September 2007

I sent the link to my last post to the very marketers I was talking about.  Not surprisingly, they commented and added to the list.

This comes from Tracey Passuello, Director, Digital Marketing & Sales Promotion at Portfolio.com.  Tracey is part of one of the coolest media launches of 2007, Portfolio from Conde Nast.  I will have to write about it soon, but it becoming one of my favorite reads.  Check out the October issue if you have not yet seen it.  

Let me frame it out - “By the blank stare you are giving me I figured out that you didn’t understand a word I said so maybe I need to stop throwing every buzz word I know out and actually speak English”

What’s our play? - “I have no idea what to do in this area so you better figure it out”

It goes in the bucket - “I have no idea how to do this task so I will put it into a file and pray it goes away”

It’s time to flip the model - “damn if I know what to do”

These come from Laura Mastroberti, Manager, Advertising Research & Marketing at Newsday Long Island, one of the largest daily newspapers in the country, and the paper I grew up reading.  They have recently redesigned their web site.  Check it out here.

We need to think economies of scale – “Less money, more work”

This is going to be so much fun – “Fun for me because I don’t have to do it, you do”

I think you’re on the right track – “You missed it by a mile; try again”

Do you have more to share?  Send them in and we’ll post them.

Like Rudy Giuliani, I make an effort to be direct and to the point. It saves time and I think you should let colleagues know where you stand. I know it sometimes makes people uncomfortable, but I believe in being up front and honest rather than hiding behind niceties and not speaking my mind. It certainly cuts down on miscommunication. I prefer working with people who are direct, and it is a personality trait of a good marketer. Being able to express yourself clearly and persuasively is what marketing is all about anyway.

I have a group of friends and former colleagues in marketing who I bounce ideas off when I am looking for input. They always give me good feedback, and the best marketing people I have known are frank, honest and not always looking to spare feelings. If you want to be successful in marketing, you better have a thick skin. The bad marketers I have known are mealy mouth corporate survivors, who rarely say anything of substance. They are also masters at repeating other’s ideas as their own. As a service to Think Tank readers here is a guide for translating business weasel phrases during those painful conference calls and meetings.

Term - “ThinkTank Translation”

1. We can divide and conquer - “Please do my work for me”

2. We need an off-site meeting  -  ”Let’s stick our head in the sand somewhere else and have a dinner on the company”

3. Special Projects - “It’s cheaper to keep him around for a while, also see #15″

4. He’s not Strategic - “He’s not smart”

5. She’s more Strategic - “She can’t get things done”
 
6. I don’t have the bandwidth - “I don’t feel like doing it”

7. Let’s take it off line - “Pipe down until we are off this call”
 
8. Please take ownership of this - “Take it off my plate, it’s not of interest to the boss anymore”

9. Let’s form a task force - “I need some ideas I can steal”

10. We don’t have enough marketing suppot - “Need a scapegoat for bad sales”

11. Revenue is down year over year - “We have a product no one wants”

12. It’s a good thing - “Someone got screwed and it’s not me”

13. We need a new branding campaign - “I can blame the last guy for a while”

14. It needs more white space - “It’s mess, take it down a notch”

15. “Strategic” or “Strategy” in job title - “No longer useful, but friends with the boss”

16. I am working on it - “Have not even started it”

17. Town Hall Meeting - “Propaganda for the masses”

18. Realigning assets - “Swingin’ the ol’ axe”

19. Let’s get back to what we know worked in the past - “I have no new ideas”

20. We need to be entrepreneurial - “No more car service, free drinks or room service”

21. I need you to be a team player - “Sorry, no raise this year”

22. Nice to put a face to the name - “I thought you would be better looking”

23. She presents herself very well - “Babe”

24. My bad - “I screwed up, but using street language makes me cool”

25. It’s not about the money - “It’s always about the money”
 

I had a Professor in Business School who tried to get his students to give opinions and thoughts in clear language, and to speak our minds. He hated hedging and generic terms —he would say “no weasel words” when some tried to give him business clichés as an answer. I used to think of him when stuck on mind numbing conference calls that were grossly common when I was working for large companies. These calls were a cornucopia of political positioning, name dropping, calendar filling and butt kissing—that’s not how I roll. Truth is I spent most of them on espn.com and exchanging witty IMs with like-minded call participants.

