After I read about another Google customer losing all of his Google data when Google decided to delete (or at least suspend) his account, I got to thinking about all of the times that Google has made a mistake and deleted user accounts or deleted email for Gmail users, I thought about how the different approaches of the key players in the emerging world require you to make some choices, some of which may be untenable. So, I thought I’d lay them out in clearer form than you will get from the hard-core technical blogs or the companies themselves.

At the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference this year (WWDC 2011), Steve Jobs and the Apple executive team introduced iOS 5 and iCloud. During his iCloud introduction, Jobs said this: “We are going to demote the PC to just be a device. We are going to move the digital hub, the center of your digital life, into the cloud.” This is Apple’s philosophy: the iCloud is the sync-master for  your digital life. It provides the axle to your devices that are the spokes. However (and this is a vital distinction!), your digital content lives on your devices when you are using it. The iCloud, then, is the master copy, but Apple expects you to have copies on one or more of your devices.

This is in sharp contrast to Google. In Google’s world, the cloud is the only place where your data resides. You’ll use your browsers (on your PC, your tablet, or your phone) to access, manipulate, create, and use your content. You may even cache some of it locally for performance reasons (for example, caching the first part of a video so you can watch it without “stutters”). However, the content is in the cloud and your devices are simply windows into it from Google’s perspective.

…and then there’s Microsoft. They want to get in on “this cloud thing,” too, but they really aren’t sure how to do it. Their business is Windows and Office, so how can they use the cloud and keep those lines humming? What they are doing now is having the cloud be a glorified backup service with some of the capabilities of their apps. The best experience, however, is to use their native apps on a PC and hook them into the cloud for backup and collaboration. This means that Microsoft Office 365 is a different perspective than iCloud (which is personal) and Google (which is all about the data being in the cloud only). It’s effectively a hybrid of the two.

Regardless, you will want to make a choice based on these distinctions, because to the cloud you will go, one way or the other.

In a scene from “The Princess Bride” that keeps running through my head these days, Inigo Montoya turns to Vizzini and says, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

It seems to me that much of communication suffers from the same issue: in a rush to reduce conflict, words have been watered down and their meanings changed to the point that one person says or writes a word intending one meaning while the hearer or reader interprets another. Then, communication doesn’t happen.

So, it’s time we review one of the first rules of good communications:

Before you say something important, define your terms.

It’s easy to assume that your listener understands your words as you intend them, but we’ve discovered that more often than not, they don’t. Often, it is very difficult to precisely define some terms, and it is those that it is best to address in your communications.

For example, I’ve lately been struck by the use of the word “love” in contexts as varied as Sunday sermons and teenage gigglefests. While I’m working on a series of articles about it that I’ll post here in the future, right now I’ll make the observation that many people would not agree on what it means. Is it a good feeling? A commitment? Physical intimacy? Or something else? How is it different from “like” or “devotion”?

Furthermore, it’s not that any of these uses is wrong. It is simply that you, by using a word without clarifying what you mean by it, may deliver a very different message than you intend.

What words do you think are particularly troublesome in this way? How do you define your terms?

It’s easy to wing it. It doesn’t even matter what subject we’re discussing; winging it makes it all seem easier.

It really doesn’t, though.

In the back of your mind you deal with the niggling sense that you might be forgetting something. Did you pack your socks? Turn off the oven?

And that’s true of everything you do, from something as simple as packing for a trip to something as complex as building a new business.

For the more basic tasks of our lives, we typically have or make a list. When we go to the grocery store, we take a list of the items we need to buy. When we plan a trip, we have a checklist of what we need to pack… don’t forget the swim suit!

But in business, leaders often put off building the list. In many cases, there is a lot of activity and the appearance of forward movement even though there are much more effective ways to do what you are doing. At least you’re moving. It seems to be progress.

But, it’s not. It’s confusing activity with productivity, and it’s lethal.

Build your plan first. Make a list. Then (and only then) go to it.

It is 10:00am PST on Thursday, January 6, 2011, and the CES show is now open.

As I mentioned in previous posts, the CES show has a gigantic focus on mobile, broadband, and portable devices. Since I have spent the past 3 months working with team members from Verizon and Ericsson developing a 4G LTE demonstration, I am looking forward to letting you in on all that Verizon is doing.

The Verizon booth shows the breadth and depth of the 4G LTE ecosystem, showing LTE-connected devices ranging from enterprise telepresence to gaming, home automation to live broadcast television, a connected OnStar car to a broad range of smartphones and tablets. The point is that high-speed wireless access is available today from Verizon nationwide, the footprint is growing, and the capabilities are imaginative and useful for virtually everyone.

In the smart home area, Verizon is showing devices that control home temperature, shades that are remotely controlled, and of course entertainment over both FiOS and LTE. Alcatel Lucent is showing augmented reality systems running over the LTE network. Panasonic is showing HD enterprise teleconferencing over LTE, and Nomad Innovations is showing their LiveEdge.tv system for broadcast media electronic news gathering.

