Chief Prognosticator

Apple Inc. has had an amazing year of products 2007 with mostly hits and only a few misses. Of course leading the list is the Apple iPhone which has been simply amazing and well received. Following that was the new iMac design and of course the long awaited release of OS X “Leopard”. As for the misses? Well I think Apple TV has been a miss. It was just not a mature product which met market demands. Steve Jobs wanted to replace the DVD player but instead fell short. Without HD connectivity of HDMI interface, Apple TV was not really good enough to compete with even $99 “upconverting” non-HD DVD players. Let’s see if Apple rebounds with this product in 2008 with the necessary upgrades.

As for 2008, what will Apple release? Word is out on a new Hard-drive-less laptop. It’s been touted as iPod meets iBook. But what else? Apple has raised the bar so high that they need to come out with 3 or 4 new and AMAZING product every year as not to disappoint investors or fanboys. What could it be?

• New iPod? Boring
• Cheaper iPhone? So-so.
• Better Apple TV? Hopefully.
• Flash-only memory laptops? OK, cool.
• Smaller iPod? Pico? How small is too small?
• ???

Crazy thing for the Chief Prognosticator to say, but that’s the statement made by the popular book “The Black Swan” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

 When Taleb looked at the accuracy that “experts” had in making predictions, he found that they were usually no better than the average person at getting it right. That’s amazing. A 2 year prediction? Forget about it?

Oh, p.s. — There a Kimble edition of this great book too.

I just love how technology is always pushing the limits of productivity and business performance to new levels. Just think of the impact of the desktop computer or wireless communication has had on business in the last 20 years. Even less ubiquitous areas of technology such as voice recorders, online ordering, and company intranets have made a huge impact on the bottom line. One exciting area of technology to help increase business productivity is the usage of GPS technology. GPS data can provide you with a lot of valuable information, especially in certain businesses like transportation and service visits. Here’s a great example of how GPS technology is helping business increase their profitability and improving their performance: GPS Insight.

The GPS Insight vehicle tracking system provides you with a Productivity Information System in real time for all your vehicle fleet. What does it do? Well after you install the hardware — it takes little to no time at all, just plug the unit into your vehicle’s diagnostic port, — you access real time information about that vehicle over the Internet. You get full real time data (updated every 2 minutes) for parameters like speed, fuel consumption, and idle time. Do more relying on drivers logs — those things are hard to manage and keep track of. Now with GPS Insight you get all the important data retrieved and stored in a single, powerful application. From a single map you can track all you fleet and keep an eye on things.

Product support for GPS Insight is 24/7. Not only do you have access to support staff but you also have the GPS Insight support wiki for customers. Knowledge and experience sharing helps you better use and optimize the product. This is really a 21st century product with 21st century productivity results.

So how much does all this information cost? Well the GPS Insight website has a great pricing tool which shows you instantly how much you can expect to pay for the hardware and the monitoring service. Just plug in your fleet size and get a line item listing of all the costs. It can be as low as  $1.50-2 per day per vehicle. That’ a low price to pay to have full oversight of your fleet. Whether you have a plumbing company or a trucking company, GPS Insight can help you get more profitable. Check out their Blog for GPS vehicle trackingat http://www.gpsinsight.com/blog for more information.

The future is bright and technology will continue to increase our business effectiveness!

With the U.S. Presidential election a long ways off, people are having political fatigue set in. Who will be the Democratic Presidential Nominee, Hillary, Barack, or John E? Who will be the Republican Presidential Nominee — McCain, Giuliani, or Romney? Well let’s mix things up a little now and focus on the VP position. It could make or break the ticket this year. Will the front runner (and nominee) select the 2nd place finisher to join them on the ticket? Will the 2nd place finisher decline? Will the Presidential nominee select someone outside the race? I really think the selection of running mate is the more moving and interesting story of the race for the White House. So what are your guesses?