Just watch the whole 4 minutes and 45 seconds of it. You’re feel a lot better about yourself (I hope).

…wait for the 4:20 mark so you can once again see that the man running Microsoft has no fucking idea how any of the company’s technology works.

“GEE, some of ya even like technical stuff.”

What the hell does that even mean?

He’s talking to the computer science department of the University of Washington, of course they like the technical stuff!

In the world of automobiles, we have all sorts of choices:
Ferrari. Lamborghini, Porsche, Maserati, BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Aston Martin…and that’s just the high end. There’s cars for ever price, speed, mileage and capacity.
What about consumer computers?
Apple OS X. Microsoft Windows. (Linux has had more the enough time to be consumer-friendly, their priority is obviously dominating the world’s servers).
When we get to mobile OS’s there are a few more to choose from, but not many:
Apple iOS. Google Android. RIM’s Blackberry OS. And, until recently, the wonderful (I thought) webOS by Palm. And soon, Windows Phone 7 (I’ll count Symbian like I count the Ford Pinto as a viable choice for a car in the late 70’s).
When we get down to it, RIM doesn’t understand consumer products (yet?), Android is just getting around to getting more user-friendly and webOS was doing well until they got derailed by HP’s acquisition of Palm. I’m interested to see how Windows Phone 7 does. The problem is Microsoft, like RIM, doesn’t understand consumer products. Windows Phone 7 looks interesting, but too progressive for the average consumer.
We have Apple as the only true contender for the easiest, most holistic consumer computers, computer operating system and mobile operating system.
Where are the other contenders?
Who else understands design?

Ze Frank’s web playroom

On the web, a new “Friend” may be just a click away, but true connection is harder to find and express. Ze Frank presents a medley of zany Internet toys that require deep participation — and reward it with something more nourishing. You’re invited, if you promise you’ll share.

“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”

-Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (via Thinking For A Living)

“Behind every great fortune there is a crime.”

-Honore de Balzac

AutoBlog: Mazda Shinari Concept debuts new face of the brand in style

The Shinari concept, which roughly translates to “resistance to being bent,” will serve as a the basis for Mazda’s new design language, and many of the styling cues will make it to future production vehicles. That means that the Shinari will essentially affect the design of every vehicle coming from the Japanese automaker for the next several years.

And

The Shinari Concept represents the first styling concept under his new design theme, KODO, which replaces the controversial Nagare them from the past several years. While the Nagare-styled cars were represented by wavy, flowing lines, a trait that looked great on concepts but was tough to implement on production cars (see Mazda3), KODO is more of an organic style that still takes cues from the natural world, but in a much more solidified and powerful sense. Maeda describes KODO as form with a soul, or bringing form to life, with the three key terms defining the theme being speed, tension and alluring. “There are few products of industrial design that can be compared to living entities which convey energetic motion and which invite affection,” he says. “It is this intrinsically emotional appeal of the car that I wish to express when creating Mazda cars.”

GigaOm: How Tesla Will Try to Keep Its Stock Up

Tesla’s debut on the Nasdaq yesterday was met with a shockingly hearty embrace. The electric car maker started the day at $19 on Tuesday, above its estimated range of $14 to $16, and as of the middle of the day on Wednesday traded as high as $30.42. That’s despite the fact that as columnist Drew Voros put it: “Like the emperor with no clothes, Tesla is a company with no financial fundamentals that warrant it being a public security, much less one that pops on its first day of trading.”

That’s the problem right there. Instead of focusing on making their product great, they’re focusing on profitability. It’s going to cloud their vision, because if they’re (hypotheticallly) willing to do anything to keep their stock up, that (potentially) includes degrading their product.

TwinCities.com: Microsoft to do direct battle with Apple at Mall of America

A Microsoft retail store is coming to the Mall of America and — get this — it’s directly across from one of Apple’s famed retail stores.

Microsoft is a notorious imitator of all things Apple, and it’s doing it again by opening copycat stores across the country (four are open so far). The Mall of America store, with 8,600 total square feet and 5,200 public square feet, opens Nov. 6.

Ah Microsoft, desperate times call for desperate measures. I understand.

But do YOU understand where most of your revenue comes from?

*spoiler – it’s not from consumer stuff.

Wow, how great is this 2008 post from Scott Berkun (via Bobulate):

From all my travels and speaking gigs in 2007, I’m most confident about the following advice: Stop using the word innovation in 2008. Just stop. Right now. Commit to never saying the word again. Einstein, Ford, Leonardo da Vinci, Picasso, and Edison rarely said the word and neither should you. Every crowd I’ve said this to laughed and agreed. The I-word is killing us.

So, so, so true. This word has been beaten to death and sometimes by people who are in every other respect very intelligent. I came across two posts recently who are guilty:
DesignADay: Four Approaches to Innovative Solutions – A great post, just a bad title. The class Moffett is teaching should be called Solving Problems, because that’s what design is.
asymco: NYT blames yet another culprit: Nokia’s Culture of Complacency – First off, Horace Dediu is a super-sharp guy. Where his post needs adjusting is in his noting of Nokia’s ‘innovation firsts’. Innovations can be firsts but they aren’t always.
I quoted Professor Jan Fagerberg in July of 2009, and I’ll quote him again:

Invention is the first occurrence of an idea for a new product or process. Innovation is the first commercialization of the idea.

To not make this distinction between invention and innovation is to completely dilute any power and meaning behind innovation. Thomas Edison has hundreds of patents on his inventions, a fraction of which became innovations within the the marketplace.
As Berkun advised, our best bet is to stop using the word entirely.

AdAge: Why Chipotle Ditched Ad Agencies (via Kottke)

Mr. Crumpacker points out that the chain hasn’t added a menu item in 17 years and it also does not have a regular cadence of pricing promotions. For those reasons, he said, agencies’ experience with other fast food chains is irrelevant.

Why didn’t he talk to Don Draper? Coupons are HUGE with housewives.
And:

Last November, Chipotle made the decision to go it alone and bring advertising in-house. After spending at least six months selecting Butler Shine from a group of 27 agencies, Mr. Crumpacker said it didn’t make sense to take the time to pick another agency. “By the time we picked one and got them up to speed it would have been a year,” he said. “The only reasonable thing to do was to do it ourselves.”

Good lord, this stuff is beautiful. (via Just A Car Guy)

So Microsoft dropped their new phone/phone OS today. Their press release has a fair share of bullshit biz-speak, but it also has some honest words.
For one, it’s one of first times they acknowledge Android and iPhone by name, but the clincher is the last sentence of the last paragraph (my emphasis):

Microsoft is so committed to the new phone that it has arranged for every full-time employee worldwide to be able to switch to the new phone as soon as it launches in their market. And while executives say they are thrilled with the final product, they also acknowledge there is a lot more to be done. When the phone is released, they plan to enjoy the moment – but not for long. “There’s so much more of Microsoft we’ve got to bring out in the phone,” says Myerson. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

You’re over 3 years late to the smartphone game, damn straight you have a lot of work to do.