As an incoming intern for Recess, a company so well-versed in SMS and mobile marketing, I wanted to get acquainted with the best SMS technology out there.  Up until now, my personal experience with SMS has been limited to text messaging friends and receiving OrangeAlerts from my university any time there’s a local theft or nearby crime.  I thought that the best SMS could offer me was cheesy horoscopes or stupid jokes or obnoxious hip hop ringtones advertised on television.  I knew these services would charge me a minor amount for texting them a shortcode, and that I was better off without using SMS in this way; I’d leave it for the people who invest in things like that – the ones who buy too many lottery tickets and read tabloid magazines.

After delving into an online investigation, though, my perceptions about the technology have changed.  I realized we are just beginning to see what SMS can do for us as a society.  SMS is a whole world onto itself, beyond horoscope spam or advertising fluff (although there is that too, of course).  No, with companies like Recess, I see SMS can provide practical solutions to future generations.  In fact, SMS could very well be the key to getting me through the next five years of my life alive, especially as a young person dealing with the economic strain effecting job markets.  Here’s how:

1. Finding a Job

Most if not all students my age are nervous about finding satisfying careers.  In order to keep ‘post-grad’ from being synonymous with ‘post-apocalyptic’, I found their are neat services like TextMe, a New Zealand-based company, send notifications/alerts to subscribers looking for full time, part time or one off type jobs.  Using an SMS service like this, I wouldn’t even have to look in the newspaper or on Craigslist.  Job leads would come to me.  The subscribers can personalize their preferences.  The service ideally makes little employer/employee love matches.

2. Under-the-Board/Bored-Room-Table Updates

Like most twenty year olds, I love checking email, fbook, twitter, etc., on my Smartphone.

(Check out how subtle the ATAT logo is in my smartphone’s obnoxious preset screen)  Once I find an entry-level job in my desired field, however, I will curtail that habit.  An entry-level job means working my bum off to advance, and being discreet if I’m using my phone at work.  Unless I’m lollygagging about town delivering greasy pizzas, I won’t be able to be web surfing on my phone for any prolonged period of time.  Instead, I can invest in SMS to keep updated about interests and events.  While earning my stripes working those long nights, I look forward to utilizing clever products like Scores to SMS, which sends live updates on sports scores.  The service lets you follow any game, match, or tournament that you can dream of!  Updates about Cavs games – evidence of life outside the board room – will keep me refreshed and working hard.

3. No-nonsense Updates

During my research, what impressed me most was the amount of useful SMS products and services readily available. Many provide simple updates.  This spring, Wells Fargo and Visa have announced they will be offering rapid alerts to their cardholders not only to help manage their accounts, but also to catch credit card theft more easily.  So in addition to getting sports scores updated via SMS, I’ll also be investing in some services that provide super-practical updates, like getting a message when my credit card number is being used or like Recess’ AntiTow, which alerts Columbus locals when the street sweeper is coming.

4. Tummy Treat

I like to cook, but some nights when I do finally make it home from my first major job, I will be in the mood for quick-and-easy.  Thanks to SMS, I’ll be able to order a pizza or takeout with a single, short text, without even having to log onto a webpage to fill out the takeout order.  Then my hassle will be reduced to worrying that the pizza guy is lollygagging.

The technology seems simple enough to teach to people of any age group.  The need to neatly manage bank accounts and to find employment quickly is across-the-board universal.  I found that SMS is unique from other methods of communication and surprisingly applicable to my own life.

So after investigating, that’s the verdict: From here on out SMS is gonna help me out.  Finding all of these neat uses of SMS makes me even more excited for this fun summer of working with Recess Mobile.  Make sure you subscribe to the Recess blog because in addition to great posts from the co-founders of Recess (Yury and Vitaliy), I will also be posting as I further investigate great SMS campaigns, instances of incredibly successful SMS marketing, and more.

Until then, you can follow me and my mammoth feet on twitter.