The modern world has created a whole vocabulary of politically correct, soft and non-offensive terms which is symptomatic of our times. Fear of lawsuits and current educational trends have made all of us careful of what we say so we don’t offend or make anyone slightly uncomfortable. Politicians are the worst at this type of safe talk. I used to love watching Meet the Press and presidential debates, but don’t watch much anymore. No one ever says anything interesting. All they do is repeat the same focus group-tested, carefully constructed statements that are designed not to get them in trouble or offend any special interest group.

In the entertainment world, when people come along like Rosie O’Donnell, Don Imus, Kathy Griffin and Donald Trump, people gravitate to them because they shoot from the hip and say what is on their mind. However, as soon as they cross some arbitrary line they get smote down with a great fury and vengeance. Because not many people want to take that risk, we get a steady dose of Ryan Seacrest, Carson Daly, and Regis and Kelly. Dull, boring and vanilla.

I am rooting for Rudy Giuliani to win at least the Republican nomination. Anything can come out of his mouth at any time and speaking his mind is in his DNA. I relate to Rudy because we both grew up on Long Island, where people are not shy about telling you what they think—whether you want to know or not. Contrast him to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney who come across as programmed machines from that old Yul Brenner Westworld movie. The question is: how will America feel about this choice of verbal and personal styles? Let’s take a look at recent experiences of the voters. (Rudy and me at a corporate event)

For eight years they had Bill Clinton who debated the definition of the word “is” as he was being impeached for lying about a girl. He was followed by George W. Bush who fudged his way into a war by linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11 with no proof. I may be wrong, but I think the country may be ready for a straight talking Long Islander in the White House.

Missing old friends? Want invites to parties? How about offers to join dozens of new online social networks (all of which are stories in themselves)? Start blogging. Can’t say that we’ve been offered a custom media gig for The Who yet, but given the volume of contacts surfacing in the last 45 days, I’m holding-out hope.

At Think Tank, our staff and some interesting opinioned-types have been offering their thoughts on media and its many current offerings and applications. We’re in the business, and we live to challenge the status quo of media you can rent versus owning your own media channel. We call that Private Media, but what’s in a name? What Private Media does for marketers says it all, and the next 125 words is for those people who’ve checked in and want to hear about what’s new at the shop in Salem.

• Our events group just wrapped the Appreciative Inquiry conference where 500 attendees spent 3 ½ days in keynotes and workshops designed to spur positive change in the workplace. Fascinating subject, and powerful speakers. Click here to read what my fellow blogger Gordon Plutsky has to say about the event.

• Webcasts have evolved beyond straight-forward audio and video platforms; the duration is shortening, content is punchier, and other platforms are deployed that include interactive PDFs, virtual tradeshows and even more engaging uses of video. Cool and smart stuff.

• We’re currently conducting a phone and interactive survey for 100 customers of a King Fish client for a comprehensive market research project. This formidable media company has outsourced this significant custom media program to us to determine who makes the cut for an important performance-based award ceremony next quarter. Brilliant use of Private Media to maximize employee retention.

Recent King Fish acknowledgements by Entrepreneur and Inc. magazines confirm that our approach is working, and that our clients are benefiting from this fresh method of assessing business challenges. There’s the update – and onto a request: for any old contacts stopping by Think Tank, please feel free to invite me to any of the following social networks from my past:

• The guys who get 69 GTO convertibles
• Small bars/clubs where the best music still lives
• My sailing friends from PLP (1976-1979)
• A place I can lose myself laughing again with Gardner, Rich, Jamie, Jon, Woozie,  Spike and JB
• An online community for all of us tortured by my 1st grade swimming teacher.
 

I re-learned a valuable marketing lesson at the AI conference about audiences and keeping an open mind. Some of the speakers wanted to present keynote sessions where people would sit together in tables of 10 and do interactive exercises together. No big deal, but we were sitting 450 people and it just didn’t make sense to me and my B2B/Technology events background. We strongly suggested doing it our way, but eventually relented and reset the room in rounds with materials for a brainstorming exercise. Well, the attendees loved it, and it fit right in with their democratic and participatory ethos. The lesson is one I should have remembered – put yourself in the mind of your customer and keep your preconceived notions to the side. One of the great dangers in marketing is to default back to what worked in your past. Every situation is new and times change rapidly. Approach every situation with a fresh eye and blank slate for the best results. Besides, “That’s the way we have always done it” is the worst phrase that can ever be uttered by a marketing professional.

