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Now I’m definitely not a car guy, but there’s one thing that’s kept my interest during car commercials lately.  The hands-free media technology, Ford Sync, is revolutionary and a big contributor to restoring Ford’s tarnished reputation.

We’ve seen how much American car manufacturers have been struggling lately – highlighted by GM’s huge free fall.  There were many different contributing factors including rising health care costs, a focus on big cars and SUV’s at a time when gas costs were the highest ever, a reliance on huge factories when demand was falling, etc.  But the biggest problem with American automakers was the lack of innovation.  Chrysler, Ford, and GM were profitable for so long that they became completely set in their ways.  They did the same things with the same workforce.  The only changes were slight manufacturing improvements, and minor design differences.  There were no game changing innovations, and that’s exactly what American automakers needed.

Enter Ford Sync.  This wireless media technology allows you to hook up your mobile phone and MP3 player to your car’s dashboard so that you can operate everything via voice command.  First of all, this helps make you a safer driver.  You no longer need to dial numbers on your cell phone or even hold it to your ear while driving.  Ford Sync also allows you to send hands-free text messages which is a huge benefit since texting while driving has been compared to drunk driving.  The other major benefit is that Ford Sync allows you to stay connected when you’re commuting.  With Twitter, Facebook, and social media becoming a major part of our lives it’s sometimes difficult for some people to go without checking their networks.  With the new Ford Sync API, many of these applications will be soon built into Ford Sync directly.

Like I said earlier, I’m not a car guy at all.  I’ve had my ‘96 Corsica for over 6 years now and I don’t feel any real urgency to trade up.  I honestly have no idea whether Ford Sync would be practical for me because I haven’t looked into the kind of cars it works in or more importantly the price.  But I do know that when I start looking for a new car that a car with Ford Sync will be one of the first that I look at.  For me, I really don’t care much what my car looks like or how fast it goes.  All I need is for it to get me from point A to point B efficiently and safely.  I’d also like my commute to not feel so wasted.  Besides listening to audio programs, there’s not much I can do in the car without risking my safety.  Now that I have my Motorola Droid I’m definitely guilty of texting at times and even attempting to read emails.  I know that’s not very safe so I’d love to be able to do that hands-free.  The thing is, I know I’m not near the worst offender.  Connected, hands-free technology is a huge need for our generation.

Ford Sync alone is not enough to return Ford, and American automaking back to prominence.  The biggest positive is that Ford broke from its traditional path and caught onto a major trend.  This is only the start of more good things to come.

I’ve used Google Docs for a while now, and I’ve found it to be a nice alternative to Word and Excel.  But I didn’t REALLY start using Google Docs until this past week, and I’m hooked.

Google Docs has solved a few different problems for me.  First, I’m terrible at keeping things organized on my computer.  I like saving things to the desktop so I can see them, but soon enough I have waaay to many desktop icons to actually find anything.  With Google Docs everything is stored for me in my Google Docs account.  Sure I still have to create folders if I want to keep things easy and manageable, but even if I don’t categorize them it’s still easy to find everything in my “All Items” list.

Second, I no longer have to email files to myself.  I used to work on a file on my work computer, and then if I wanted to have it at home I would save it to my desktop and then email it to myself so I could open it at home.  I know I could use services like Dropbox or Box.net, both of which I’ve used before, but I find Google Docs to be infinitely easier and it’s free.

Aside from the benefits of keeping myself better organized, it’s helped me visualize my goals and become more productive.  In the past I’ve tried to keep to-do lists on services like Vitalist and ActionComplete, and I’m still experimenting with Remember the Milk.  But then I wanted to use weekly trackers like Joe’s Goals for my workouts and David Seah’s various productivity tools like the Emergent Task Timer.  I’ve even tried Daytum for capturing data after the fact so that I can see whether or not I’m following through on my goals.  You can tell that’s getting pretty overwhelming.  It took way too much time to log in to all of these sites and maintain all of this information.  With Google Docs I can customize everything to my liking and still be able to log in from any computer (and even my Droid).

So far I’ve created two major Google Docs spreadsheets to keep me on track with my goals:

1. Weekly Workouts – where I’ve added fields for miles run, various workouts at the gym, and exercises that I do at home like pushups, pullups, etc.  It’s quite easy to go and enter a value, and I can see my progress as compared to my goals each week

2. Weekly Personal Goals – where I’ve listed my main projects that I’d like to get done during the week and also a list of things that I’d like to do each day such as write a blog post, read for at least half an hour, and develop new business ideas.

