iphone 5 official video by apple

Some All Time Influencial Speakers....

It’s 7:54 on a frigid January morning in San Francisco. You’re waiting outside the Moscone Center, in a queue of several thousand people, many of whom have been camping out in the cold for over 12 hours. The security detail for this event rivals the Democratic National Convention. Another hour passes before you’re comfortably seated in a giant auditorium that’s crackling with anticipation.

Finally, at 9:43 a.m., the moment you’ve been waiting for arrives. The thin, soft-spoken man gracing the stage in his signature turtleneck and jeans, clears his throat, takes a sip from his water bottle, then pauses for a full 12 seconds before uttering these words:

"This is a day I've been looking forward to for two and a half years. Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.” 

Such was the scene on January 9, 2007, when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in one of the most captivating product launches in history. Indeed the iPhone was a revolutionary product, but it wasn’t the iPhone that inspired thousands of people to camp out in the cold over night. It was Jobs’ unique presentation style -- which Apple fans referred to as a “Stevenote” -- that helped make this among the most awe-inspiring, memorable keynotes ever delivered.

As Carmine Gallo puts it in his book, The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs, Steve “transformed the typical, dull, technical, plodding slideshow into a theatrical event complete with heroes, villains, a supporting cast, and stunning backdrops. People who witness a Steve Jobs presentation for the first time describe it as an extraordinary experience.”

At LeWeb Paris in December 2012, I had the opportunity to witness another kind of extraordinary experience. This wasn’t a product launch; it was a keynote delivered bycharity: water Founder and CEO Scott Harrison. Scott shared the remarkable and very personal story of how a “spiritually bankrupt” New York City night club promoter found courage, purpose -- and a new mission in life -- on a trip to one of the poorest countries in West Africa.

Scott’s presentation moved people to tears and drew a standing ovation. And that’s not the sort of thing that typically happens at a tech conference.

Last year at INBOUND, the world’s largest gathering of inbound marketers, before an audience of 2800, Gary Vaynerchuck did the unthinkable. No, it wasn’t “dropping the f-bomb 76 times” (he did, in fact, drop the f-bomb 76 times, but that’s not the “unthinkable” I’m referring to). Gary gave an impassioned, inspiring 45-minute keynote -- at 9 o’clock in the morning -- without a single PowerPoint slide. He had the audience laughing, cheering, and tweeting like mad. He, too, earned his standing ovation.

Steve, Scott, and Gary are three of the world’s most captivating communicators. Their ability to influence, entertain, and inspire an audience is incredible. And yet, their presentation styles are totally different.

What, if anything, do they have in common? What can we learn from them to improve our own presentation skills?

In a word: plenty.

Because even if you’re not the star of a highly anticipated product launch, or the CEO of an organization that is reinventing charity, or a best-selling author/entrepreneur who can say “F**K!” 76 times in 45 minutes and still get a standing ovation -- chances are, you’re going to be standing in front of an audience delivering a presentation of some kind at some point in your career.

Introducing Gmail Blue

6 Killer Start ups That Are Reshaping The Mobile Enterprises

Powerful mobile devices have swarmed into workplaces, and they’re not going away. Pesky employees ignore rules and use their own smartphones for work while CEOs are commanding IT managers to make bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policies the norm.

The mobile device field is wide open. Although Android is the dominant smartphone operating system overall, companies appear to be choosing iOS devices over Android as of late, according to a recent Good Technology report. The iPad still has a lot of sway with executives, but we could see a shift toward Windows 8 tablets since they can run some legacy apps that enterprises rely on. Microsoft also just announced that businesses could buy its high-profile Surface tablets in volume if they want.

At VentureBeat’s upcoming Mobile Summit on April 1, one of the six main themes will be “What’s next for enterprise?” So we took this opportunity to spotlight a few startups that are already thinking about and tackling this theme.

Whether the concern is making BYOD actually work, beefing up security, or taking business intelligence mobile, these six startups are reshaping the landscape of mobile enterprise.

                                      

Armor5

Rather than install software on devices, Armor5 has come up with a different solution for BYOD. Its software connects to a company network through an existing virtual private network (VPN), virtualizes data and cloud applications, and generates a URL for employees to access content safely from their smartphones or tablets. This way, your employees always have secure access to your company’s stuff — without the risk of storing that stuff on their devices.

Santa Clara, Calif.-based Armor5 emerged from stealth mode in February. It has collected $2 million in funding thus far from Trinity Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, and the Citrix Startup Accelerator.

                                 

Domo

Domo offers up a business intelligence dashboard that can be viewed from any device (so its creators claim), particularly mobile devices. The company says its software is easy-to-use and cloud-based, so you can see real-time data coming in and make important decisions off that data. Domo has been a little shy about unveiling its full offering to date, but it already has more than 100 enterprise customers and is coming out of private beta this year.

