technology

Geeks May Save Wal-Mart

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Geeks may just save Wal-Mart. Gods, I don't believe I'm saying this.

I'll get it out of the way, I'm not exactly a fan of Wal-Mart. It's a combination of business factors, quality, effects on community and so on. You know, the usual.  I'm not exactly going to diss success, but I think Wal-Mart's been on a kind of a race to the bottom.

In fact, it looks like that bottom is being reached pretty fast, as this article notes:  Wal-Mart shoppers are running out of money:  http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/27/news/companies/walmart_ceo_consumers_under_pressure/index.htm

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Media Mutation

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I noted a few posts back that many industries, geeky industries, are in transition – or should be.  I noted that movie theaters face many challenges, and perhaps even the and of what it means to be a movie theater, or its expansion into something else. I noted publishing is changing. Many, many industries and businesses are in transition, and those in them need to keep up or the changes may well crush them.

So, yes it's important to realize that businesses are changing in this bizarre, wonderful age of technical and media mutation. Yet, if you think about it, media itself is changing. Why should we expect the media to stay the same after all -  it relies on technology which is ever-changing, so it's going to change and morph and modify itself.

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Cons, Software as a Service, and Education

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It's certainly no secret here that I love software–as–a–service (SaaS).  You've seen my drooling love statements about Salesforce, my predictions of the CorpTechPocalypse.  It's kind of apparent I'm onboard with moving things into the clouds and services as its faster, cheaper, and let's be honest, kind of cool.

Lately I was working with the service known as Zendesk, a rather nice SaaS provider that provides, simply, a support system – tickets, knowledge bases, etc.  Zendesk lets you create instant support for your company with a few minutes of setup.  You can see why they've attracted some investment as of late.

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