tech ronin

I am Writing Tech Ronin posts at my new WordPress blog

Even though, I'm still a Tech Ronin and writing about it, I've migrated over to a new domain: janet.tokerud.com. The blog name is now Independent Knowledge Professional. That sounds a little more formal and maybe it is. But, it's still about the fact that a great many of us are knowledge professionals and it may behoove us all to think of ourselves as independent.

As you know if you've read much of tech ronin, the traditional idea of a permanent job has become obsolete. You may have a so-called permanent job, but most of us don't. As usual, I'm emphasizing how your use of technology can help you along your way as a tech ronin or independent knowledge professional.

Most of us do knowledge work these days. The personal computer and now smartphones and tablets are making it easy to take your working environment wherever you go whether that's the livingroom couch, a local coffee house or a client's home or office. This is a very good thing if you like being able to compete in your favorite niche.

I've used Macintosh computers for many years and don't own a PC, so you'll find my expertise slants towards the Macintosh Way. Now a days, that includes iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. I'm currently writing about the best apps for knowledge functions. I've covered information capture and brainstorming so far. Next up is gathering information and ideas.

3G iPhone with GPS, MobileMe Analysis

More News:

0. Reception is noticeably better according to Gizmodo hands-on.

.5 "3G data on the maps and browser were only slightly slower than WiFi" - Gizmodo.

1. $30/month: for he AT&T 3G data plan. Keep in mind, 3G will cost you an extra $10/month. 1 year is $120. 2 years is $240. Also, I hear you don't get any free SMS messages (currently I get 200 free/mo.) I'll pay just because there will be times when I'm stuck away from wi-fi and want to get stuff done with relative speed.

2. $45/month for unlimited 3G data for business - assume that is for Exchange support

3. iPhone 3G is a tiny bit bigger 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm vs 115 x 61 x 11.6 mm. But it is "thinner feeling" according to Gizmodo.

4. iPhone 3G is ever so slightly lighter. 4.7 oz. or 133 grams vs 135 grams for 1st gen iPhone.

5. You have to sign a new 2 year contract to get these great prices. So that puts you at 3 more years if you bought on iPhone day 1. That means it will cost you about $175 to break a 2 year contract and then you pay another $300 if you want the cool 16 gb model.

6. Improved battery life. Sort of. You get 10 instead of 8 hours of 2G talk time and 5 hours of 3G talk time. Not sure why 3G matters when you are talking on the phone -- maybe it is operating in the background.

The Keynote finished up a couple hours ago. We now know that Apple will deliver the 3G iPhone on July 11th. It will sell for $199 for the 8 gb model and $299 for the 16 gb model. At that price, of course, I will buy one. I was prepared to spend $600 if I had to.

3G iPhone. First thing, Apple is delivering a cheap iPhone and it has 3G plus GPS. I wasn't expecting so much for so little. He is aggressively competing against smartphones: Nokia, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Treo. It is clear that Apple considers the success of the iPhone as the centerpiece of its business.

MobileMe. I'm very happy about the MobileMe announcement. DotMac is dead. Long live MobileMe. Same price $99 a year, but a lot more value. Now you get 20 gigs of storage instead of 10. That's pretty good certainly that will store some of my most important files plus backup my iPhone if I need it to.

"Think of MobileMe as 'Exchange for the rest of us,' Now users who are not part of an enterprise that runs Exchange can get the same push email, push calendars and push contacts that the big guys get." - Steve Jobs

More to follow. This article is a work in progress. I should have much more in the next few minutes. I'm going to watch the keynote and explore Apple's website.

Cool New Book: The Renaissance Soul

If you've ever thought of yourself as a Renaissance person or just someone with a lot of passionate interests, check out this new book. Margaret Lobenstine is a passionate advocate and wise advisor for the Renaissance Souls among us. I'm definitely on the list and it's interesting and uplifting to see Ms. Lobenstine explain why Renaissance Souls are often better off following their multifarious instincts than choosing one area of interest and sticking to it.

The people who are most secure are not those who pick one career and stick with it. They are the people who follow their passion–or passions.

It's much more interesting than that, though. Lobenstine analyzes the vast changes that have been occurring in corporate hiring and organization and makes a good case for why the wise jack-of-all-trades may do better than those with a more single-minded bent. All those extra experiences, contacts, skills and knowledge bits can come in handy when tables turn in these uncertain times.

When they found themselves unexpectedly cast out by economic forces, they were unable to compete for scarce jobs with those whose enthusiasm led to glow-in-the-dark recommendations.

