The 463: Inside Tech

Obama Calls for Innovation

 

In last night’s State of the Union Address, the president strongly emphasized America’s need for innovation in order to “win the future.”  His speech, not surprisingly, focused largely on the improvement of the economy.  He challenged Americans to hone their creativity to achieve the innovation that will keep our country competitive in global markets and continue on the path to economic recovery.  Obama’s support has struck a pleasant chord with the business and technology communities.

 What does the president’s encouragement of innovation mean for the technology industry? Obama praised the tech industry for creating American jobs and gave a nod to successes of Google and Facebook.  Obama proposed increasing investments in education, making high-speed, wireless internet more readily available to more citizens, and improving clean-energy initiatives.  These proposals mean more government money going directly to the research and development of new innovative technologies, particularly clean technology and information technology.

As Obama illustrated, America has a history of bright minds and great progress.  By investing in young thinkers and new technology, the government can help increase the American contribution to the digital revolution, which continuously improves citizens’ lifestyles with each innovation. Obama plans to send a budget outlining the proposed investments to Congress in the coming weeks. It will be interesting to observe over the next legislative year how his  proposals are addressed and developed in Washington and the impact they have on tech policies and businesses.

 

To support the American spirit of innovation check out the CEA sponsored website www.innovation-movement.com.  

 

The Future of a Jobsless Apple

(Katie Durkin) Last Monday’s announcement the Steve Jobs would be taking an indefinite medical leave from Apple has left the Internet reeling with questions about the company’s future.  Jobs, a god of the Silicon Valley, is the face of Apple whose charisma and vision is credited for the company’s wild success. The news of his absence pushed Apple’s stock down 2.25% on Tuesday.  In a 2008 New York Times article, financial analyst Charles R. Wolf speculated, “Apple is Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs is Apple. I think the stock would drop 25 percent or more if he were to leave the company unexpectedly.”

 However, in light of a banner year for the company and his previous medical leave, its unlikely Apple’s bottom line will suffer in 2011.  Apple’s net income rose 78% last quarter thanks to holiday sales of the iPad and iPhone 4.  It also reached the milestone of its 10 billionth application downloaded this week from the App Store.  During Jobs’ six-month hiatus in 2009,  Apple’s stock price rose 60% under the leadership of chief operating officer Tim Cook. Cook will once again take control of the day-to-day operations in Jobs’ place.

 While his current leave is temporary, Steve Jobs will eventually leave Apple permanently.  I believe when that day comes, the legacy and company he has built will remain a powerful force of progress and innovation in the technology industry far into the future.

 

Wikipedia Turns 10

(Whitney Forster) - On Saturday, Wikipedia, the collaborative online successor to Encyclopedia Britannica, turns 10 years old. Wired has a great feature on Wikipedia this week featuring a Q&A with founder Jimmy Wales.

It's hard to imagine the Internet without Wikipedia, a site that demonstrates some of the best qualities of the Internet - collaboration and the democratization of information. How many debates have been settled by turning to the site during conversations or trivia contests? Certainly Wikipedia certainly has its critics and is trying to address the "intimidation factor" of its hard core online editing community and their resistance to new contributors, but as the site "grows up", it is interesting to think about the challenges the company will face as it adopts new languages and continues its global push. Issues of censorship will surely be an issue that Wikipedia will need to spend a lot of time on over the next decade.

Shout out for Sean Garrett (and 463) in PR Week

(Jim Hock) In a recent article in PR Week, my friend and former partner Sean Garrett talks about all the good stuff happening at Twitter.  He’s building quite the team with Jody Olson (formerly of our sister company Text 100) and others there, but kudos to Sean for navigating what is an absolute sea of incoming media requests and keeping them on top of their game.

From the article:  At 463, Garrett hired people that didn't need a lot of handholding, had specialties, and could hit the ground running. Such traits are also a necessity of Twitter's tech startup culture. "We don't do clip reports, daily analysis of the media. We just attack it," says Garrett. "That's what we did at 463. It's what we do here."

Nice work Sean.  Good PR is about results, not process. Hire talented people with diverse skills and you get good outcomes. We miss you pal!  More on the article here.