Overall, what I’m trying to accomplish is more focus on the things that I want to get done.  Since I’m a data geek, and I like being able to see progress in spreadsheet format, this is working well for me so far.  Plus I can add ideas on things I’m working on at Sigma, the Orr Fellowship, and any other projects I’m working on.  One of those projects that’s coming soon is a new online store for pure skincare products called Repurify.  Working on this has really opened my eyes to some of the harmful chemicals we may be putting on our bodies each day with synthetic personal care products.

Tonight I made a trip to Bed Bath and Beyond.  It’s not a store that I visit frequently…in fact I can’t remember the last time I’ve been there.  My friend is getting married in a few days, and they registered wedding gifts there.  Now I didn’t have a bad experience there, but what should have taken me 10-15 minutes turned into a 40 minute affair.

I didn’t even mind that the cashier couldn’t figure out how to work the printer for the gift registry (she got all red and embarrassed when the tech guy finally came over after about 5 minutes of awkward silence and me asking random questions and showed her that all she needed to do was put paper into it.)  This was actually pretty entertaining.

What did bother me was after I was given the 4 page print-out of gifts, I was on my own to search through the mountains of kitchen utensils and bedroom accessories to find my friends’ favorite stuff.  The problem is the merchandise is stacked all the way up to the 25 foot ceilings, and there are 5 different brands for anything you could possibly think of.  To make a long story short, it took me forever to find the stainless steel spoons and multi-purpose cutting boards that I was looking for.

Couldn’t Bed Bath and Beyond mark location on their registry print outs just like a library or bookstore would do?  If I knew the spoons were in section “A6″ or simply “Utensils” it would be so much easier than going to the kitchen area of the store.  On my print-out I would automatically see where I need to go based on the gifts that I want.  It’s not like technology or organization is a problem for Bed Bath and Beyond…they have a massive (and very efficient) gift registry system that spans the entire country.  This type of system is needed more at Bed Bath and Beyond than most other stores.  During my chat with the printer-challenged cashier I asked her how much of their business is through gift registries.  She said it was about 75%.  That’s huge!  So that means 75% of the people are coming into the store trying to find specific items on a list and they’re not interested in browsing for things that they personally like best.  It’s not a big deal to browse when you’re looking for yourself, but when you’re looking to buy an item for your friend that they’ve already picked out you want to get right to it.

Maybe the confusion is by design.  Bed Bath and Beyond wants you to have to search for gifts so that hopefully you come across something you want yourself.  But honestly, I felt intimidated and overwhelmed searching through those aisles.  I kept thinking how I wasn’t looking forward to picking out items for my own wedding this summer (although I did find a few cool things that I definitely wouldn’t mind having!)

Will I go back to Bed Bath and Beyond?  Probably, because I’ll have more friends getting married, and I might need something once I get my own home.  Am I looking forward to going back?  No, because it’s really overwhelming.

Make it easy for your customers that are looking for something specific to find it quickly and get out.  It will make their experience so much more pleasant.  Are there any other compnaies that have this same problem?

Yesterday I stumbled upon a blog by Matt Morris who is a motivational speaker and author of a “Think and Grow Rich” style book called The Unemployed Millionaire.  I haven’t read his book, and this was actually the first I had ever heard of him.  I don’t necessarily endorse his work (the reviews of his book on Amazon were a little bit sketchy), but I did like one of the things he mentioned in one of the videos on his blog.

Success = Level of skill MULTIPLIED by level of effort

So essentially skill and effort are equally important when determining how successful you are.  I think it’s widely believed that your level of skill is what you need to improve if you’re going to be successful.  “Only the smartest people can do x.”  In reality, your effort contributes just as much to success as your skill.  Think about the saying “Practice beats talent when talent doesn’t practice.”  I heard that more than enough times on the basketball court growing up, and I might not have thought much about it then, but I realize now how true that statement is.  Even if you’re not the most skilled, you can accomplish what you want if you’re willing to put in the work to get there.  Of course, you have to develop your skills to some degree because you’ll end up beating your head against a wall if you don’t take the time to learn and improve your skills.

