The Thicket

Apples closes the retail loop

Had a problem with one of the iPod Shuffle's I purchased for my kids. It just wouldn't charge or connect to the MacMini. So I pop into the local Apple Store about 20 minutes before closing fully aware there's a slim chance I get serviced since they've gone to an appointment only model. I will appreciate if they can take care of my daughter's new blown iPod Shuffle Santa brought on Xmas. I merely gave them my ill Shuffle, they required only that I sign something they already filled out from my customer information linked to the Shuffle serial number. Five minutes later I'm walking out of the store with a new Shuffle no questions asked, plus a "refreshed" 512MB Shuffle they had on a table for $59. Not a bad retail exchange. Not bad at all.

Icing on the cake was getting home to find this email waiting for me. Now I know it can't be that difficult to have events get triggered when certain things happen (new data, etc.), but I don't see other retailers doing stuff like this. How difficult can it be? If you're feeling a little beaten up by your retail experience from the holidays, go ahead and stop by your Apple Store for a little TLC.

Presentation Rant 5: Jobs the master, even then

Buddy Jules passed on this link he knew I'd love, which is some archived video from Apple's press conference (more like event) to launch the Macintosh in 1984. Replace the bow tie then for the mock tee and jeans now and you've got pretty much the same Steve, his reality distortion field evident more than 20 years ago. I am reminded of the great Lawrence Lessig quote that "Power corrupts, but Powerpoint corrupts absolutely" and wonder how business presentation got this way. I've even seen some folks using Powerpoint as their layout tool for documents. Now the "deck" has become commonplace. Is there some linear comfort in it? I do like it for printed plans (mainly because it allows me to write less and seem like it's more), but can't stand it for presenting. Call me an Apple zombie but I like Keynote mainly because it is stripped down as far as what I can do. Image quality, positioning accuracy are more prevalent in Keynote than Powerpoint or anything similar. If I knew Flash well, I'd probably use that as the delivery tool, but knowing how these things sometimes change content within minutes of the presentation starting it probably won't work. Yet another reason to keep what's on the screen simple, broad, so you don't have to worry when you change a word or phrase. Aren't our ideas big enough to accommodate that?

Actually, I'm trying things a little different for the next few presentations. While a template may be created early on the presentation development process. I'm gonna do my best to stay clear of Powerpoint or even Keynote until I storyboard the whole thing out. It will wind up being pages with a few columns, for what is being said, who is saying it, what are the screen visuals, what are physical props. It's performance art isn't it? So I'll try and treat it like that and see how it goes. Wish me luck.

Video Podcasts with Apple QuickTime

Noticed this promotion for a tutorial to create podcast video directly from QuickTime Pro, on the Apple Web site.  I gave it a shot and produced the video here.  Yet another fine reason to subscribe to The Thicket feed, don't you think?

What I particularly loved is how easy it is to get video out the door in a very efficient delivery mechanism.  I recently had to develop a presentation that I could not attend, but wanted to guide the person who would deliver it a guide to how I might present it if I were there.  Something like this would be handy to quickly communicate the nuances of my obviously brilliant take on the subject being presented.