Does state-sponsored innovation work? Ask Russia -http://nyti.ms/cKvNd5 via / @NYTimes

Here’s the direct link to single-page view. My replies:

1. @robertgrevey Ugh. Soviet-style ‘innovation.’ My grandfather ran a nuc sub research center there. Little innovation happened w/out the KGB.
   @robertgrevey The article cites the # of Russians the Bay. Neglects to mention that many, like Sergei Brin, fled systemic antisemitism.

I tried to find the buried lede that would best summarize this proto-Soviet adventure. The most telling line:

…the new city was conceived by what is called the Commission on Modernization

At least the Times wasn’t credulous enough to swallow the party line, but they failed to provide the necessary context. Perhaps rightly believing it to be obvious and reducing my invective below to irrelevancy.

Soviet innovation wouldn’t have existed without the KGB assisting in the reverse-engineering of Western technology (casually mentioned American equipment mysteriously appearing on scientists’ desks, completed plans emerging from the ether), or the lower ethical standards of Soviet science and its willingness to sacrifice human life. That’s no aspersion on the scientsists themselves, but rather on the flaws of Soviet isolationism, both on a national scale and in the microcosms of research cities.

They crushed Georgian innovation, marginalized, murdered and exiled the Jews (do I even need to cite references for this?), and emerged a Dutch disease blighted autocracy with atavistic delusisons of empire, dissipating and depopulating itself with drink at a rate matching the casualties of the Great Patriotic War.

The Times continues:

For nationalistic Russian officials, it only rubs salt in the wounds that Silicon Valley companies so easily recruit bright Russian scientists. AmBar, the Russian business association, estimates that 30,000 to 60,000 Russian-speaking professionals work in the San Francisco Bay Area.

A marquee name in the high-tech world, the Google co-founder Sergei Brin, immigrated to the United States from Russia with his parents when he was a child. Had Russia been a different place, perhaps Mr. Brin might have started Google there instead of in Silicon Valley.

Mentioning the Jewish Sergey Brin in this context is akin to the Antebellum South lamenting that Frederick Douglass chose to pursue his career elsewhere.

Besides, new ideas in technology emerge from density (the Valley’s suburban distances notwithstanding), amplifying the diversity of thought. They come from people negotiating the spaces between disciplines. They acuminate on interaction with customers and the market. All of these elements are missing in the silo of a research city. Boffins aren’t immune from the reality outside of their village palisades.

With SV innovation focused on disrupting and democratizing media and back-channel connections (the utterly forgettable Fouresquare and Gowalla aside; if anything, they make it easier for the Politburo to keep tabs on those threateningly capricious early adopters), what’s the likelhood of something competitive emerging in a country that makes a habit of assassinating dissidents and journalists?

The only ideas to emerge out of Russia that channel the open spirit of the internet have been Chatroulette, started by a 17-year old in his bedroom, and the black market for stolen credit cards.

What a sad waste of Russian talent, forged in a culture that venerated the engineer, the chess grandmaster, the scientist (but notably, not the intellectual; a necessity for an entrepreneurial culture?).

I’ll conclude with another excerpt from the Times piece:

Skeptics see a deeper strain of Russian tradition: trying to catch up with the West by wielding the power of the state. Looking askance at the incongruous blend of the Kremlin’s will and the openness prized by Silicon Valley, they refer jokingly to the new city as Cupertino-2.

Good luck, Putin Medvedev. I hope the inevitable collapse of this Potemkin village serves as a warning to those who might try it stateside.

Now they’ve killed Scheme/Gambit-C and likely MonoTouch.

PhoneGap and its ilk are safe (for now), but this emblematic of Apple’s approach to third-party app development. It’s the price you pay for playing in someone else’s sandbox.

It’s a tidy sandbox, with rounded, rubberized edges and a bucket from FAO Schwarz. But it’s also sitting on the beach. When the industry grows up, it will end up there, embracing the open standards of the web over the passing benefits of a technocratic, on-deck distribution platform.

Apparently, this was an April Fool’s joke back in 2002. 8 years later, this page is ranking in the top results for the term “how google works”, which is typed into the search engine almost 15,000 times a year, according to the Google Keyword Tool.