Lobenstine is a Renaissance soul herself and she's done very well. If you have worried that your lack of single-minded focus has or may be a career liability, you can load up here on a boatload of stories of how current and historical figures and Lobenstine's clients have done very well for themselves.

ECONOMIC ADVANTAGES TO BEING A RENAISSANCE SOUL

1. Passion makes your performance sparkle, giving you an edge over "lifers."
2. An ability to embrace change is valued within today's corporate world and the new "free agent nation."
3. You're more likely to be a successful entrepreneur when you thrive on wearing many hats.
4. Love of variety makes you a great project manager and troubleshooter.
5. People who enjoy learning new languages and exploring many cultures are highly valued in the global economy.

Consumers are Rising Up Out of their Barcaloungers, Part 1

As you may have forgotten due to a large outpouring of blogging about personal technology lately, my blog is called Tech Ronin. And it's not meant to be just about gadgets. Gadgets and personal technology including computers and software are the tools of modern times that make it possible for individuals to create their own careers and successful businesses.

The other half of the equation in Tech Ronin is the individual -- knowledge-, tool- and network-enhanced. Modern times have largely taken away the security, predictability and practically guaranteed comfortable lifestyles many of our parents and grandparents *enjoyed* in the 20th century. The corporate job. The staying with a single employer like Ma Bell, PG&E or the government through to retirement.

My own father worked for the federal highway department as a bridge engineer through to retirement and got a very nice pension. And he's retired. What a concept! To be sure, there's still the government with some jobs there and big companies that seem likely to be around a long time but there's also a lot more turbulence and uncertainty about that longevity. Add in 9/11 and Katrina lately and things seem pretty darned unpredictable.

As I've mentioned before (such as Social Networking Made Easy, Part 4, 5, 6, 7, Jobless Recovery), our whole idea of the phrase good job has slipped out of our grasp. Good jobs used to seem like they had a fairly long duration. Tom Peters, corporate guru par excellence, strongly suggests that you regard yourself as *Me, Inc.*. This is a strong hint from someone who knows. Inside or outside the corporate walls, this strategy applies.

But, let's say, like me, you are outside the corporate walls (or would like to be if you could make it work). Let's say you have a company of one or more that's providing probably professional services of some sort. That's a lot like being a *gun for hire*. Might look like subcontracting. It's not a real business like where you mortgage your house to start creating widgets you hope will sell. You can start your business with a credit card (or modest savings if you are one of the seemingly rare Americans who has some savings).

It starts simply by going out and getting or creating your own business cards and putting up your first website, which I highly recommend be a blog with some flexibility to put up auxiliary *static* pages for background information. I think TypePad is quite useable for this at this point albeit with nowhere near enough documentation (hint, hint).

The world that we knew with workers and employers seems to be breaking down fast in the face of modern technology. It's crumbling into a finer granularity -- individuals. First we got our own computers. Wow! Now we have a global Web full of web sites and services, eBay (global marketplace), Craigslist (Net-enhanced local marketplaces), TypePad (your own printing press), Skype for free or near-free long distance calling. And those are just a few bigger names you already know.

I just got my latest issue of Trendwatching.com's newsletter this morning (it's an ezine but newsletters nowadays are almost always ezines aren't they?). It's called Minipreneurs:

a vast army of consumers turning entrepreneurs; including small and micro businesses, freelancers, side-businesses, weekend entrepreneurs, web-driven entrepreneurs, part-timers, free agents, cottage businesses, seniorpreneurs, co-creators, mompreneurs, pro-ams, solopreneurs, eBay traders, advertising-sponsored bloggers and so on.

I love it. Looks like there's a much bigger wave of self-employment and entrepreneurism in the works. Instead of being fired or quitting your job, you dabble in some way in the global market for goods and services (not the stock market). It might be by having a blog (Typepad helps you put text ads into your blog now to make a little extra money). But it could be trading a couple things on eBay. Just sticking your toe in. A way to make a few extra bucks on the side maybe. An offshoot of your hobby that someone is willing to pay for. These mini extensions into the world of commerce are accessible to everyone! Not only professionals, whatever they are.

Trendwatching.com talks mostly about consumer trends, but luckily they don't think of consumers as just consumers anymore. They are very much watching and analyzing from the point of view that the days of the passive consumer are over. So-called consumers are rising up out of their barcaloungers and creating -- and selling what they create or just selling stuff they already have or know. Cool stuff. Read it. More on this.

Technorati Tags: careers, meinc, minipreneurs, personalbranding, quittingyourjob, ronin, selfemployed, solopreneurs, yourownbusiness

The World is Flat, Now What?

