July 2008 Archives

I was reading some of the great coverage by the CBC of the iPhone launch and found myself raising an eyebrow. Down near the bottom of the article is a section headed "Only Italy more expensive than Canada." I've seen this in many stories where the cost of the iPhone is presented at Voice Plan + Data Plan + System Access Fee multiplied by 36 months.

The reason I raised my eyebrow was that I already have a Voice Plan, I already pay the System Access Fee, but I don't have a Data Plan. So for me the 'cost' of going to an iPhone is the incremental cost of adding the Data Plan + the handset itself.

From most of the coverage I've seen the people buying the iPhone already have a cellphone. So they are already paying something every month. I would also wager than it's highly unlikely these people will do away with a cellphone completely in the next three years.  So whilst I think the 3 year contract is appalling , I think you have to be carefull when doing the price comparison that you don't base your analysis on a false premis.

Personally, if you want to knock the whole idea of an iPhone, doing these cost comparisons is not the best approach. The cost of the handset itself is not significant, $300 is a couple of meals out, it's really the extra $30 per month plus taxes. If I was a completely new customer, i.e. not only new to the Network, but never had a cellphone before, then maybe there's some value in these cost comparisons.

I've not taken the plunge yet on buying an iPhone - I'm still doing the math. One cost which hasn't been mentioned is that many people took over 8 hours (and a horrible experience it was) to get their iPhone and get it activated. Normally the only time I wait that long is at an Airport, where I have no control over the device! Here though, if I was self employed and charged my time out at $100 per hour, getting my hands on an iPhone yesterday just cost me $800 of billable time!

I'll keep working on my math, find answers to questions like "I already pay extra for caller display on my existing plan, will that work for the iPhone?' and watch the stories which will come over the next few weeks.

You should notice today the blog looks a little different. That's because it is now hosted on Movable Type Version 4, which Zach at Cazinc helped me set up. It's also given me the opportunity to review my existing strategy/design/ approach etc.

The biggest change is that I have integrated all the content from my two previous blogs, this one and Moosehat.com into one place. I wanted a simpler life and have been thinking about having a single blog for a long time.

The design is still a work in progress but for today it is good enough to get working on. I still have a few things to do on the 'infrastructure', such as reinstall Disqus, then I'll work on the whole look and feel.

You will notice the Current Activity and Find Me Elsewhere blocks to the right. These are courtesy of Action Streams, although I did try friendfeed (the widget was not very flexible) and Zach just pointed me at Swurl, which I'll take a look at.

UPDATE: Action Streams is killing the servers in the background for this blog, so has been discontinued. Still looking at different options for this.

One request I do have of my loyal readers, is that if you subscribe through a feed please delete and resubscribe so you are picking up the updated version! Of course any comments and feedback would be welcome.

I've been on LinkedIn since early 2004, when I started using it to connect with people in Vancouver. At that time I was planning a reconnaissance trip to the city, ahead of emigrating from the UK. LinkedIn put me in touch with lots of good people and I went on to meet a bunch of them during my visit. The contacts I made were very very helpful and a number have become the closest of my Canadian Friends, since we arrived as permanent residents in the summer of 2005.

My use of LinkedIn was for the longest time unchanged. I believed that it was a numbers game and the more connections you had the more likely you were to get a few that were of value. Of course that statement 'of value' is the interesting point. What does it mean? My general approach to networking has always been to look for what I can offer my network, rather than what I can take from it. What is 'of value' changes over time and although LinkedIn was helpful in the building stages of my network, especially in Vancouver - I had for a few months been rethinking my approach.

My 'policy' so to speak was to be generous in who I connected with, i.e. I didn't really mind if I knew them or not. Some I had brief email discussions with, but generally I didn't. Apart from a mass invite activity I did in 2004/2005 I've only actually invited people recently that I'd met, so change was on the cards. As LinkedIn added to their offering I started following a feed of my network's activity. Increasingly this has become frustrating.

Most of the updates etc I was reading came from people that quite honestly, I didn't really know. Consequently they were of little interest. What would be of interest would be a feed from people I did really know. That feed I would like to read.

So without pretending I have some highly intellectual plan I decided to reduce my LinkedIn network to what I thought of as connections which I have some kind of connection with. LinkedIn of course is a bit clunky when it comes to removing contacts, but I've finally finished my first pass. Below are the Before/After numbers:

Measure                              Before               After     Reduction

Connections                         1,615                 362            78%

2 Degrees away               489,100            126,800          74%

3 Degrees away            8,230,600         5,150,500         37%

Total contactable         8,721,300         5,277,700         29%

It's interesting to note that the more extended the network, the less impact this has had.  Is this the right strategy going forward? Time will tell, but for now it feels better and just maybe I can start looking at my connections and taking more of interest in what they are all up to.

Note: Due to the number of connections I removed, it's entirely possible I deleted some that I meant to keep. If you are reading this and think you are one of them, let me know!