Cistera Loudblog

Gtone Episode 25 - Seth and the Art of VoIP

greg — Thu, 17 May 2007 08:59:00 -0500

Seth Godin: Sliced bread and other marketing delights

In a world of too many options and too little time, our obvious choice is to ignore the ordinary stuff. Marketing guru Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. And early adopters, not the mainstream’s bell curve, are the new sweet spot of the market.

“Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the Information Age,” Mary Kuntz wrote in Business Week nearly a decade ago. “Instead of widgets or car parts, he specializes in ideas—usually, but not always, his own.” In fact, he’s as focused on spreading ideas as he is on the ideas themselves.

After working as a software brand manager in the mid-1980s, Godin started Yoyodyne, one of the first Internet-based direct-marketing firms, with the notion that companies needed to rethink how they reached customers. His efforts caught the attention of Yahoo!, which bought the company in 1998 and kept Godin on as a vice president of permission marketing. Godin has produced several critically acclaimed and attention-grabbing books, including Permission Marketing, All Marketers Are Liars, and Purple Cow (which was distributed in a milk carton). In 2005, Godin founded Squidoo.com, a Web site where users can share links and information about an idea or topic important to them.

David Ippolito and ‘Talk Louder – The Cell Phone Song’is courtesy of music.podshow.com.

VOIP Panel: Quality, Ease of Use, Security

Stuart Chesire and Benjamin Kowarsch discuss Zeroconf and Bonjour, which make Asterisk clusters work without asking users to perform complex configuration. Installations of these server clusters could make wifi VOIP in hotels many times easier to deploy.

VOIP has only recently become practical, with the comprehensive rollout of broadband to consumers. Wireless roaming is still a challenge. Matthew Gast examines why VOIP is so hard in 802.11 networks. The trick is making VOIP devices act more like cell phones, making load balancing and roaming easier.

Whenever potentially sensitive conversations are broadcast over the air, encryption is critical. Philip Zimmermann, the creator of PGP encryption, takes a look at the history of public key infrastructures and concludes that the industry needs to move away from centrally managed key servers. He presents his solution to VOIP encryption, including the ability to detect eavesdropping.

File Download (65:00 min / 59 MB)

Gtone Episode 24 - Selling Blue Elephants Mr Bell

greg — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 01:47:00 -0500

In Episode 19, The talk of two Malcolms, Malcolm Gladwell spoke of the genius of Howard Moskowitz and his ability to fundamentally grasp the nature of consumer taste. In this episode we continue the thread of Product Design and Consumer Behavior with an interview with Howard.

How do companies figure out what consumers want? For example, when you look at all the different types of spaghetti sauce in the grocery store, do you wonder how the endless varieties were developed? In many cases, the companies may have just guessed, but they also may have used methods developed by Howard Moskowitz, an expert in the field of psychophysics, and author of the upcoming book Selling Blue Elephants. Howard Moskowitz is the CEO of i-Novation Inc as well as President of Moskowitz Jacobs Inc., a firm he founded in 1981. He is both a well-known experimental psychologist in the field of psychophysics and an inventor of world-class market research technology.

We also reach back into the archives for a 1954 General Motors Chevrolet sponsored short film entitled “What Mr Bell had in mind”. This features DON AMECHE recreating his famous movie role as Alexander Graham Bell. Mr Bell discusses proper telephone etiquette.

The music features Robin Tymm and “Telephone Line” courtesy of music.podshow.com

File Download (75:11 min / 68 MB)

Gtone Episode 23 - VoiceCon Spring 2007

greg — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 08:15:00 -0500

This week is from the floor of Voicecon Spring Conference 2007, March 5th through 8th at the Gaylord Palms Hotel in Orlando Florida. We talk about Voip Trainer, a unique interactive traning tool for IPT Telephony and the founder of 4What Interactive, Jim Cossetta. We then talk about Open Telephony and the challenges of identity for VoIP Systems. All of this is broadcast from the floor of Voicecon.