I usually commend creativity and a transparency of a company’s personality, but people are looking for a serious answer when they search for “how google works”. As a matter of fact, the majority of these searches are coming from India and Singapore. How many of them do you think know what April Fool’s is? India celebrates a festival called Holi, but it’s in early March and very loosely related to our day of pranks in April.

Let’s hope there aren’t people walking around the world thinking about starting a search engine using a horde of Hawks…

The New York Times on SMS advertising,

The vast majority of people say they are averse to having advertisements text-messaged or otherwise sent to their cellphones. But nearly a quarter of people who have gotten such ads say they have responded at least once, a figure that is highly encouraging to marketers.

True as far as it goes – though the “vast majority of people” say that they’re averse to any kind of advertising, so that isn’t much of a surprise. The Times does find a correlation between availability of unlimited text plans and ad response rates. Even so, advertising is the nail for those with only a hammer. It’s still nice to know that consumers are coming around to having their walls perforated with nail holes.

This underscores our approach to SMS: provide a useful service first.

The Economist has an incredible piece on the global cultural impact of mobile phones, The Apparatgeist calls, ”How you use your mobile phone has long reflected where you live. But the spirit of the machines may be wiping away cultural differences.” It demands deeper commentary than I’m offering here.

Two related stories: teachers are finally starting to use cell phones in the classroom, here and here. To the doomsayers I say, relax, embrace foenetic speling and cold showers. You’ll live longer. Also, smoke a lot more and eat a lot less.

Boston police have had great success with an anonymous SMS tip line:

In Boston, the first city to heavily promote texting for crime tips, police have received more than 1,000 tips since the program began two years ago. Police credit text tips for providing them with key leads in at least four high-profile killings

A Jewish Mother in Your Cell Phone: “How nagging text messages can make you healthier and richer.”

How Gambian beggars became mobile SIM vendors.

African mobile subscriptions grew 550 percent in 5 years.

On GSM hackery

The Athens Affair, “How some extremely smart hackers pulled off the most audacious cell-network break-in ever.”

GSM decrypted.

OpenBTS, a cheap, easy-to-deploy cellular network for the developing world.

On products

Des Traynor of the stellar dev shop, Contrast, illustrates the elegant idea that “quality is fractal” in The Thickness of Napkins. And have a look at another excellent post of their’s on entrepreneurship:  Good or Lucky?.

An awesome example of an XP Team Room, via William Pietri of the Lean Startup Circle.

37Signals reflects on a comment by Steve Jobs, who says that “Great products are triumphs of taste.” Something I emphatically agree with, though I could do without 37s’ treacly Mid-Century Modern affectations, even if I share them; like how Jason Long’s smugness makes me want to use Windows though it spites the face, and makes me want to spite his face with my fist.

The downside is that having taste only informs, not catalyzes, creation. There aren’t shortcuts to mastery, even if Tim Ferriss can tell you how to fake it - useful advice for aspiring polymaths looking to emulate Richard Feynman’s linguistic prowess (scroll down), but not his Nobel recognition.

I previously cited Ira Glass on the subject of taste - the curse is knowing the music, but struggling with the words. It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect, straight out of the Book of Job, or at least a Coen brothers screenplay (“Why does he make us feel the questions if he’s not gonna give us any answers?“).

While we’re on the subject of Jobsian aphorisms, my favorite and most referenced:

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

In the same piece, Jonathan Ive, Apple’s VP of Industrial Design, describes the iterative design process at Apple:

…the key to the iPod wasn’t sudden flashes of genius, but the design process. His [Ive's] design group collaborated closely with manufacturers and engineers, constantly tweaking and refining the design. ”It’s not serial… It’s not one person passing something on to the next.”

Oh, speaking of Job, Marc Suster writes about the physical trials and struggles with faith of the entrepreneur (alright, the allusion wears thin, and raises exegetical questions about the examined life/substitute faith) in The Yo-Yo Life of a Tech Entrepreneur – A Cautionary Tale (see also Paul Graham’s notes on the subject). Even if most of us don’t have Steve Jobs emerging from a cloud to rain vitriol like Malcolm Tucker, below.