Another interesting note – one of the speakers in the conference was an old friend and boss, Nancy Newman who is now a V.P. of sales training at Yahoo! It never fails to amaze me how life and careers takes twists and turns. It was great to see her and she was her usual funny self. When she made a few AV and logistics requests and I jumped right back into employee mode and made sure they got done for her, pronto. Nancy was the Publisher of PC Magazine and I was her marketing director back when it was the size of a large phone book in the pre web 90’s. Never in a million years could I predict that I would see her 10 years later at an Appreciative Inquiry conference my company was producing. She was joined in a standing-room-only presentation by her Yahoo! colleague, Kim Bennett. Over drinks at the evening reception Kim told me she was a stand up comedian on her rare breaks from working at Yahoo! That is what I love about face to face events, none these conversations would have happened online or in any virtual world. There is no substitute for human interaction. Here is something the internet is great for – sharing a video of Kim’s stand up act, on Yahoo! Video, of course. Click here to check it out, and enjoy.

King Fish Media recently produced the 2007 International Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Conference. The four day summit brought together people from over 25 countries to hear speakers such as David Cooperrider, Marcus Buckingham and Martin Seligman. I will not even attempt to explain positive psychology and AI even though I am the proud owner of a 20 year old BA in psychology. Click here to learn more about the conference and see links to AI resources.

Spending several days at this conference reinforced my belief that face to face events are a critical media channel, and a key component to any Private Media solutions. Events a media channel? Of course, they are. Events bring together a community of people with similar interests with compelling content in a high affinity environment. That is the perfect description of private media. Additionally, a live event is the best community building mechanism known to man. It is one thing to join an online social network, but it is quite another to spend three days with a colleague in keynotes, breakout sessions and social situations. You can actually see relationships being created and deals being done when you walk around reception rooms and break areas. Can you think of a better customer retention venue than spending 48-72 hours with your best customers?

Events can be a hub and jumping off point for additional permission marketing vehicles such as newsletters, magazines, Web sites and more. As we become more and more Web centric, live events are more critical than ever to build relationships and market your company. As a marketing guy who has run his share of events and conferences, I am a huge believer in face to face. I strongly believe that focused events are a “must have” in most private media solutions. When you have someone in your own environment for a period of time, you have a golden opportunity to message to them and create long term customers.

“It looks like your payment was misplaced, so we had to turn off your electricity. We have no proof that you sent it. I can’t backdate payments. This probably ruined your credit. I know it’s 95 degrees out and you’re sweating to death in your house. There’s nothing I can do. Maybe you own a fan? Thank you for calling First Electric Company! Have a great day!” rambles the robotic customer support representative, barely stopping to listen.

As you slam down your phone and your dog whimpers in the sweltering heat, you yell, “How could they lose my payment?! They didn’t even listen to me! I AM HOT!”  

Whether it’s a snotty salesperson, a condescending technical support representative or a negligent front desk agent, we all know what it’s like to be treated badly by someone who is being paid to help us. As we seethe in anger over being mistreated, we have several options. Our doctors would recommend a brisk walk so we can clear our heads. Our inner fatties demand ice cream. The road-rager in us demands we get in the car and see how many other drivers we can drive off the road.

But what do most of us do? We complain. Loudly. To anyone who will listen. And increasingly, that includes posting about our experiences online.

No matter what you’re angry about, there is a site on which you can post about it. Having issues with your faulty Hyundai? Post on furiocity.com, where the site logo is a frowny-face emoticon. Have major beef with Capital One? Take a gander at caponesucks.com, where over 6,000 registered users complain about being mishandled by Capital One. Feel that you were wrongfully arrested? Grumble about it with fellow inmates on screwedcentral.com, where they will also gladly host your complaints about the government.

So how do companies control the negative feedback? As media becomes more and more instant, the need to know what people are saying about your company is critical. The impact of one bad experience broadcast on the internet could potentially expedite customer churn and cost you millions of dollars in lost revenue. I came across one extremely angry man who claims that a pest control company killed his dog and is trying to send his wife to prison for writing a bad check. If that isn’t bad PR, I don’t know what is.

It may be easy to brush off angry customers as being crazy, but that tact might not be the right one to take. In most industries, there is very little difference between competitive products, so customer service has become the great differentiator. It is critical that someone in your marketing organization monitors these sites and monitors what people are saying online about your brand. In addition, it would be a wise move to provide your customers with a clear and easy-to-use forum for sending their disputes and complaints to you directly instead of sending their rage directly into the void. 