File Download (79:00 min / 72 MB)

Gtone Episode 22 - Telecom and Web 2.0

greg — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:47:00 -0500

This weeks episode is about the intersection between telephony and Web 2.0. We have two talks, one from a carrier perspective and one from a software developer.

Norman Lewis is the director of Technology Research for the Home Division of France Telecom.

David Beckemeyer is CEO of TelEvolution.

File Download (54:29 min / 50 MB)

Gtone Episode 21 - Mac Attack

greg — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 11:23:00 -0600

This weeks Gtone is all about Application Driven Telephony and what people are doing from a hosted perspective as well as what is happening on the Mac. We have interviews with John Philips, Editorial Directory of Maclife Magazine, Jonathan Taylor, CEO of Voxeo and Kevin Ford CEO of Parliant.

File Download (49:03 min / 49 MB)

Palm CEO Ed Colligan unplugged

greg — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 14:46:00 -0600

At a Churchill Club event last month, Palm CEO Ed Colligan was interviewed by New York Times correspondent John Markoff. In the podcast, Colligan discusses Palm’s products strategy and trends in the mobile space. He also addresses Apple’s rumored iPhone. He said that the PC makers aren’t going to find it easy to just walk in and take share. That may have been true a few years ago, but the smart phone market could use Steve Jobs’ help taking the mobile devices to a new level. It would certainly spur Palm, Blackberry and others, including the mobile OS vendors, to innovate at a faster rate.
You can find Churchill Club here.This is courtesy of ZDNet Podcasts.

File Download (60:00 min / 37.5 MB)

Gtone Episode 20 - The IPhone and Great Design

greg — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 07:27:00 -0600

If you have been in a coma you would have not known that Apple has announced an Internet/Wide Screen IPod/Cellular phone yet to be called the IPhone. This device is nothing short of a complete transformation of the smartphones for the consumer market. This week the Guys from MacBreak critique the IPhone from the floor of the MacWorld Expo. Then we are going to take a different angle and talk about cellphone design with Jeff Han. Jeff is a research scientist for New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Here, he demonstrates for the first time publicly his intuitive, “interface-free,” touch-driven computer screen, which can be manipulated intuitively with the fingertips, and responds to varying levels of pressure. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Courtesy of Ted.com )

Ross Lovegrove is an industrial designer, best known for his work on the Sony Walkman and Apple iMac. In this highly visual presentation, he presents his recent work from furniture to water bottles which is organic in form and inspired by nature. (Recorded February 2005 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 20:14 Courtesy of Ted.com)

This weeks music is Luigi Cappela with Telephone Card -from Auckland New Zealand and is courtesy of Podshow Music at http://music.podshow.com

File Download (55:39 min / 55 MB)

Gtone Episode 19 - The Talk of Two Malcolms

greg — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 12:10:00 -0600

This week is our Christmas episode and we have highlighted two conversations with Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and best-selling author of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Blink. In this talk, filmed at TED2004, he explains what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce. This was recorded in Monterey California in February 2004. Malcolm talks about the science of happiness.

In the second conversation Malcolm explores why we can’t trust people’s opinions—because we don’t have the language to express our feelings. He highlights why not listening to customers can be a very good thing.

Malcolm is courtesy of Ted and IT Conversations. Music this week is courtesy of Podshow Music at http://music.podshow.com and includes Derek Miller with “We Three Kings”, Ayla Brown with “Rocking around the Christmas Tree” and Mario Ajero with “Away in a Manger”.

File Download (57:42 min / 52.9 MB)

Gtone Episode 18 - Emotional Product Design

greg — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:09:00 -0600

Telephony is inherently a consumer product. Although it is purchased by IT Administration, the ultimate arbiter of how a product is used and successful is how the telephony user gains from the use. This week we cover product design. Don Norman used to be known as a critic of unusable things but now, he says, he has changed. He has transformed himself into an advocate for pleasurable, enjoyable products. Beauty is good, says Norman. Successful products should a pleasure to use, and convey a positive sense of self, of accomplishment, and pride of ownership. In this keynote address, Norman shares work from his latest book, Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things. This is courtesy of OReilly Emerging Technology Conference.