Domo is located just outside of Salt Lake City in American Fork, Utah. It recently raised a whopping $60 million in funding from GGV Capital, Greylock Partners, Bezos Expeditions, Founders Fund, and others, bringing its investment total to $113 million.

                                        

Enterproid

Enterproid’s Divide platform takes a rather literal approach to BYOD in that it “divides” your personal and business life through software. Essentially, you can install Divide on iPhones or Android phones and know that your work and personal things are completely separate. Maybe most importantly for employers, the info inside Divide is secure and can be deleted at a moment’s notice by the company if something fishy is going on.

On the iPhone, there is a single “container” that looks like an app; your email and business apps live inside that container. On Android, Divide offers different “profiles” you can switch between, and you can have two entirely separate sets of home screens and apps.

New York City-based Enterproid launched at Demo Spring 2011 and has raised $13 million in funding from investors including Comcast Ventures, Google Ventures, Qualcomm Ventures, Genacast Ventures, and NYC Seed. The company has more than 75 employees.

                            

MobileSpaces

San Francisco-based MobileSpaces takes yet another approach to BYOD by placing a strong emphasis on employee privacy. Its software lets Android phone owners mark all applications they use for work and only those apps can access business data and systems. The company is testing an iOS version of the product as well, which will be ready by mid-2013. MobileSpaces has raised $3 million to date from Accel Partners, and the company told us it will have its formal launch “soon.”

“If you ever leave the enterprise, they reserve the right to your data,” David Goldschlag, MobileSpaces CEO and a former VP at McAfee, told us in August. “We are enabling the enterprise to comfortably let its apps run and coexist with personal apps.”

                               

Mocana

Mocana is looking to solve the biggest problems with mobile enterprise security in two ways. It has solutions for connected devices and mobile apps. Specifically, it installs on-premise software that creates an interface between your data and connected devices; the interface lets you monitor device usage or encrypt data. However, on the app side, the company only provides services on the application-level for apps that are developed in-house. (So you can’t hook it up with an app like Google Drive or Box, for example.)

San Francisco-based Mocana has raised $32 million in capital from investors including Trident Capital, Intel Capital, Symantec, Shasta Ventures, and Southern Cross Venture Partners.

                               

Roambi

San Diego startup Roambi is also trying to solve the business intelligence problem on mobile with its popular iPad and iPhone apps. The company takes data from all kinds of sources and visualizes it in flashy ways so execs can make better real-time decisions. It also offers a product called Flow that makes it easy to design, publish, and share colorful reports on the iPad. It has raised more than $50 million from investors including Sequoia Capital.

Roambi’s CEO recently wrote a guest post us for us about how companies can unleash the power of “little data” with mobile devices.

Want Your Company to Grow? Fire Your Managers!

Too many employees work for their boss rather than their company or their clients. Businesses these days are filled with multiple layers of management, and employees often find themselves playing politics and focusing on tasks to make their boss happy.

At the end of the day, the company quickly forgets what their goals are and what they are in business to do -- and everyone is focusing on the task at hand with little sense of how it fits into the bigger picture.

If you notice this in your workplace, your top-down hierarchy is the culprit.

By eliminating this model at my digital marketing agency, Ciplex, we created a company people love working at, and saved money in the process. Our customer satisfaction went up, and the quality of work improved. We have happier employees, satisfied clients, lowered costs, and a better company overall.

                               

Here’s how I did it:

Create a Team Culture

I created small three to five person teams and removed any ‘bosses’ those teams or team members had. I also dismantled any “senior” or “VP” titles within the team. Though leaders will naturally emerge within a team, there’s no need to have a strict reporting structure. Your senior employees may initially be taken aback by this idea, but it’s important to remind them that the changes in culture and work habits will lead to increased productivity and motivation. Let your team choose their own titles, without implementing hierarchy, and have teams measure their own performance so they can learn and grow.

Set Goals

Employees need to work collectively--not just as task-doers. After creating teams, I gave each team a goal, one that could easily be measured in short intervals--like one or two weeks. This helps employees to see exactly what outcome they’re working for--they now focus on the whyand no longer on the how. Given a goal and consistent short time-frames, teams are able to measure their performance and learn from previous mistakes, allowing them to improve during the next time interval. Establish the philosophy of team goals, and employees will no longer feel as if they’re just “doing tasks for the boss.” Employees will appreciate the effort to allow their team (or even individual team members) ownership and responsibility of the goal. If they need help, they have a support layer, but no hierarchy is involved.