Think about how that can help you achieve your goals.  What do you need to work on more? Skill or effort?

Last night I watched the classic Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and it really made me think about my priorities.

I read an article once (and I can’t find it for the life of me) that had a couple exercises for finding your true passion or what you truly wanted out of life.  One of these exercises was to write down all the things you think you might be passionate about, or some of the things you really want to do in life.  Then read through the list, and your true passion is the one that makes you cry.  You cry because you want it so badly and it would mean so much to you to accomplish it.

Now I’m not someone that gets all sentimental and starts crying in any feel-good movie.  But I’ve watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” twice now, and I haven’t been able to keep my eyes dry yet.

Throughout the movie you start to think of George Bailey as an underachiever.  He has grand plans to travel the world, and build things like cities or buildings.  He has the chance to get involved in a very lucrative business opportunity.  He even denies an offer from Mr. Potter to drastically increase his salary.  It seems like he’s stuck in a rut, and he’s not able to advance in his career or achieve some of his lofty goals.

Yet you realize that George is actually living the richest life of anyone in town.  He has a loving family that adores him, and he’s single-handedly helped most of the hardworking folk in town to own a house over their head through his Building and Loan Association.  Because of George, Bedford Falls was a better place and almost everyone who knew George had a better life.  When George was in trouble, everyone came rushing to his aide because they knew George had made a big difference in their life.

I’m moved to try to model my life after George Bailey.  The way he was able to help so many people on an individual basis is exactly what I want to spend my time doing.  Owning a Building and Loan Association is not in my plans, but the two areas that I think I can make a difference in the lives of my friends and neighbors are:

1. Technology and using new web applications

2. Fitness

It’s my New Year’s Resolution to focus on creating a new strategy around these two areas, and devoting a lot more of my time to this than I have been.  Be on the lookout  for some new stuff coming soon!

I downloaded and installed the wp2go app on my Droid so I could post to my blog from my phone. I just wanted to test it out and see how fast I could type a post. It’s definitely a little more difficult than a computer keyboard, but the landscape orientation virtual keyboard is pretty effective. I probably won’t post from this app too often, but it works pretty well.

The pictures are from the christmas lighting parade on Michigan Ave in downtown Chicago!

So you might have seen my last post about my major need for a new phone.  Contrary to what I thought earlier I’ve actually had my current phone for over 5 years.  This weekend I retired my old LG flip phone and finally bit the bullet on a $30 per month data plan and bought the Motorola Droid.  I’m impressed with the lifespan of my old phone, but it got to the point where it was a joke to take it out of my pocket and show my smartphone-toting friends.  Now I have the Droid, and although I still have a lot to learn on how to actually use it, I’m really happy with it so far.  Here is my take on the phone after my first week with it.

Pros:

Google Navigation – This app is freakin’ awesome…there’s no other way to put it.  I can activate the voice search and simply say the address of where I want to go and it automatically calculates my route.  If it doesn’t recognize it exactly (which it usually does) then it brings up search results of what I said for me to choose from. **  The layers feature on the map is also amazing.  I can overlay traffic data for my route and it will show me what parts along the way will have congested traffic.  If I have too much red (high traffic) in my route I can have it suggest an alternate route for me with better traffic.  The satellite view is insanely detailed, and I prefer to use that as the default view when I’m driving just because it looks really cool.  I can see what the land looks like around me, which was helpful this weekend when I was looking for a tennis court and I could see on the map exactly where it was located within the apartment complex.  I’ve also used the “Suggest Alternate Route” feature that worked flawlessly and got me to my destination 10-15 minutes faster than I would have been able to because of traffic.  The traffic data is not always 100% accurate.  For example, the phone told me a 3 mile trip was going to take 26 minutes because the traffic was so heavy.  It really only took me about 7 minutes and traffic was not a problem.  My guess is that the traffic would have been pretty bad in that same area during rush hour, but my trip was at about 6:45 so the actual traffic had subsided and the map was not updated as fast.

**One slight problem I ran into was that you need to say “Navigate to” before the address or point of interest that you’re trying to get to.  If I was searching for an address it would sometimes bring up “Navigate 244 W Main St.” instead of “Navigate to 44 W Main St.”  I’ve also had one instance of GPS signal being lost when I was about 2 minutes from my destination.  The problem was that I still had about 2 turns left and it was a place that I had never been before so it was a struggle to figure out what I was doing.  I was close enough so it worked out, but I hope that doesn’t become a common occurence.