I'm just digging into The World is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman and am enjoying it. Lots of good stuff. I'm on page 29 and it is a 479 page book. I can already tell you one major issue I have with it, though.

There's a working assumption that globalization is overall a good thing. That's not so bad, but it seems that Friedman looks for every opportunity to sell it. He is already trying to make the case that even though outsourcing is moving jobs out of the US at an accelerating pace, it's all gonna be fine:

I firmly believe in the lesson of classical economists about moving work to where it can be done best. ...Work gets done where it can be done most effectively and efficiently. That ultimately helps the New Londons, New Bedfords and New Yorks of this world even more than it helps the Bangalores and Shenzhens. It helps because it frees up people and capital to do different, more sophisticated work, and it helps because it gives an opportunity to produce the end product more cheaply, benefiting customers even as it helps the corporations. ... India's growing economy is creating a demand for many more American goods and services. What goes around comes around. p.20 - 24

Wouldn't that be nice? This is the argument/religion of economics and the argument of the pro-globalization folks. Work should go to the lowest cost producer. That's efficiency. That drives the economy. There are some negatives in these low cost working conditions and for the environment (work goes where environmental regulation is least), but hey?

I have an MBA so I know this drill. I like the drill to an extent. But I live here in the US. I was born here and was planning to die here. But this whole leveling of the international playing field thing could be a problem for us high-living Americans. We are talking about the hollowing out of the American economy here.

Let me get personal and use myself as an example. I'm currently selling my Studio Manager software product 40% internationally and 60% in the US. Few of my sales are local and I rarely ever meet with my customers face to face. I talk with them on the phone and do a lot of emailing and every once in a while a client pays to have me fly to their location to provide training, consulting and customizing services. But most don't.

I doubt if a business like mine would exist except in these times where I can make my product known online and email my software and annotated pdfs, email and talk long distance very inexpensively. I'm on the receiving end of some of the benefits of globalization. I work out of my home. My employees are actually freelancers who work out of their homes and meet with me typically once or twice a week as needed. Work ebbs and flows - I have flexibility, they have flexibility.

But then there's the other end of the equation. I live in Mill Valley, California. One of the most expensive places on earth to live. Real estate is astronomical here. Labor costs are about as high as anywhere. There are places in the US that have a cost of living that is half of what it is here. Does my Mill Valley location help me economically? Not as much as it used to when I had a local business. Now I compete with software solutions that are made anywhere not just local consultants who have cost structures similar to mine.

I'm doing OK so far. There's still lots of cultural friction that is to my advantage. My product is in English and appeals to English-speakers (but individual customers have spent the time to translate it to Spanish and Japanese and a French version is in the works). Most of my sales come from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We share a relatively common culture and that produces a sense of confidence that plays a key role when software purchase decisions are being made.

But, longer term, I may have to consider moving to a place where it won't cost me so much to live so that I will be able to compete with low cost providers. To increase my advantage further, I should consider outsourcing some of my development. Perhaps I should have an English-speaking East Indian helping me with my FileMaker work. That's what this world is coming to.

The funny thing is that I know a FileMaker developer who has moved from Vermont to Panama in the last six months to save money and is now paying $400 a month for a three bedroom house. He has three brilliant Siberian programmers doing most of his development for him. He communicates with them by instant messaging every day. I have no idea what he pays them but he sells their time to his customers for $65 per hour. He's taking this globalization thing seriously.

I identify as a free agent. At this point in time, being a free agent seems very appropriate and adaptive. Working for myself, I have to be a generalist and handle all sorts of disciplines. I'm light on my feet. I keep current. I look for opportunities. I try to find ways to take advantage of new technologies and ways to land on my feet when faced with the inevitable ups and downs and twists and turns. I feel like a ... tech ronin.

Technorati Tags: Books | Social Trends | Economics | New Economy | Career | Tech Ronin |

Blog-related Careers Will Flourish

Today I've been mucking about in the tagging space. Kicking the tires. Exploring. As I was wandering around, I noticed that Flickr announced that they have indeed been acquired by Yahoo! A few more millionaires for the world's economy, that. Russ Beattie going to Yahoo! should have tipped us off to expect great things from Yahoo! in the next couple of years.

At one point, I was over at Kottke.org and found myself sending an email to Jason to see whether he would like cash or a gift of Studio Manager 7. If I, a light user of Kottke.org, am contributing, lots of money must be flowing in Jason's direction.