The bottom line is that you’d better start listening, or else the rest of the world will first.

I’ve been talking with marketing managers at vendors and large integrators, and they share a common complaint: their efforts are unappreciated and often dismissed by their sales counterparts.

No shock. Research conducted by VARBusiness last year found that marketing and business development ranked among the least valued items for improving sales and growing a business. Conversely, greater management focus and expanding sales teams was ranked among the best actions to drive growth. In other words, brute force wins over strategic development.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, channel dogma holds that resellers (solution providers, integrators and system builders) generate leads on behalf of their vendors. The reality, however, is solution providers don’t generate leads, are horrible at marketing and don’t do enough to promote their own brands.

What’s to blame? Two of the great evils of the IT industry: compensation plans and vendor brand supremacy.

Innovation and growth require risk taking. Compensation plans, however, counter risk taking. As products become commoditized and markets become saturated, vendors and solution providers will bring new and complex products to create new revenue streams. Sales teams are often compensated on gross revenue of best selling products. When they’re given a goal for sales, sales teams will often devote the bulk of their attention to products that will get them to their goal fastest without consideration to overall growth of the business. This is also why companies create special sales teams when introducing new products and services; they’re unencumbered by legacy sales and products.

Solution providers don’t do enough to develop and promote their own brands. Instead, solution providers rely upon their vendors’ brand strength to drive sales and the vendors prefer it this way. To draw an analogy to the automobile industry, no one buys a car body, engine, tires, drive train, seats, windows and lights and then builds a car; they buy a car that is the final product of scores of suppliers. Nissan Motors, for instance, has more than 10,000 suppliers that feed parts to the manufacturer for the assembly of its various cars. Yet, the general public knows few of those suppliers even if they are the best parts makers in the industry. The contrary is true in the IT industry, where vendors want brand supremacy over the brands of their resellers, integrators and solution providers. No one buys an IT system; they buy the pieces and then pay someone to assemble them.

Vendor brand supremacy has the unfortunate effect of creating partner reliance upon the vendor for marketing and lead generation. So long as vendors continue to promote their brands over the brands of their channel partners, the solution providers will look to their vendors to either supply marketing or underwrite their marketing efforts.

To achieve real growth, businesses must be willing to take risk. Corporate leaders may understand the risk imperative; what they need to do is remove the obstacles to risk and structure their channels and compensation plans to encourage their field teams to embrace the challenge of risk rather than just maintaining their personal revenue streams.

Send Larry your thoughts and feedback: lmwalsh@twentyonetwelve.biz or at www.twentyonetwelve.biz

The amount of media available to consumers has grown dramatically, but the irony is there is not enough content to fill all those cable channels, radio stations, Web sites, etc. The new network TV season is upon us and history tells us we will have 2-3 hits and mostly misses. I am not the only one who scans hundreds of cable channels and can’t find anything to watch—unless you enjoy shows on house flippers, close-ups of plastic surgery or reality competition shows. It’s hard to believe that the net result of 5,000 years of cultural development is “Dancing with the Stars.”

One of the implications of all this time to fill can be seen most clearly on the cable news channels and “fake news” shows like Entertainment Tonight and Extra. They are fake news because they mostly consist of pre-packaged PR from celebrities promoting new TV shows, movies and music. It always cracks me up to see the release of a new Justin Timberlake album covered like the Mideast peace talks. The entire concept of news and news cycles has changed—maybe not for the better. Coverage of the adventures of Britney, Paris and Lindsay has been over-the-top relative to their importance. Our parents had the Rat Pack, we had the Brat Pack and our kids have the Skank Pack. The amount of air time devoted to these reprobates’ every move is mind-boggling compared to other real news that gets the short shrift. 

I actually felt bad for Britney Spears when her performance and physical appearance were trashed after the MTV VMAs.   The shear  volume and nastiness of the attacks surprised me. She was called fat and out of shape by legions of fat and out of shape commentators.  She looks pretty good to me, but I am not a fan of the emaciated/heroin addict style that seems all the rage today.

Do people really care about certain celebrities to an extent that justifies the volume of coverage; or do we pay attention because they are constantly exposed to us —a Zen riddle for sure. How much of this is driven by the fact that these news and syndicated shows have oodles of time to fill and sponsors to keep happy? It must be working because we keep getting more of this coverage across TV and the Web.