I will get a closer look at devices both in the Verizon booth and in other booths in the area and I will let you know if I uncover anything surprising or especially innovative. But, right now, if you’re in the market for wireless broadband, Verizon has to be on your list.

As I have walked through the CES halls as all the exhibitors prepare for the onslaught of attendees starting tomorrow, the pre-show expectations have largely proven true. As expected, mobile devices like smartphones and tablets are all the rage, and Verizon is making a big splash with the 4G LTE network roll-out. Since I am spending my time working with Verizon and Ericsson in the Verizon booth, I’ll hold off on specifics until tomorrow. Suffice it to say for now that there will be a lot of high-speed mobile devices to discover and explore.

I’ve been getting Facebook and Twitter messages with questions about what technologies people are interested in understanding, so I’ll be looking especially hard for those. If you have areas of interest, be sure to let me know either with a comment here on the blog or a message on Twitter or Facebook.

My observation thus far is this, however: CES is going to be a game of “Follow the Leader,” and the leader isn’t even here.

That leader is Apple.

With a $300B market cap and the most innovative products in the markets it serves, Apple’s leadership cannot be disputed. Here are CES, smartphones are compared to iPhones, tablets to iPads, and mobile business to Apple’s iOS ecosystem.

My question is this: Where’s the innovation? I’ll be looking for it. Any idea where I might find it?

I am sitting inside the Las Vegas Convention Center helping to set up for the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Since I am both working with a client who is exhibiting and am also a member of the press, I will be able to learn from both inside and outside. Just from walking the floor yesterday and today, it’s clear that the anticipated focus on 3D TV, tablets/slates, mobile phones, and high-speed wireless will be the central themes.

Sitting in Verizon’s booth, you see a broad range of products that will take advantage of their 4G LTE network, including tablets and phones, but extending into other imaginative areas that I’ll reveal after the show opens on Thursday.

RIM’s booth is very large, and is all about their PlayBook. Android looms large, as well, and I’m sure there will be a broad range of announcements.

One of the more interesting booths I’ve seen is for the technology center in Beijing, China. Clearly intended to recruit companies to the “entrepreneurial center” of Beijing, reading the booth signs were reminiscent of reading an authentic Chinese restaurant menu.

I’ll be bringing you more thoughts from CES, but if there are any products or categories that particularly interest you, let me know in the comments, by Twitter, Facebook, or any other means you have of reaching me.

It’s been beautiful here in Boulder for the past week. Cool in the evenings, sunny during the day, with the occasional thunderstorm to brighten up the afternoon. During this week, I’ve had a great exchange with Stephanie George, my brilliant friend who helps businesses to see their current business situation through objective eyes, offering business development and strategic consulting.

One of her emails to me yesterday was so perceptive that I’ll share it with you in its entirety in this post. Her insights are right on. The rest of this post (with minor edits for the change of medium) is from her:

I think that we also need leadership. The two quotes were right on and – they came from leaders. Leaders do not have to be the President alone, Leaders emerge at all levels. I think it would be refreshing for a bold, non-partisan heavy hitter to enroll some outstanding legislative leaders, the President, and the media to stop cramming fear and uncertainty down the public’s throat.

Bad news sells better than good news, so the media may be challenging to enroll on a wholesale basis. Also, I don’t think a pollyanna outlook would sell well.

It’s not just a policy or a budget patch that we need to crank the engine and that’s all that I’ve heard proposed from our legislative and executive branches so far (red or blue). There is no Unity. Remember “Together we stand, divided we fall”? That’s what’s missing. There is too much interest and money to be made in dividing up the sentiment and no one working to unify it.

A mortgage broker actually told me once that he didn’t care if the market went up or down, as long as there was some sort of change, he would make money. His interest was not in seeing an overall rising of the tide or in others successes, but in keeping things off balance, because it kept creating opportunities for him to make money.

I think that Bush actually tried to connect everyone on the war – it worked immediately following 9/11 and in WWII, but when there is dishonesty as the foundation (WMDs anyone? then one after another different reason for making war was brought forth, none of them more substantial than 4th grade retribution), the rest of the construct falls apart. And when our leadership cannot be trusted, people lose confidence. As long as our bodies of leadership snipe at one another endlessly, it firstly, seems utterly arrogant and self-righteous, and secondly, does not engender faith in their ability as a corporate body to get on the same page.

I know that I have simplified foreign, economic and political policy in there. It’s not a simple problem. However, on confidence:

I don’t stand on there being THE ONE omniscient leader; all of our elected officials have the freedom be the leader that we need. However, they would need to give up personal hubris.

So, that’s top-down confidence.

How about bottom-up confidence? Enroll and empower everyone to develop their own confidence. Probably creates a bigger tide than waiting for the top-down to get it done.