On stuff I liked

I’ve been watching the brilliant BBC series, The Thick of It (on which the film In the Loop is based). Here’s some dialog, Malcolm Tucker on reality.

Searching for the Wiki links just now, I came across The Thick of It (U.S.). An adaptation produced by Mitch Hurwitz, with Christopher Guest directing? And the result was awful? A new attempt might make it to HBO? Does anyone know anything about this? Or will this go the way of the Deadwood or Arrested Development movies? Questions, questions.

The Wisdom of Children, from The New Yorker’s Shouts & Murmurs. Brilliant.

On speaking human.

Does anyone know where I can get Aziz Ansari’s shirt from Parks and Rec[reation]? I’m serious. It’s the precursor to intimate moments for a sensual evening. Oh no, I just had a vision of myself on Twitter. Strike all of that.

The brilliant photography of Hiroshi Sugimoto.

The Onion on the iPad.

So Serious | Creating Controversy for its own Sake (and How Humility is a Rare Bird Indeed on the Web These Days).

I’m trying to stay away from politics on this blog, but I give this a pass as it doesn’t directly advocate policy (perhaps because, frighteningly, any victory on this front will be Pyrrhic): Christopher Hitchens on North Korea (and the WSJ review of the book referenced, a good read whether or not you believe that the paper has jumped the shark). As for policy, I’m reminded of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave,

… if they were somehow able to get their hands on and kill the man who attempts to release and lead up, wouldn’t they kill him?

Knut Haugland, sailor on Kon-Tiki (and so much more), dies at 92. A bit on his shipmate, Thor Heyerdahl. For more tales of true-life derring-do, see Was Ian Fleming the real 007?, “The war heroes, spymasters and beautiful women who inspired Ian Fleming to create James Bond.”

Interested? Click here for more information and the application.

The video is fairly long, it’s the entire Sunday night event with speakers and pitches from all teams, diibs presentation is at 2:07 – 2:20

From The New Yorker (Shouts & Murmurs), on social media, Subject: Our Marketing Plan. Reëducational.

Getting out of the building is a lesson for Langley. Customer development isn’t just for startups.

We’re making waiting in a hospital or doctor’s office less painful. Here are some other companies using technology to solve problems in the healthcare space: Start-Ups Aim to Transform Visits to the Doctor (from the Times’ blog).

Chris Dixon cites SMS in What’s the relationship between cost and price?:

People who gripe about the price/cost gap of SMS messages seem to not realize the telecom industry is like the movie industry in that they make huge upfront investments but have relatively low marginal costs. I, for one, have always thought movies are a great deal – they spend $100M making a movie, I pay $12 to see it. It would be silly to compare how much you pay to see a movie to the variable cost of projecting the movie.

I would add to this that messaging providers like us (the royal Us) and consumers (uh, like the regular us) of SMS pay for delivery and convenience. It’s a push system with a huge reach, not a dumb pipe which is valued strictly in terms of speed, capacity or latency. And it happens to be the preferred means of communication for many people. I’d liken SMS to a mail carrier insisting on flat rate shipping, but promising to have it in your recipient’s hand the same day, wherever they are. Or, try one of the alternatives: they’re free or variable price, maybe you can stuff more in the box, but they’ll get to your recipient at the office, or at their home, or at and old address, maybe today, maybe in a week.

But yeah, we still pay way too much for messaging – if only real competition existed between the carriers.

Though I’m generally averse to roundups, Smashing Magazine always delivers quality. Check out their collection of iPhone App Design Trends.

From Mobile Marketer, Jiffy Lube mobile campaign claimed to best online counterpart – 28% response rate and 10% redemption rate. At the end of the piece are some good, if common-sense, tips for optimizing SMS advertising.

For those of you with iPhone apps, here’s How We Jumped 50 Places in the App Store – for Free from the makers of Gymfu.

An esoteric question: Which Technology is Better: GSM or CDMA?