These media outlets have become addicted to the “Big Story”—it drives their ratings. It could be Imus, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, or a political scandal. It always takes the same predictable arc—round the clock coverage and the trotting out of commentators and “experts” to endlessly comment, usually rehashing a limited body of actual facts. Whole careers are being built out of being a cable news talking head expert. That is how Star Jones got her start. The net effect is an acceleration of the story and a piling on of coverage that often outweighs the real significance of the story. This acceleration ultimately helped do in Senator Larry Craig—the story went from a brushfire to an all out inferno in 24 hours. Let’s not forget that blogs and You Tube act as kindling wood and lighter fluid to spread the flames.

 The “crime” he committed was pretty minor, and you could argue he was entrapped. However, non-stop coverage (and being easy pickins’ for Letterman, Leno and Stewart) focused on the prurient aspects of the story, and the juxtaposition of him being staunchly against gay marriage. The Republicans quickly calculated the cost of supporting him was too great to bear, especially since they would not lose the seat. He was toast within days of the story breaking. Thirty years ago when we were in a non-Web, three network world, the outcome may have been different. Now we live in a world where the cable news channels need to continuously feed the beast. Heaven help the person who gets fed to this insatiable monster.

Lately, I’ve been categorizing my editorial consulting work as “corporate journalism”—the practice of creating balanced, fact-based content for marketers. It’s a more authentic alternative to the usual PR drivel and marketing fluff that companies have traditionally used to annoy customers, journalists and other target groups. The content can take many forms: white papers (reported with real-person interviews, not made-up quotes), articles, blog posts, video, etc. —all the stuff you’d see on a typical media site. The content development work is also similar to traditional journalism: understand the target audience (customers vs. readers), identify the experts (internal and external), and get them to help you tell the story (through interviews or direct contributions). The result is more engaging, more believable marketing communications. (And it’s a good next career step for disgruntled, aging journalist types.)

I take no credit for coining the term. I first heard it from David Churbuck when talking about the time we spent together at McKinsey helping to re-do the company’s knowledge management platform (a Herculean task). He may or may not have borrowed the phrase from the 1999 book “Beyond Spin.” From the publisher’s description:

In Beyond Spin, three experts detail the techniques of corporate journalism—an ingenious communications model that hinges on open, accurate, and strategically weighted reporting inside a corporation. 

I wouldn’t go so far as calling the practice “ingenious,” but corporate journalism is an important step away from traditional PR/marketing. Churbuck takes a broader view of the concept than the book’s apparent (I never read it) focus on internal mar-com; he uses the phrase to refer to the lens through which companies must view external communications as well:

Organizations need to report upon themselves with the objective eye of a journalist, holding any statement or action up to the same skeptical, unconflicted scrutiny that an outsider would hold, to determine how it will sit with the most important segment of its public—its customers.

I found another good post on the topic at Contentious.com, this one dating back to 2004:

It takes courage on the part of the corporate communications/PR people to step beyond the simplistic goal of persuasion—to acknowledge and address controversy, shortcomings and skeptical or critical perspectives without being dismissive. In short, to try to fairly present more than just the preferred corporate view.

Random end note: Google “corporate journalism” and the Wiley book and Churbuck’s blog entry both trail a 3800-word Noam Chomsky Q&A with Radio Havana on conformist subservience, building a better world, and Cuba’s courage in the face of the repressive American superpower. I’m still trying to make the connection.  

There I was, in my local toy store, with my son who was in the process of potty training. Can I tell you how much I have spent in that toy store? I have shopped in this store over and over again, not only for my three children, but for the countless number of friends who have invited us to equally numerous birthday parties. If shoppers were frequent flyers, I was a platinum purchaser.

After walking around for the obligatory pace lap, my son announced to the entire store that he had to “go potty”. Of course I said to the woman behind the counter, with my hands full of Polly Pockets, baby dolls, a t-ball set and a model sailboat, “Can my son please use your bathroom?”

“No, I am sorry, we don’t have one” she replied.

“You don’t have a bathroom?” I said just loud enough for all the other mothers to hear, slightly sarcastically?

“Well… um. Er. Actually we only have a bathroom for employees, not customers.” 

My son was by now whining, creating quite a scene, and with the same frustration that I have experienced with slow or unresponsive online stores, I abandoned my shopping cart. I left it full and unpurchased. I left it and never went back. I called every mom I knew and told them about the injustice and in solidarity we all agreed to not shop there again. I ran into a mom at the playground later that week, who unbeknownst to me, had also been in the store at the time of the scene. She too abandoned her arm-cart in sympathy, but not without giving the woman a piece of her mind.

