Clean diesel

Here is a detail of the graphic for Volkswagen's clean diesel cars at
the autoshow. I like the flame that are really leaves.

Form follows function

A cool detail from a fiesta headlight at the Detroit auto show.

On Sunday, there was an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer that caught my eye. I have read about Bob McDonald before and I am intrigued with the new CEO and chairman of P&G.

Somewhat by design and somewhat by chance, I have had opportunities to lead others both professionally and in other areas. I have always felt that there is a difference between 'leadership' and 'management.' Although the two are often intertwined, if I had to choose one over the other I would choose leadership.

It is nice to see some of my thoughts and ideas validated by someone of McDonald's stature. There are a couple of points from the article that think are better quoted verbatim as I don't think I could do them justice.

First,

In fact, McDonald rejects what he calls "charismatic leadership," symbolized in the movie "Patton" by George C. Scott standing in front of the American flag delivering a macho, profanity-laced pep talk to the troops.

"That's not leadership," McDonald said.

Instead, he practices "servant leadership," the management practice espoused by author Stephen Covey and others that calls for leaders to put the needs of their colleagues and organizations first.

"Humility is a key leadership trait we need to have," McDonald told a recent gathering of P&G general managers in Cincinnati. "How can we be empathetic to consumers if we're not humble?"

It is nice to see some of my thoughts and ideas validated by someone of McDonald's stature. There are a couple of points from the article that think are better quoted verbatim as I don't think I could do them justice.

Second, this was a side bar in the article and these 10 tenants are printed on cards and are frequently handed out to senior leadership in P&G.

''What I Believe In''

Bob McDonald keeps a one-page, double-sided handout titled "What I Believe In" that he gives to P&G managers and others. It contains these principles that he says influence him:

Living a life driven by purpose is more meaningful than meandering through life without direction.

Character is the most important trait of a leader.

Everyone wants to succeed, and success is contagious.

Putting people in the right jobs is one of the most important jobs of a leader.

Diverse groups of people are more innovative than homogenous groups.

Ineffective systems and cultures are bigger barriers to achievement than the talents of people.

Recruiting is top priority.

There will be some people in the organization who will not make it on the journey.

Organizations renew themselves.

The true test of the leader is the performance of the organization when they are absent or after they depart.

Below is a link for the whole article. A nice read for a Sunday afternoon.

http://communitypress.cincinnati.com/article/AB/20100115/BIZ01/1170310/0/NEWS0103/P-G-chief-Humble-leadership

beauty in suburban cincinnati?

i said that my family is the most important thing in my life. well my cool wife snapped this shot (with her first gen iphone) this evening a sent it to me. for all those naysayers, i say the mid-west is beautiful!

inspiration

i started this blog when i made the jump to a smartphone. there were all kinds of things i discovered i could do while mobile. while the world of smartphone is still fascinating to me, it seems so yesterday. maybe that is because my iphone is six months old and the (usable) internet in my pocket is just a given. i love my iphone even though it drops calls way too often.

i recently relocated to ohio when my company, kaleidoscope (www.kascope.com) calls home. i am the director of design as such i see lots of things that i find interesting or inspiring. you will notice the name of the blog is no longer chris_mobile, but chris_is_mobile. when ever i see something cool, it will hopefully show up here. (and most likely from my iphone) i am not sure what they did but the iphone 3gs camera is almost good enough to not ever use a point and shoot camera ever again so i assume most of the posts will be generated on the go via my iphone.

the coolest thing in my life is my family and they take priority over everything else, so post frequency may vary. likewise, my company is in the midst of a format change on our website and i hope to be posting cool stuff there too.

long time no post

It has been a long time since the last post... maybe that is because windows mobile is not that deep and within a few weeks you have discovered everything there is. As I have mentioned in past posts, to me winmo is all about active sync, which works great. Apple is now 3 versions into the iPhone and i have finally made the jump... first some background.

About a year ago, i bought a the 3rd generation ipod nano... it was a refurb and it was cheap. Even though there was no music on it, i was amazed with the 'surprise and delight' factor. The overall polish of the UI, the games that were included... it was cool, even the screen when it was charging was nice. In contrast to what my windows mobile device was like which in some instance was very windows circa 1995. For something that came in a crappy brown box with old ipod headphones and a white, but non-apple usb cable, it was a very pleasing 'out of box' experience. Now on to the iphone.

Apple has done a good job of reducing the packaging... (you need to realize that I have not bought a new apple product since my Ti powerbook... the last iteration of the Ti ID).
When I unboxed it and powered it up, i got the apple logo and the spinning circle that shows it is booting up... then while still black, it said that it needs to be initialized first by plugging it in to iTunes. Ughh... granted most pick up the iphone at the att store or the apple store and that would not be the case. Plus my house has really spotty (if non-existant) att signal which of course is part of the initialization. In true Apple style it said something like you need to take it to the Apple store for help. My assumption was it couldn't get the signal. I let it be for a half hour or so and it was all better... fired up and running. The out of box was a little rocky... the interesting thing to me, was Apple has been doing such high level ID for so long, the artifact was somewhat anti-climatic. The excitement was all about the UI.

the other side of the fence: the blackberry curve

I have been using the Curve for about three or four weeks. So far so good. I feel like I have used it long enough to talk through what I like and what I don't.
Kaleidoscope, the company I work for, does not have a blackberry server, so I realize in advance that my experience is less than advertised. In fact let me start there. I am going to sound like a microsoft fan boy, but I miss the activesync. Yes, I do get my e-mails in a timely fashion, but I noticed that if I review an e-mail on my computer, the e-mail may or may not be delivered to the blackberry. I absolutely hate having to plug in the phone to my laptop and sync the updates to the calendar, contacts and tasks. It will be interesting to see how the new iphone software handles this... it does claim activesync compatibility. The other day, my battery died and I was not in a position to charge it, so I used a windows mobile device for the weekend. I have switched devices enough that I have the outlook settings memorized. Plugged them in and all my contacts, appointments and e-mails show up. Pure magic :)
Speaking of battery, the battery life on the curve is good. Maybe that is because it an EDGE device and doesn't support the 3G. But on eastern long island where I live, there is 3G is pretty rare unless you are deep in Nassau County or in the Hamptons. So based on that, it seems like RIM has done a good job of optimizing the battery life.
I like the form factor. It is a tad too thick, at least it seems to be so. I realize the Blackjack plays thickness games, with the top being thicker than most of the back. If the curve was 1.5 mm thinner it would be perfect. The slightly shorter length than a blackjack is nice.
I think I prefer the non-touch screen, but I will admit that first week, I kept trying to push the buttons on the screen. The overall UI seems dated. Maybe not quite as bad as my old SLVR, but there is a lot of text, icons, and overall graphic feel is a little too windows 3.11. I guess that keeps the GUI snappy and there is never delay because the processor can't keep up with the 'shiny GUI.' But for me, as a designer, I don't think I would choose this over other options.
I set the UI back to the blackberry default. The ATT version wasn't doing anything for me. I did like that I can move the home screen icons around, even remove them. This allowed me to delete all the silly ATT apps, music, radio, tv, etc.
There is some subtle rubber on the rear housing. It is a nice touch... it seems as if the whole housing is IMD parts... Looks nice from a distance, but seems almost cheap up close.
I really would like use the device with the blackberry server. Then I would have the missing 'activesync' connectivity.
The qwerty is good, same width as a blackjack. I think I like the keys of the blackjack better, but the curve definitely look better. I hate the fact that all the punctuation is on a shifted state. It is interesting to me that Samsung, Motorola, RIM spend lots of resources testing and validating keypads, but they all arrive at different solutions.