automating via the web instead of API.

I say, bring it on spammers. (Because at the very least, that will create at least one anti-spam job position at Twitter.)

Why are moaners jerks? Because they’re not adding anything to the conversation, they’re merely causing strife because they can.

Even when they see the problem coming, what do they do in their moment of power? Whine, warn, and admonish?

If everybody recognizes the problem already exists, they’re just stealing valuable time and air when we could be getting real work on a solution done. If nobody else recognizes the problem, then what they should really be doing is trying to convince.

Convincing is not restating your assessment of the situation repeatedly in louder and louder words. I’ve been there, it doesn’t work. Really.

The word “convince” has two Latin roots:

• con- /(com-)  – “with”, or “a lot”
• vincere – “to conquer”

Now, you can read the “con” prefix as an “intensive” so the word means “to conquer resolutely”, of you can read the other meaning as “with”. This would change the meaning of convince to mean “mutual victory”.

In order to win this fight, you’re going to have to work with your opponent and come to a mutual conclusion. This may mean changing your method, your media, your language or even your dress if it’s important enough.

Just because you are right, doesn’t mean anybody has to listen to you. Any more than you are required to listen to them.

Al Gore is not a jerk, because he believes we’re destroying our planet with greenhouse gases, and he’s doing something about it. To get his message across, he created a new piece of media in the form of a lecture and a movie, accessible to entirely new audiences. He did this while maintaining his credibility with a different generation, by dressing in a suit and tie to deliver his message. Clever, eh?

Because ultimately, what good is “knowing” what’s going to happen, if you don’t do anything about it? The “I told you so”, is a joyless victory shared by gumbling I-told-you-so-er’s on the porch of a house in a world they saw coming, and did nothing to stop.

AT&T has released new wireless data plans, removing the option for a $30 per month “unlimited” data access plan for smartphones. Instead, they have replaced it with two new metered plans, at $15/200MB and $25/2GB.

My understanding was that the previously “unlimited” data plan wasn’t really unlimited, but more like 5GB before they started to complain at you. If we assume that “unlimited” really meant 5GB… that breaks down as the following:

• old plan $30 for 5GB: $6/GB
• new plan $15 for .2 GB: $75/GB
• new plan $25 for 2GB: $15/GB

 

AT&T says that if you’re on the $15/month plan, you can get an additional 200MB for another $15, or $10 per each 1GB if you’re on the $25/month plan.

To support their notion that these plans “make it more affordable for more people to enjoy the benefits of the mobile Internet”, they cite the two following statistics:

• “Currently, 65 percent of AT&T smartphone customers use less than 200 MB of data per month on average.”
• “Currently, 98 percent of AT&T smartphone customers use less than 2 GB of data a month on average.”

Here’s the rub: The stats they cite about smartphone data use all hinge on the very first word of their sentences: “currently”.

Yes, while currently these plans would seem to make sense and lower costs for users… that is of course before widespread adoption of the data-hungry iPad 3G, and the new iPhone which will likely support video calls. Surely these stats will change when the new iPhone rolls around.

AT&T never has the best interests of the customer in mind. They are in the business to make money. Just a friendly reminder.

PS. I personally will be sticking with my “$15/month unlimited MEdianet non-smartphone plan”.

And what do we call these things anyway? PDAs? Handhelds?

Since 1999, I’ve had 4 devices with a touchscreen, which ostensibly keep track of what I should be doing, but usually were just a way for me to read the news.

The PalmPilot and the iPod/iPhone may not look related, but Apple owes a lot of “inspiration” to Palm. The concept of “swipe”? Palm did it first. Installable apps, check. No qwerty? Check. No multi-tasking, but fast switching? Check. No directory structure of files? Check. Clean-slate designed experience? Check.

If you think installable apps are the sole invention of Steve Jobs, think again. Palm had thousands of developers writing a myriad of apps for their platform, even if they never really grasped the concept of supporting a sanctioned app store. Because of this, various 3rd party sites sprung up to support the app market, (including individual developers), leading to a fractured marketplace.

On the far left is my venerable PalmPilot Professional. Released in 1997, it still merrily springs to life with a fresh set of 2 x AAA’s and gleefully powers the 160×160 pixel monochrome screen in the deep-purple/light-green scheme that I remember. This was my introduction to handheld computing, and the best thing about this device? Battery life. I could literally go 3 months on one set of non-rechargeable AAAs.

My Sony Clie from 2002 was a replacement for my PalmPilot, with a sharper display and more memory. Honestly, if this device had wifi, it’d still be very serviceable today. There’s even a native Facebook app and a perfectly usable web-browser which can be used to access any current mobile site.

With the iPhone, Apple brought to the table a responsive processor, delicious graphics, a refined input method, and a rationalized app store. I would say that the iPhone/iPod Touch is the spiritual successor of the Palm line, just better. I haven’t had a chance to demo a Palm Pre, but it looks like that’s what they were going for.

On the far right is my latest communicator, the Nokia 5800 Music Express Navigation Edition. Let’s be clear, this is no iPhone 3G, not by a longshot. Why? all the things I mentioned above as improvements to the Palm line that Apple has done, none of them are part of this device. It’s slow, dark, tedious, and has a very poor app store.

So why’d I buy the Nokia 5800?

The most obvious difference here is price.  An unlocked iPhone 3G is between $600 and $700. The Nokia 5800 MusicExpress Navigation Edition only cost $250. And since I was already carrying the iPod touch with me everywhere, the Nokia just has to stand in when I actually want to receive a call, navigate via GPS, or take a photo. And if I get really desperate, I can always use the wifi sharing to give my 3G connection to the iPod Touch and get some real work done.