Moral to the story for smart marketers: Don’t make us mad. Maybe it’s not your bathroom, maybe it is your return policy. Maybe it is your message. Maybe it is the challenge of finding what we want with facility. Maybe it is just your customer service or your tone of voice. But don’t make us mad. Our sisterhood is extensive and we know how to use it to help us and to punish you for your bad behavior.

By the way, it works both ways: we are quick to embrace and reward the vendors and service providers who speak to us with respect; help us save time and money; make it easy to do business with; and of course, let our little guys use their potties.

I know this blog entry will be read by a lot of people. Not because I’m an especially controversial columnist but because I am about to use the magic word: iPhone. 

 The King Fish folks asked me to opine about this topic because I am the classic mobile gadget nut. Someone who has owned basically every Palm device since the original Palm Pilot. Plus, full disclosure, I am also a die-hard fan of technology from Apple. My mother used to work there. I used a Lisa before I got my hands on the first Macs. I’ve used an Apple III. I did an internship with Apple marketing services during university. So, I’m hooked. Yes, I am one of the people who was fuming last week because I paid way too much for my iPhone in early July. No, I did not wait in line for it. Yes, I will absolutely use my Apple store credit to get something else from Apple.

Like every iPhone owner, I also have become a defacto demo rep. I’ve been approached in airports, in the supermarket, in Starbucks. Interestingly, the main thing people ask to see is the gravity-sensing feature: how the iPhone screen flips from vertical to horizontal and back again depending on how you hold it in relationship to the ground. Even right now, it is so logical and so way-cool that it takes my breath away.

My mother discovered a feature I didn’t know about when I was in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago: How you can shrink or explode what is displayed on the screen simply by pinching your fingers together on the glass. I know, pretty obvious, but I started using my iPhone so quickly when I bought it that I really didn’t study the owners’ manual.

The main question people ask me, and the one you probably care about most, is how the iPhone behaves as a business tool.

My answer: about as well as the Mac.

For one thing, if you’re surgically attached to your BlackBerry or Treo, then the iPhone is definitely not for you. Thumbing isn’t so easy, although the virtual keyboard does become easier to use pretty quickly and the self-correcting feature is used pretty much regularly. But this is not a device meant for instant e-mail junkies.

Another thing that perplexes me: Why on earth must I return to the main screen every time I want to switch to a different application? I was so spoiled by the Treo’s quick access key, that this annoys me pretty much every time I pick the iPhone up.

The iPhone does basic e-mail pretty well, but I’m a free agent, so I don’t have corporate networks to contend with or set up. It does support IMAP, POP and Exchange servers, though, so a small business would probably have pretty good luck with it. One thing I haven’t figured out how to enable: accepting calendar requests or meeting invitations, which has been the bane of my existence over the roughly two months I’ve been using my HeathPhone. Of course, that’s more a function of the basic Macintosh e-mail client that I use, I suppose, and not necessarily the iPhone. I need to migrate to something better, but I haven’t had the time to research it.

One feature that I do believe will become requisite for other mobile smart phones: WiFi support. The ability to hop on and off networks at will, defaulting to my AT&T Edge service when necessary, is pretty compelling. The fact that it happens seamlessly is wonderful. This has implications for cutting voice communications costs. Imagine using the WiFi network available in one of your branch offices. Moreover, WiFi support means you can get to Web applications easily, if you’re willing to squint at the screen. Heck, WiFi has already shown up in the newest iPods, so you can see where this is going.

Using my iPhone, I’ve managed to submit entries to my GreenTech Pastures blog at ZDNet pretty easily, and I’ve even checked my checking account balance from the road. (My bookmarks have carried over from the Safari browser I use via the iTunes sync feature.) NetSuite pretty quickly came out with iPhone support for its business automation applications right after the product released, and some of my friends have pointed me to widget applications that I could use. One of those applications, www.flickim.com, provides instant messaging functionality (one of the things I miss most from using a Treo 650). Another application called Files2Phone from 1stWorks will let you grab documents, audio and other media files from your desktop remotely. One thing I long for: A way to put my To-Do list on my iPhone. Haven’t figured that out yet.

So, there definitely are innovators trying business-ify the iPhone around me. I’m not complaining. But there is a major caveat: I’m using two Macs to run my freelance business. I’m not so sure my iPhone would play so well if I lived in a Windows world.