Provide Support, Not Escalation

In a hierarchal workplace, escalation occurs when a problem arises. Instead of team support, you get individual workers passing problems off to other people. And when a problem is passed, so is its ownership. In my model, managers and bosses are repositioned as team support, working for the teams, helping them in whatever they need. Former high-level executives provide help and support, rather than telling employees what to do or how to do it. Getting rid of company hierarchy means client or customer satisfaction becomes priority and ownership stays with the team. Since no one is able to “pass the buck” when a problem comes up--everyone will tackle problems collectively. No more navigating departments and roles (politics) that once divided them.

Take Money Off the Table

By default, salaries are hierarchal. When you flatten your company hierarchy, you don’t have to flatten salaries to make them equal for everyone--but you do have to talk to your employees. Ask what they need to feel comfortable on a monthly basis. We didn’t lower any salaries, but we did give out some raises. Create pay levels that are tied to performance, not job titles and seniority. As soon as your employees aren’t constantly worrying about money, your culture can thrive. Remember, you want your employees to work towards a team goal, not towards their paycheck.

Remove Rules, Give Autonomy

No one likes to feel they’re living under authoritarian rule. Autonomy is one of the biggest motivators, so let your employees act like the adults they are. By removing unnecessary rules and offering flexibility, they can determine how much they need to be in the office on a given day, or whether or not they’ll be able to take a vacation next week. Structures like strict work hours, location requirements, limited vacation time, fancy titles, and even employee reviews scream one message: employees are working to satisfy rules--not to meet goals.

Lead, Don’t Manage

Dismantling your company hierarchy means your teams will measure their own success, giving you the freedom to lead instead of manage. Don’t correct employees or solve their problems--guide and support them with leadership instead. If there’s a problem, ask key questions to guide them to the solution instead of jumping in to take the reins and own the problem.

Reap the Benefits

By flattening our hierarchy and getting rid of the bosses, Ciplex’s culture has thrived. Our employees are happier because they actually want to come to work every day--they don’t feel forced to work because of money, nor do they feel shut out of big decisions. In addition, we watched the quality of work and customer satisfaction increase, while costs were lowered. Grow your company by getting rid of the hierarchy, and you will create a company people love working at.

The Deadly Cost of a B-Player

Adopted from the true words of a B Player:
READ ON:

I recently attended VatorSplash here in San Francisco, and I had the fortune of listening to Renaud Laplanche, CEO of Lending Club speak about a variety of topics. The one that struck me most wasn't about innovation (which is one thing Vator is all about) it was about hiring. My ears perked up.
There's no shortage of information about hiring on Inc.com; Tony Hsiehlet us in on the hiring snafus at Zappos. So I'll add this article to the list because it seems so obvious but it's not. It's about how a B-player can ruin your business, or at least take years away from where your business "should be."
Renaud laid it out simply: when you hire a B-player, they'll do an okay job and there's not really a reason to fire them. But B-players can do a few damaging things to your business:
They'll either hire mediocre people just like them or even worse, C-players, making an increasingly larger portion of your business run by them.
Your A-players will leave because they don't want to work on a mediocre team and they get sick of the general feeling of not being able to get things done.
You've got to nip your B-players in the bud. Either get them to "A" status by coaching and mentoring them, or cut them loose. You don't want to look back and think about where your business "could have" been.
How have you dealt with B-players on your team? I'd love to hear your challenges and successes.

FuzeBox Hires Google’s Amritansh Raghav And Skype’s Eran Shtiegman To Lead Product And Engineering

Video conferencing company FuzeBox is announcing two big hires today — Amritansh Raghav (left), former engineering director for Google Compute Engine, and Eran Shtiegman (right), a former director of product management at Skype (where he worked on social products and ads).

Raghav is the company’s new chief security officer and senior vice president of engineering, while Shtiegman will be the vice president of product and user experience.

CEO Jeff Cavins said that when FuzeBox management asked, “Who would be our ideal candidates and help us scale products and operations at a global level?” it was looking for people who had successfully launched enterprise products, had experience with “massive scale,” and had also dealt with “massive user adoption.” Together, Raghav and Shtiegman “really hit all three criteria” — both of them have long resumés that include working on the Lync videoconferencing service at Microsoft. (FuzeBox also says that Raghav was a key driver Google Docs and Compute Engine, and that both men were crucial to Microsoft’s unified communications strategy.)

The fact that Raghav and Shtiegman have worked together before isn’t a coincidence — Shtiegman said that Raghav “basically recruited me.” Raghav described FuzeBox as a company that’s well-positioned to “rethink communication and collaboration” in the face of a growing number of Internet-connected devices. (For example FuzeBox launched a powerful video-conferencing app for the iPhone last year.)

“We are lucky to be coming into a place where product is already on fire,” Raghav added. So his job will be “thinking about — with this change in the kind of screens, whether it’s glasses, it’s tablets, it’s smartphones — what is the ideal experience going to look like for the user?”