Multi-Tasking – I love being able to listen to music or a podcast and then see the notification that I got a new email which I can simply pull down and read the email while my music plays seamlessly in the background.  That’s the type of functionality that I’ve come to expect in any computer so it seems weird to me that the iPhone can’t do that.  I can also make a phone call and talk on speaker phone while my navigation still takes me to my destination.  I can’t browse the web or check email while on the phone, but the fact that the Navigation still works is awesome because that is the only application that I think would be a major nuisance if it didn’t work.

Android Apps – I’ve downloaded quite a few apps for my phone so far, and overall I’ve been extremely happy with the quality of applications.  There have been a few glitches (most of them I think are due to the upgrade to Android 2.0) but I’m sure they will be worked out soon.  A few of my favorite Android apps…

Sports Tap

I have this constantly running so I can get score updates on all of the major professional and college games.  The app is fast, gives real time updates, and comes with a outstanding interface to view all games on a given night.  I can easily view detailed stats such as player scoring, and even see current drive info for football games.  The only thing I’d like to see is further detail in the college baskebtall stats.  I can see all the game scores updates in real time, but it’s hit or miss on actual player stats for those games.

Locale

This app lets me customize my phone settings based on where I am, what’s on my calendar, or what time it is.  I’ve used it for location only so far, and the GPS signal has mixed results.  It doesn’t always find where I am, but updates have been coming.  It has been able to detect when I’m at work and as soon as I pull into the parking lot of the office my phone automatically goes to vibrate, and notification vibrates are turned off because I don’t need my phone to tell me I have a new email when I’m sitting in front of my computer and it’s already popping up there.  At home I have it set to automatically turn Wi-Fi on so I can connect to my home network.

Feedr

Great for all of the blogs that I read on a regular basis.  They are frequently updated and presented in an easy to read and scroll format.  This is the only app that I’ve paid for so far and it was $0.99 so it wasn’t too bad.  It’s been a worthwhile purchase because I’m often in this app to catch up on anything I’ve missed on the web.  This app is quickly becoming my replacement for ever reading blogs on my laptop.  I used to spend a lot of time going through blog articles, but now I can just use this app when I have a couple minutes of downtime and I never have to spend part of my evenings on my laptop reading blogs

CardioTrainer

I haven’t gotten a chance to test this out a whole let yet, but I like the fact that it is both GPS and pedometer enabled to get the most accurate distance measurements of my runs.  Plus it can play songs from my music library when I run.  The voice feedback on how long or far I’ve gone is a great feature, and I haven’t tried it yet, but the ability to race against yourself from past runs is a nice addition to the premium, paid version.  It syncs all your data to the website where you can see detailed reports of all your runs.

Qik

I haven’t used this yet, but I’ve tested it and it works really well.  I can stream live video to the Internet and anyone has the ability to log in and watch.  There are tons of potential uses for this so I hope I get the opportunity soon.  If I’m at an event and want to show my family what’s going on, I can launch this app and stream DVD quality video onto the Qik website for them to watch.

USA Today

Although it’s not my favorite news source the USA Today app has become my default app for breaking news and weather simply becasue the interface is better than anything else that I’ve found so far.  It’s very easy to use and there’s a ton of information available in a nice format.

ActionComplete

This is a great GTD style to-do list with projects, notifications and due dates.  I haven’t used it a whole lot yet, but it’s great for reminders.

Gmail, Exchange, Facebook, Calendars – I’ve synced all my major accounts to my phone without any problems.  My email pops up in the notification panel as soon as I get one, and I can easily read it, move it to a folder, delete, or reply.  Absolutely great experience with notifications coming in any kind of form – sound or vibrate – and this is one of the features I use most often on the phone.

Cons:

Media Player

Like most reviews mentioned the media player is just average.  It works just fine, but there’s a lot that could be improved.  I can’t complain too much though because the sound quality on the music is great and it sorts by song, artist, or album.  Videos are somewhat of a hassle because it doesn’t support all file formats like MP4, but a third party video player app worked great for this so I’m able to watch most of my videos.