Educating everyone we meet that who they are is bigger than their circumstances; they are not defined as a possibility in the world by their checkbook balance or net worth or job or their diploma. Joy, confidence and happiness are not a function of any material detritus they manage to assemble in their lifetimes. Acknowledging one’s own true personal power is at the source of confidence. It is not someone or some thing outside of us, it is in each of us. (Cue Marianne Williamson quote: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”)

Maybe we should bring back that old Skin Bracer commercial with Jack Palance telling us all that Confidence is sexy. That’s it! We need a new marketing campaign for Confidence! Confidence is Sexy. (Editor: As I mentioned to Stephanie in a follow-up email, Palance had it right in City Slickers, too.)

I went through the Harn Museum of Art a week ago and they have on display a series of public propaganda posters from around 1924 – 1936. How about some National Confidence propaganda – lots of it – that is not one diva or guru’s pocket lining? That’s not tied to some partisan agenda? That doesn’t come out of Obama’s mouth or John Boehner’s mouth?

There are a number of very specific reasons that this worldwide economic situation persists, primarily, as I wrote earlier, due to the very poor decisions and lack of clarity from politicians. While we do live in a worldwide economy, the United States remains that primary engine of that economy. For that reason, what happens in the US leads the rest of the world in a particular direction. Right now, that direction is aimless wandering.

For more evidence of the repercussions of the unpredictable environment that the US government has created with its fast-changing taxes, fees, and laws, realize that the 500 largest non-financial corporations are holding more than 10% of their assets in cash according to a recent Wall Street Journal article. That’s about a trillion US dollars sitting on the sidelines. It’s not hiring new staff, developing new products, or buying new capital. It’s sitting there doing nothing.

Why? Because the management of those companies doesn’t know what they are going to have to do next as the US government changes the rules yet again. So, they hold on to the funds just in case they might need them to handle yet another “great idea” from government bureaucrats who have never had to make payroll or delivery a product or produce a service that customers value. They are utter unequipped to understand — much less implement — effective solutions to economic issues involving the complex interrelationship of business.

The first thing to do is to promise and then deliver predictability to the market, and not just for interest rates. Interest is not the only expense that businesses have to plan to address, so predictability must extend to the other areas such as regulation, taxes, fees, and other mandates. When that happens, those funds will find their way into investment, turning into jobs, investment, and an economy on the rebound.

Until then…? A continuing malaise.

Earlier this past week I was in my home office working on a new iPhone app for a client when my phone rang. On the other end of the line was a northeastern accent that I recognized right away. Last winter, this friend and I had spent the better part of a day skiing around Copper Mountain. He and his family were visiting from New Hampshire, and I had the joy of showing he and his two boys some of my favorite secret stashes on a day that still had some powder to be found.

As I answered the phone, he asked me how I was doing, and I mentioned to him the wonderful Colorado weather. “Yes,” he said with a wistful longing in his voice, “the boys still talk about that day with you at Copper. That was a great day!”

Yes, it was. But, that’s not why he called. You see, he’s a Vice President of Marketing at a major corporation and he was calling to find out if I’d have time to take on a small project for him. We chatted for a few minutes so I could get a basic understanding of what he needed. “Yes,” I said, “that’s something that is a good fit for me, and I’d really like to work on it with you.”

…and like that, it was a done deal.

We had our kick-off call the next day, and I’ll be working with him over the next few weeks to build content for marketing one of their product lines as they launch a new set of communications.

Decisiveness.

It can really make a difference for you and your business. It’s going to help him with their process, we’ll get a lot done, and their customers will get some great insights into their products.

Your decisions are best in this order:

1. The “right” decision
2. The “wrong” decision
3. No decision

Today more than ever the adage applies: You can’t steer a ship that isn’t moving. Make a choice. Get moving. And adjust as you go along.

As I sat finishing breakfast at our kitchen table yesterday morning with the Colorado sun filling the back yard and the kids enjoying their last few days of “freedom” before they head back to school next week, I caught up on my news reading using my iPad. I use Feeddler, an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) reader for iOS together with the Wall Street Journal and Guardian Eyewitness apps to stay current with news and insights from my favorite content sites. I thought about how this was so different than it has been for me until just recently. I no longer need to go to my desktop computer or pull out my notebook computer to check my favorite web sites; I just pull out my iPad.

Not only that, but because Feeddler uses Google Reader to sync what I’ve read, I can use Feeddler on my iPhone and my iPad or Google Reader or one of the Google Reader compatible applications to stay up-to-date throughout the day.

Of course, I also use the iPad to stay current with email, some web browsing, and my eBooks, too (mostly using the Kindle app). I even use it for a bit of Bible reading and study using Logos.

As a result, what I have noticed is that my iPad, this small, lightweight device, has become the center of my reading world. It’s like I’m carrying my entire stack of books, magazines, newspapers and websites with me all the time. I am beginning to see very clearly just how much the iPad has simplified my life. And this from a guy who definitely wasn’t sold on the idea of an iPad for my own personal productivity.

Pretty interesting…