Aside:

• How did Paul Krugman get it so Wrong?
• The History of Management Consulting
• Malcolm Gladwell on IQ
• Jupiter’s Moon Europa Has Enough Oxygen For Life

And now for something completely different: Text/Messages: Books by Artists. Incidentally, I’d love to see card catalogs replaced or enhanced with text messages.

Take a look at this idea, Hansel and Gretel Marketing, as implemented at Barney’s. This would be an awesome use case for text messaging. From the linked article, here’s how it works:

1) A computer system at Barneys tracks the weekly spend of their regular clients by looking at data from the client’s Barneys credit card (this is another reason besides high interest rates why department stores push so hard for their credit cards: They can track individual customers).

2) When weekly spend for a customer drops below a certain threshold, an automated alert is triggered: They assign one of their employees the task of handwriting a letter to that customer, enticing them to come into the store for a free facial.

3) Customer comes into the store for a free facial (who can resist?), but it’s too late. The allure of the store is too hard to resist. Weekly spend on the department credit card is back up to normal.

And:

We have this question today, this question of where mobile devices will go in the future. So the question at hand is, ‘What is mobility, really?’ And in my view, mobility is not the device. It’s not the network. It is the mobile experience.

Mobility as a term has existed for quite some time, and for most of the time it has been synonymous with ‘cellular network’ and ‘device’. This is because cellular networks were the first time we were truly free of wires. I think this has changed though, mostly because of the massive, enormous scale of adoption. More than three billion people on earth use a cellular device to communicate. Every second, four babies are born. In that same second, thirty mobile devices are sold. And we’re just now starting to see the innovation beyond mere two-way communication in mobility.

- Padmasree Warrior, CTO Cisco

There comes a point at which improving upon the thing that was important in the past is a bad move,” Shirky said in a recent interview. “It’s actually feeding competitive advantage to outsiders by not recognizing the value of other qualit ies.” In other words, companies that focus on traditional measures of quality—fidelity, resolution, features—can become myopic and fail to address other, now essential attributes like convenience and shareability. And that means someone else can come along and drink their milk shake.

Here’s the Recessy bit on healthcare:

In the case of health care, the Good Enough mindset can be seen in a new initiative by Kaiser Permanente. The largest not-for-profit medical organization in the country, Kaiser has long relied on a simple strategy of building complete, self-sustaining hospitals—employing 50 doctors or more—in each region it serves…

…Kaiser has become one of the most technologically advanced health care providers in the country, digitizing everything from patient records and doctors’ notes to lab data and prescriptions and putting it all online. The system is networked, so patients can email their doctor, check lab results, and make appointments from their PC or mobile Web device. Getting a referral doesn’t mean carrying medical records from one doctor to another, as it does at many hospitals.

In 2007 [Kaiser] wondered what would happen if, instead of building a hospital in a new area, Kaiser just leased space in a strip mall, set up a high tech office, and hired two doctors to staff it. Thanks to the digitization of records, patients could go to this “microclinic” for most of their needs and seamlessly transition to a hospital farther away when necessary. …They cut everything they could out of the clinics: no pharmacy, no radiology. They even explored cutting the receptionist in favor of an ATM-like kiosk where patients would check in with their Kaiser card.

What they found is that the system performed very well. Two doctors working out of a microclinic could meet 80 percent of a typical patient’s needs. With a hi-def video conferencing add-on, members could even link to a nearby hospital for a quick consult with a specialist. Patients would still need to travel to a full-size facility for major trauma, surgery, or access to expensive diagnostic equipment, but those are situations that arise infrequently.

A response from Techdirt, “It’s Not The ‘Good Enough’ Revolution; It’s Recognizing What The Consumer Really Wants,” which misses the point: of course the companies profiled in the article are just looking for product/market fit. If “worse is better” resulted in products customers didn’t want, the company would change strategies or the market would weed them out. In many cases, worse is worse. There are always tradeoffs – price, weight, efficiency, user experience, etc. By narrowly focusing on providing just what customers need and discarding the rest, a company embracing Good Enough can release more efficient and lower-cost products that mean something, not just a list of features compromised to leaden mediocrity.