it is an inescapable truth, and as an ardent nook pundit it pains me greatly to admit this, i just simply cannot deny the reality of it.

i can explain, but let us first look at the facts:

• comscore reports the kindle reaching fifty percent of sales for all android devices (as reported in forbes).
• conspicuously missing from comscore’s report is the nook
• barnes & noble estimates that it has nearly thirty percent of the ereader market (according to engadget—which is more than reported here)
• amazon has about sixty percent of the ereader market

stay with me, this is going somewhere.

it is not a stretch or to estimate that the nook sells about half as well as the fire which means that the comscore report does not paint the entire picture. if barnes & noble is correct in their assessment, and since they do not report shipping numbers it is not for certain, it is not a stretch to say that the nook sells at half the rate of the fire. do some simple math¹ to account for the nook and the market share for the fire is somewhere in the forty five percent range and the nook in the twenty three percent range. the exact numbers aren’t important. the fact that the kindle has an overwhelming market share is.

as fragmented and disjointed as the android market is with multiple version of the operating system and upgrades at the mercy of the hardware manufacturers, it is no wonder that mg seigler from techcrunch.com argues very passionately that the only reason that the android ever won market share was because apple let them. he is right about the iphone.

his logic is faulty when it comes to tablets.

to be fair, apple owns the tablet market and will own it for a while. that is fine, i am perfectly happy with my ipad 2, and so are many others. but apple is not letting anyone win in tablets, they are winning because there iswas no competition.  the very premise of what the argument is that apple had a superior phone product that made the idea of a smart phone appealing to the mass and if they were on every carrier they would have dominated, which they are doing now. the reason for this is simple: the have a device that just works and is easy to support with developer activity (minimal variables to development).

android on the other hand has no standard and can be a moving target for developers.

so why is the kindle winning? from a geek factor it has limited storage, no camera, and has an ancient version of android (2.something). from a design perspective it is flat, ugly and frustrating to use because of the lack of physical buttons. it doesn’t even have a cool tech name like transformer, galaxy, or iconia. what it does have is the same thing that the ipad has: a closed ecosystem and locked down interface.

the fire wins simply because it gives users a device that is ready to go out of the box (just log in with your amazon account) with a simple to understand interface and apps (which developers love because the fire is not a moving target tech wise). amazon wins because they can serve up more content than anyone else (the nook benefits from both of this things as well to a much lesser extent).

apple isn’t letting amazon win this time, but rather the fire is winning and gaining ground by doing the same thing that apple did, but for an entirely different audience. folks who can’t afford or don’t want to spend the money on an ipad. the fire has proven their is a substantial market for a small tablet that allows for the quick consumption of content and media (for me it is a much better netflix experience because of the size and format).  the fire wins because it is unique enough to hold its own…

oh wait, there is no seven inch ipad yet? so if apple enters the market with an inexpensive tablet that size that means…

so the fire is winning, for now.

¹ take the sum of comscore’s reported numbers (100) and add 27.2 (half the fire sales number to account for the nook) and divide the numbers given by 127.2 and the fire ends up at 43% and the nook at 21.5% of the market for a shared market number of around 64%.

you could say that i am fascinated the most by what creates an organization…people.

as part of my fascination i read anything and everything i can about the subject from a wide variety of resources. recently i came across this article in forbes regarding the differences between managing and coaching.  while i agree in principle about the ideas presented between the two dichotomous thoughts, i feel that the author fell short in understanding the dynamic of those two roles and how the can be a powerful combination.

the primary area, however, where this understanding falls short is in this description of management:

“managing involves a more directive, task-oriented style that should only be used under certain conditions. it usually produces the best results in a crisis situation, when someone has never done the task before, or when they have little or no confidence in their ability to get it done.”

i offer a different approach.  for leaders and influencers it is not enough to either manage or to coach an individual in a given situation. the complexities of the human experience make for a messy and disjointed mixture of needs, wants, and desires (from the individual, the leader, and those impacted by the situation). it is not as easy as saying that sally has no experience doing x so i need to manage her in doing this, while tommy is really competent in y so i will develop him.

a leader who relies on information and formulas to base their stylistic decisions on effectively cuts themselves off from the best source of data they have, the people they lead.  a rigid hierarchical understand of when to use which type of leadership does nothing more than create a system that devalues the human uniqueness of individuals.

why can’t the story that we tell in leadership be both/and?

in other words, let’s challenge the assumption that everyone can be grouped together and a leadership style applied to them and move to a broader understanding that embraces our humanity not categorizes it.

another way to put it is that advocacy for others is a good thing, especially when that advocacy is for those who are in the truest state of need.

as our cultural attention has shifted to trayvon and zimmerman it is hard to ignore the cries, pleas, and calls for justice. to be sure any life that is taken is a tragedy, and the young life that was snuffed our so quickly is no exception. regardless of reason, motive, or intent, george zimmerman acted in a way that is both terrifying and bewildering. as my long time friend and mentor, art gray, pointed out in a recent blog post (44 days to hope; before and beyond trayvon and zimmerman) the issue that cannot be forgotten is that justice is a “precious resource” and that it is our responsibility as people to ensure that the resource is not lost.

what art calls for is continued advocacy—beyond the trappings of race and racism, but never ignoring them. the heart of this issue is that we live in a culture that all at once teaches us to fight against tyranny and oppression yet facilitates inequality amongst people. watch this video and beyond the strong language you can see this reality in the words spoken by the young lady. read the comments and this strange dichotomy becomes manifest.

but at what cost does advocacy come?

personal reflection leading to identify more with the zimmermans of this world than the trayvons—the oppressors rather than the oppressed; the stark realization that time and effort spent is spent mainly on vapid endeavors and less on worthwhile causes; overwhelming guilt and crushing shame that comes with understanding selfishness and depravity; finally realizing that being a minority and being a victim are not the same thing¹; or the simple revelation of hardness and darkness in the heart?

in truth that question is irrelevant.  despite who you are, what race, what gender, what sexual preference, what anything; despite who you are Christ advocates for you. His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven at once defeated death, the enemy, and sin for all time.  Christ, above all else, cared so deeply for you as an individual that he would lay down his life, willingly, so that you, i, we could find reconciliation with our creator, our God, and find eternal peace. His advocacy for us was final, unblemished, and absolute.

as Christ spoke about the final judgement to his disciples and those following, he foreshadowed the inevitable, he spoke about us.  Christ told his disciples a paradox that still perplexes today: that it is by advocating for others, by standing in the gap, by reaching out and doing what is right, that we can reach out and touch a part of Him.

it is not important to understand the cost of advocacy. what is important is understanding the cost of living a life without it.

thank you art gray for living this out in your life. you have always inspired me to understand humanity by moving beyond race but never ignoring the realities of it. for that i am eternally grateful.

to be sure, the web business suits me well and i seem to suit it equally as well.

it is a fascinating world to exist in; the ultimate goal of web, for business at least, is to make as much money as possible as fast as possible and as often as possible. yet success is measured not just in dollars and cents, but in cool as well. it is great to make money, but doing it in style is what seems to count.

what makes web most interesting however is the trichotmous and tenuous fulcrum on which it all rests. you see the web is an amalgam of ad-hoc creative efforts bound together by physical infrastructure and governed by primitive machine intelligence. that is: the web as we know it is a fragile synergy of three wholly competing interests often bound by a common thread—the idea of elegance.

the first interest is design, which pushes the visual appeal of the web and drives the human machine in use. the second, the machine intelligence, the behind the scenes programming and systems purposed for beauty and simplicity; code that is at once both powerful and obvious. finally the third, the yearning to be found and consumed: the content that is the stuff of the web.

what is called good web is nothing more than the convergence of the three.

the denizens of each interest are driven by their importance to the success of web; their primacy in the schema. at once self interested and at the same time seeking to push the other interests beyond comfort into innovation. none stand alone, yet each convinced of their place as the keystone; giving strength to the whole.

all three would be correct in claiming as such.

success on the web is simple: be wanted, be found, be relevant (content); be easy to use and appealing (design); and fulfill purpose without fail (development). none alone in the vacuum of space, yet never quite fully the same—set apart, together, for a shared purpose. with an ever changing landscape of technology and application possibilities web is a never ending dance of creation ebbing and flowing like the oceans tides; the ever swaying pendulum; an infinite loop of doing and change.

web is never done, just deployed.

there is poetry in the motion, and grace in the execution. the true beauty is that web is at once temporary and permanent; completed and never ending; whole and segmented. it is ethos, pathos and logos.

it is in the middle of this, the dance of binaries, i once again find myself.

i love my job.

this got the old crank and wheel going in my head and my thoughts began to churn, and that churning turned into an opine – and from the opine came two questions to be presented and answered.

the first of these questions is simply this – what is good or real marketing?  shankman argues (loosely) that this is a combination of good marketing strategy and well executing marketing that makes a difference.  and to some extent he is correct (in the midst of his diatribe against the shotgun method of social marketing he makes a few salient points).  as my friend charles lee pointed out, recent analytic trends show that social marketing is working, but the thrust of shankman’s assertions really hit home.

it is not as much about how you market, or what you market, it is about how good your marketing is.

hearkening back to my undergraduate days studying rhetorical criticism, my mind immediately shot to one of my favorite quotes.  roman rhetorician quintillian once said that persuasion is nothing more than “good man speaking well.”  paraphrasically, this can be understand thusly: an act of persuasion hinges on person with good motives, having a well crafted message, that is delivered well.

then it hit me, this is all that marketing really is (and by the way, wanting to increase profits is a good motive, we are capitalists after all).

the reality however, and i believe this is shankman’s underlying statement, is that social marketing allows shortcuts. and because of this, those who rely too much on social marketing either fall short on crafting a message well or delivering it well, or tragically, both.

at the end of the day, Church is no different – what distinguishes a growing church from a stagnating church is the message that it crafts and how well it delivers—not just on sunday mornings.  from top to bottom, we as the Church in america need to take a huge step forward and get better and do better at crafting and delivering the message of the Gospels.  from our logos and slogans to our sermons and studies and everywhere in between.

our message has the best motive of all:

“The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” – 2 Peter 3:9 (NASB)

which leads to the second question – what shall we do about it?

over those three weeks i have come to appreciate the ipad, how it is used, what it can do, the potential for it in the future, and how it is destined to change my work flow. as a technophile the ipad 2 (not the ipad) is a very attractive format; great hardware; expanded capabilities; awesome price point.  to say that i was upset about the crack in the screen would be accurate, i think i even muttered an expletive (to be completely fair it fell twice the same day – mysteriously my wife was in the room when both happened – i’m just saying).

so the ipad still works, just has a crack that i didn’t notice right away, in fact it was during a change in scenes in angry birds rio that i noticed it and it looked like a scratch not a crack.

i went to sleep last night a bit upset, having told my kids (after they were in bed) that i was upset that the ipad got cracked and generally antsy because i needed to set time aside to go see if it can be repaired.

then the next morning happened.

two things to be exact.  my son came to my room (after going pee in the toilet like he does every morning! hey he is three, it is a great day when he wakes up and pees in the can like a man!) and stood near me and started crying.  i asked him what was wrong and he said he was sad because he doesn’t know how to fix the ipad…

that loud thud you just heard was my heart hitting the floor.

all i could do was to take him into my hands and my arms and hold him, kiss him, tickle him and tell him how much i loved him and that it didn’t matter about the ipad.  it was the best morning; seeing roman xavier’s sincere desire to please me and the hurt in his little heart that i was disappointed in him, and seeing how much my show of love filled the hole in his heart he was feeling and how he came alive when i showered him with affection.  it was the best morning.

as i drove to my office, i realized that roman xavier was just like me and how i often cower before God stuck in my sin and depravity.   how often do i sit near the Lord, crying because i don’t know how to fix the mess i made of my life, feeling like i am such a wretch that i could never get close to Him again.  but God loves us much more than we can imagine:

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!” – Matthew 7:11 (NASB)

the gift i was able to give my son is love and forgiveness and that is exactly what God has given us in Christ.  i pray that i can turn to Him, cry out and crawl into his arms and have him shower me with kisses and hugs.  with roman xavier, i reached out to him, and pulled him to me—God has already reached out to us through Christ.

i think i may leave the crack in my ipad…

this persona, however, has certain expectations – as my five year old daughter once quipped – “dad, i didn’t know you are a computer guy”. it comes with the territory. to put it another way, my family cares little that i hold an m.a., am a pastor, and have not held a technical job for fifteen years – they still call when they break their computers.

what some fail to see is that geekdom goes far beyond hard drives and processors, comic books and science fiction, fantasy and obscure popular culture. geekery is as much about a specific way of viewing the world as it is about stuff.

but it is that stuff that defines the paradigm.

the most common thread with geeks is the search for the fantastic. take a moment and imagine the geekiest geek you can imagine. let me help you out star wars, science, and comic books…

the hallmark of the geek paradigm boils down to these precepts: there is more to the universe than what we can see; it is cool to know as much as you can about as much as you can; and no matter what we discover about our solar system, pluto will always be a planet.

so yes, i am a geek – and not because i know who hari seldon is, but because i choose to see things through the geek paradigm.

the difference for me, i have seen what we are looking for, i have drunk from the cup, tasted the fruit. as molder always said, “the answer is out there.”

but what if the answer has already be given? what if the most fantastic thing to ever happen, already happened? what if the very thing so many have sought is right in front of us?

what if i told you it was God?

how geeky is that?