ask the youth

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/035e83fe-6f18-11de-9109-00144feabdc0.html

This is a trend that I’m surprised hasn’t taken off already.

“Executives and investors have grown fascinated by the opinions of teenagers. Rupert Murdoch, 78, has described himself as a “digital immigrant” and his young daughters as “digital natives”, while UBS pulled in an 18-year-old three years ago to demonstrate MySpace to portfolio managers.”

It’s simply an unavoidable truth that young people were born into the digital world, while to older generations the world is a foreign one. This is not to say that only young people know what they’re talking about when it comes to tech. Certainly there are people who embraced the new world of technology even though it was initially a foreign one, and it seems, to me at least, that an increasing number of adults (read old people) are becoming sufficiently tech savvy.

However, as ignorant as it would be for me to claim that only young people understand the world of technology and the internet, it would be twice as naïve for a member of the older generation to deny that kids don’t understand it better. The internet is after all our native tongue. We were born into the world wide web. Whereas Generation X is adapting to this digital world that came to fruition under their watch, Generation Y is an entire population who’s world is the digital world.

The average young person, I believe, would read the above article and shrug at the obviousness of Robson’s points. Young people don’t want to pay for music? Obviously we don’t want to pay. Why would we pay? The average young person’s digital music collection probably has well over 1000 songs. You’re telling me that you’re surprised that they didn’t pay $.99 a song or $15 a CD to build that collection? It’s just too easy to do it for free. And of course all young people know how to get free music, we’ve been doing it our whole lives. Young people don’t listen to the radio? I don’t understand how anyone could listen to the radio. Overplayed songs spaced with 3 minutes of commercials? My blackberry can barely open the web browser and even it has Pandora.

But the point is, this report, which could have been written by just about any 15 year-old and not just a Morgan Stanley star child, prompted the reaction of “dozens and dozens of fund managers, and several CEOs, e-mailing and calling all day” and “generated five or six times more feedback than the team’s usual reports.”

I’m not surprised by the reaction in the least. I am surprised that this doesn’t happen more often. There has certainly been a movement towards this trust of the youths in their native digital world, but it’s moving slower than I would have guessed. It seems to me to be an obvious step. I would guess that most parents don’t have trouble admitting that their son or daughter probably understands the internet better than they do. However it’s probably also true that not all of these parents would be likely to admit this TO their sons and daughters, let alone ask them for their help or advice. Is pride the problem then? Sure, I can see the logic from the other side. These corporations saw the birth of the digital age, even helped create it, why would they need the help and advice of a group of people who doesn’t even know what the world was like before the internet? For just that reason. We are as Murdoch says “digital natives” and to deny the usefulness of our native knowledge is simply a missed opportunity.

I’m not implying that companies should have teenage CEOs or an army of consultant tweens. All I’m saying is, every once in a while, you gotta ask the youts.

even farmers are tweeting

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/07/02/twitter.farmer/index.html

 

 

Little T

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4296575

One of the best articles I've ever read. (Has nothing to do with tech)

frustrations

I got a new quasi assignment from my manager to look into changing another piece of the test software suite to include our new protocols.

Here is where my list of complaints begins. I realize that few people will know what I'm talking about, but that's never stopped me from complaining before and I feel the need to rant. Qualcomm by default has alotted their interns a tiny Wyse desktop about the size of a hardcover book and with about the processing power of one as well. However, nothing is actually run off of this machine as its only function is to connect me to the glorious virtual machine in my name sitting somewhere on a server that may be on this campus or more likely in Asia somewhere. In editing the first program, I copied the source files over to my "hard drive" and before I knew it my 25 gbs were all used up. When I was told about the next software, I hoped the source was small or I was in trouble. No such luck. It was way too big to copy to my system. So, here I am running through a virtual machine, then through a desktop machine sitting in the lab across the hall from me. Its taken me the last two hours or so to insert 6 lines of code, save and compile. What's the best part you ask? Those 6 lines completed my project. Not even kidding.

