In a way, great engineering, wonderful code and elegant mathematics is a form of design.

How important is design to you and what role does it have in society?

I am looking to purchase a netbook (ASUS 1005PE or Lenovo S10-3) to use as my blogging machine while I’m on the road so please keep your eye on my site for pictures (if I can figure out how to upload them) and for updates.  If worse comes to worst, I’ll use my trusty BlackBerry to update this site.

I’m not the most artistic person out there, in fact, I am not artistic at all. But the world of design is very attractive to me. If there was a way that I could fuse design with business/making money while providing solutions to the masses, I would be very satisfied.

One of the top companies in the world in this field is IDEO. It has consistently been ranked as one of the most innovative firms in the world by Business Week magazine. They are experts in both design and business and have worked on some really interested projects over the years, bringing to market some of the most compelling solutions to problems sometimes we never realized we had.

Good design, good user experience and aesthetic appeal makes good business sense especially in the fickle consumer marketplace. In many ways, it helps define the brand. Over the years, unbeknownst to me, design has become very important, but not in isolation. Form and function has to of equal salience. I admire companies like Samsung, Apple, and Porsche for their commitment to both form and function. Contrast these firms with lets say, Bang & Olufsen. It seems to me that they are more about form over function for the purposes of serving a small segment of the market with a large amount of disposable income.

To answer my own question, design is very important and the companies that are able to bring both design and utility in a singular package will end up winning the very limited funds in my wallet.

Let me know what you think about this look!

Today was a good day. It was a good day at work for me and a good day for tech geeks out there. Apple finally held its product announcement event and to nobody’s surprise, a tablet was presented to the public.

Here are my thoughts on the iPad in point form.

- Most significant factor is the pricing. $499 starting price is awesome!

- The Apple cool factor. There is no denying the impact Apple’s brand and industrial design has on people’s purchasing decision. It is what allows perfectly rational people to pay more for products that otherwise might be sold for less by other manufacturers.

- The iPad allows Apple to capture part of the growing netbook market without bringing its Macbook line downmarket. The challenge is really convincing people that an iPad is really all you need if you’re looking for a netbook (even if you’re one of those people looking at the new netbooks out with Intel’s “Pine Trail” atom processor).

- Along with a surprisingly low price, the other significant factor may be revealed in the coming weeks in the form of additional content deals. Apple has shown that it can help content providers and publishers stay relevant in the digital age.

- I feel that typing might be an issue on this device. I can see typing being a bit cumbersome.

- The smaller than expected flash hard drive capacity was a disappointment.

- Battery life could be better.

- Lack of USB ports.

- Flash support and multi-tasking capabilities yet to be confirmed.

Overall, I feel that the device will be successful. It will likely impact netbook manufacturers, but not as negatively as the impact the iPod has had on all the MP3 makers last decade. For smartphone makers, it might cause some people to opt not to get a smartphone and get an iPad while keeping their regular feature phone a bit longer. I can see some people delaying their smartphone purchase, but the iPad will not replace the smartphone.

It looks like Apple did a good job of making sure the iPad isn’t a do-it-all device to prevent cannibalization. Their ideal consumer is someone who uses an iPhone for everyday mobility, an iPod nano for the gym, an iPad for light browsing and multimedia, and a Macbook Pro/iMac for heavy computer use. In other words, this is a complementary device that perhaps completes someone’s consumer mobile needs.

Today I re-did the layout of this blog and downloaded the WordPress application on BlackBerry. I figured I would test this app out in the next day or so, but here I am trying it out tonight.

Hope this worked.

This is an example of how small businesses can go the extra mile to ensure satisfaction and continue to facilitate positive word of mouth recommendations. This is in stark contrast to many larger companies where your inquiries are typically lost in the abyss of their customer service teams.

Thank you Grado Labs and hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

www.flickr.com/moseschoi

Thanks y’all.

This is a wonderful blog. It’s a satirical blog about the things that white people like. It isn’t racist nor is it offensive. It’s well-written and quite hilarious. Read it and enjoy!

My time on the new team can best be described as hectic. There is a lot of work to do for this year and not enough capacity on the team as all our projects have been piling on really quickly. What I really enjoy about my new role is that it’s based around an entire portfolio, rather than a particular function or a subset of a product. What this means for me is that I have visibility on the product end-to-end, working on initial product development, execution and launch, all while implementing marketing and pricing strategies.

I will be on this team for about 6 months before I move on to another challenge. By that time, I will be reaching my 2 year mark at this company. Time really does fly…