These two things plus many more drove me to the conclusion that lots of careers will sprout up in this portion of the electronic universe. I'm sure blogging will be an important node in this careerspace, but maybe tagging will be a node and who knows what else? Somewhere today I read that a key feature of the web starting now is collaboration. This is a rich area of possibility. Not a flash in the pan.

So, bloggers, all that time you are putting into this blogging stuff. All that reading, blogging, commenting, emailing, flickring and tagging might just amount to something. Maybe all these things you are doing passionately have something to do with the career you are inadvertently building for yourself.

What I'm seeing is that besides the amazing and many small and large benefits bloggers get from raising their own profiles in cyberspace, real meaty careers may be starting to sprout. Of course, Kottke can support himself with blogging. I'm not saying we'll be blogging for a living, necessarily. Though, I'm sure many will. I think we'll be working in this emerging field - creating new products, organizations and services, consulting, researching, negotiating, marketing, developing software and contributing our experience and knowledge to in-house projects that haven't been invented yet.

There's a lot going on and we are in a great place to find our own preferred spots in the action.

Technorati Tags: blogging, career, trends

Pre-Christmas Doldrums and Tonics

Hi folks. I've been on a down for about 24 hours - crashing from overwork on my Studio Manager product and a big customization of same these last three months. Kind of a hitting the void due to not enough time spent with leisure (of course, the distinction between work and leisure when you run your own business your own way is pretty elusive).

My on-going tonic for overwork has been reading murder mysteries right before bed. The latest is Saving Faith by David Baldacci. I recently read Split Second, Absolute Power and Total Control. I enjoy reading a bunch of books by the same author. These aren't spectacular but do the job. I was pretty hooked on Ludlum's Bourne series with Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum a while back.

The point is to get out of work mode and do something that's just fun and satisfying. Something that doesn't let you make it into something productive. You don't need to underline the book either. Definitely in the tonic category. Reading impractical books like The Cult of Mac and Coast of Dreams California on the Edge has been a good diversion too.

But, like I said, yesterday the holiday blues hit and I didn't know what all went into it and have found that trying to sort it out is usually a futile effort. So... I did a little shopping (as in shopping therapy) at my local Mall - the lines weren't bad by then - and actually found a nice black Nike sinchilla top for my trouble at 30% off. Next stop, the movies. Watched Ocean's Twelve. It's kind of slow and meandering and full of actors you love to watch. Still feeling at a loss after, I stopped at the local 7-11 and bought a Three Muskateers bar. Then I went home and read Saving Faith. Didn't really give that funk much room I guess.

Today was a better day. Still a little iffy but getting there. I'm planning to go out on this bright blue sunny day and take some photos with my fun little Konica-Minolta X50 camera. My first outing devoted to photography. From here till year-end, I'll be doing something really fun and impractical every day. Count on it!

To top the day off, I found a couple wonderful inspirational quotes on Tom Peters' site today:

"Nobody can prevent you from choosing to be exceptional." - Mark Sanborn, The Fred Factor.

"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all." - Oscar Wilde, Oscar Wilde's Wit and Wisdom

Doc Searl's Secret to Success

This looks pretty doable:

Do good work and Stay in touch. That's all you really need in a connected market, frankly. - Doc Searls

Half of it comes from Garrison Keillor's close at his Writer's Almanac podcast site [via gapingvoid.com] The great and funny cartoon above is by Hugh MacLeod. Really enjoying his illustrated posts.

Extinction Management Anyone?

I just discovered gapingvoid.com and How to Be Creative by Hugh MacLeod tonight [rohdesign.com]. Great, great stuff. Hugh is the cartoonist/author of the above business card - his signature form factor. When I saw this simple little diagram, I had to blog it. Do you really want to invest your time in extinction management?

Speaking of avoiding extinction and the management thereof, you might want to check out all the pdf manifestos over at Change This. If the above diagram resonates, read How to be Creative forthwith. After that, it's up to you.

Oh, and one last thing, if you haven't seen it yet and you were a Kerry supporter, you'll be moved to laughter and tears by sorryeverybody.com. The link here is just one of many, many photos...

Trading Gmail text ads for spam

What if Google got so good at filtering out spam that the spammers gave up and decided to pay for Gmail text ads to get to their audiences? When you receive spam on Gmail, you are encouraged to report the spam as spam. It disappears from your inbox and Google gets a report for its spam database.

With all that spam information centralized, I would think Google could get pretty good at filtering out the spam. Users, especially those who like free email accounts, might be happy about exchanging (hopefully tasteful) sidebar text ads for (1) the outrageous torrent of spam we get these days and (2) banner or pop-up Ads. Google could get very rich indeed.