Camera

The camcorder works wonderfully, but the camera is slightly less than stellar.  I guess I was expecting pictures of the same quality as my regular digital camera.  With 5 Megapixels I thought it would be nearly on par with some of the 7MP – 10MP cameras that I’m used to.  The images tend to turn out grainy and with weird lighting.  It works, but the quality could definitely be improved.  Plus there is a long pause between pressing the button and when the picture actually takes.  Then you have to wait a few more seconds while it processes before you take another one.  Hopefully this can be updated through a software release or third party apps, but right now I won’t be using the camera a whole lot.  I do like the social functionality in the camera application that lets me easily share a picture to Facebook, Twitter, Email, or SMS right after I take the picture.

Overall the Droid has exceeded my expectations and truly an exceptional device.  The GPS functionality has made my life easier on several occasions through the course of one week, and my phone has become a major source of information consumption during my commute and during down time throughout the day.  I’m able to be more productive and that is why I’m extremely happy with my Droid!

To all Cell Phone Providers/Manufacturers:

I’d like to purchase a new phone.  I’ve had my LG camera/flip phone for about 3 years now, and I’ve put off purchasing anything new because there hasn’t been anything worth buying.  My current phone just works, and I’ve been thrilled with the $40-$45 per month that I pay.

But it’s time to get something new.  Everyone at work and quite of my friends have iPhones or Blackberrys.  I read blogs like Mashable and Techcrunch and hear about every single cool new augmented reality app and everything else you can do on the iPhone.  Now the Motorola Droid is coming out on Verizon and a slew of other Android based phones.

Here’s my situation:

• I’m currently on Verizon and am very happy with the level of service.  From all I’ve heard in the news and from friends Verizon has a much better network in my area than any other carrier
• The people I call the most are all on Verizon including my fiance, my family, and a mix of my closest friends
• I barely use any non Verizon to Verizon minutes so it makes sense to either stick with Verizon or have a plan that allows me to include select numbers that are free on any network

The features that are most important to me include:

• Applications – I want to be able to do things like track my running, update Twitter, find local restaurants, etc.
• Full web browsing
• Camera with video
• GPS with turn by turn directions
• Ability to store music and podcasts and hook them up by headphone jack so I can listen to them in my car
• Wi-Fi
• Decent browsing speed
• Multi-tasking of apps

I’m flexible on some of the features, but I’d really like to find something that includes them all.

Is there already a phone out there that meets these specifications?  If you can provide this you’ll have a happy customer for quite a long time.

I just got Gary Vaynerchuk’s new book Crush It! and I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m pretty impressed based on my skimming.  One thing that I found out, and I’m immediately trying out is that Tumblr allows you to host your own domain for free if you use the Tumblr CMS.

You still have to purchase the domain ($10-$20) but you don’t have to pay a montly hosting fee.  The platform is incredibly easy to use.  You just click on the type of content you’d like to add (audio, video, etc.) and insert it directly into your post.  Plus you can pull anything else from the web into Tumblr and post it to your own blog.  I’ll be trying it out with my Career Kickstarter blog and I’ll keep updates on how it goes.

Hiring a marketing consultant or ad agency can be quite expensive.  Most of the time a consulting firm will charge a given rate per hour and you pay simply for their time.  Supposedly the firm has so much expertise that they’re definitely going to get it right, and you should pay them for every minute that it takes for them to make it happen.

Consulting firms, ad agencies, or other marketing service providers that charge by the hour or even by project will be obsolete within 5 years.  Why?  Performance is so much easier to track, and other companies are starting to realize that they can provide enough value to be profitable.  This makes the buyer’s decision so much easier because they can’t lose.

For any kind of web campaign or initiative that involves the internet (and what doesn’t involve the internet these days) you can download a free application like Google Analytics and measure any kind of variable you’d like.  Email sign-ups, clicked links, conversions, can all be easily tracked by these free applications.

What about a marketing service that doesn’t involve the web like branding or graphic design?  That can’t be tracked as easily, but they can be tested.  Services like crowdSPRING and 99 Designs allow you to get advertisements, websites, or print materials designed at a fraction of the cost of hiring a full service agency.  Designs from these speculative competitions can be tested against each other to focus groups or in smaller test markets.  Then you’ll have a clear idea of the value you’ll be able to get from the project.

If you’re an ad agency or marketing consultant it might be the time to reconsider your business model.  Charging $300 an hour for your services might not last very long.