Although I guess I can't complain too much since one of my friends from Duke just told me that his boss informed him today that nobody cared about his project or even if he finished it. I think in general interns are incredibly undervalued. Apparently there's some drastic amount of knowledge I will receive in the next academic year that will elevate me from know-nothing intern to the big leagues of full time work. I'm not holding my breath, but it seems the corporations are.

On another note, amazing weekend with the family. We have such a great group of people, its funny how many completely different conversations you can have. (I'm even counting the ones that you get to have with Grandma or Christy twice. Heard it...) But really, I can't imagine my life without all of those people. Now if someone could only find a way to beat me and Chris O in beer pong...

We'll take on all challengers this weekend, can't wait for the 4th.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

QVF 09

Yesterday during the day, Qualcomm had an event called the Qualcomm Venture Fest (QVF). The event was the finale for a 2^nd (maybe 3^rd) year program put on by QIN – the Qualcomm Innovation Network. The program started earlier in the year when teams of employees were encouraged to submit business plans for their idea of a new product that Qualcomm should start producing. This year, 196 business plans were submitted, which is pretty incredible in itself. Of those 196, 14 teams were chosen to attend a 3 month “boot camp.” This involved speakers from SDSU’s business school, Qualcomm VPs, and Irwin Jacobs himself. At the end of this boot camp the 14 teams presented their ideas to judges in two rounds, with 6 making it through the first round and a top 3 decided by the second panel of judges, which consisted of Senior VPs and Paul Jacobs.

 

The ultimate purpose for the QVF event was to announce the three winners, but also included Paul Jacobs as the keynote speaker. I was impressed by Jacob’s speech, by even more impressed by the content. He focused on the innovation going on all over Qualcomm. Earlier this week, QCOM opened a fabrication plant in Taiwan that will start producing Marisol displays, the low power displays inspired by butterfly wings. He also talked about Zeebo, an affordable video game console designed for developing countries, where video games are downloaded over a 3G network using a Qualcomm chip. This was the product of a previous QVF participant and is expected to be widely successful. He mentioned a new 14 mm thick Smartbook, powered by QCOM’s new Snapdragon chip. Qualcomm, it seems, is expanding in every direction. They are not allowing themselves to be typecast as a wireless chip-maker, but rather spreading out in any area where a good idea rises. Every time they see something that is smart and makes sense, they invest and get involved. Jacobs seemed really passionate about this type of business plan, and I think that in doing so he has effectively created an atmosphere at Qualcomm where innovation is not just encouraged, but is the focal point of almost every division.

 

The top three winners consisted of a wide range of ideas. Third place went to a team who imagined an embedded wireless device for use in medicine. Second went to TVLINK, a group who I thought had the best idea. Their idea was to create a wireless display interface, basically a wireless monitor cable. This is needed in such a bad way. I actually went looking for one online less than 2 weeks ago, and couldn’t find anything that would do the job for a reasonable price. Think about how many people watch TV on their computers rather than their actual TV, and how many YouTube videos are watched daily. There needs to be a better way to transmit your computer’s display to you HDTV. TVLINK came up with an idea that is so beyond brilliantly simple. Jacobs acknowledged this as well saying the Qualcomm has been searching for a way to master this technology for a long time. Their idea: rather than broadcast over WiFi or other network, broadcast the display over an unused TV channel. The second I heard that I was so amazed. It makes perfect sense. TV’s are already capable of receiving over-the-air HD channels, so why not just make your computer’s display an HD channel? This is something that I know Qualcomm will strive to produce as soon as possible, and I hope so, because I want one. The first place winner was called SWARM, and though I didn’t understand their exact technology, the premise was to create a more environmentally friendly (high throughput, low power) processor using existing technology. This is definitely an important concept as computing grows, because current processors produce a ridiculous amount of heat and require constant cooling.

 

Anyway, I was really impressed by the event, and impressed by the brilliant people, who in the 3 months came up with incredible ideas, without any time off of work.

the "internet"

Hands-free

I love the california drivers who think putting their phone on speakerphone and holding it 6 inches in front of their face qualifies as hands-free and is therefore legal. Doesn't work that way sorry.

I'm driving while sending this.

I'm a rebel not a hypocrite. Plus I'm young and invincible so it doesn't matter.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry