There’s a wonderful scene in “Almost Famous” in which Philip Seymour Hoffman tells the teenage aspiring writer/protagonist, “I met you. You are not cool.” I’ve always loved that line, because I feel like what he was really saying was, “You are your own kind of cool.”

On my best days, this is how I would describe myself – my own kind of cool. I’m not cool by normal standards: no crazy college stories, nothing like that (unless you count that I used to channel Monty Python and click coconuts together on many long, horseless walk to the library… by the way, if you think that’s cool… you’re not either).

If the coconuts story doesn’t have you convinced, here are some other reasons why I’m not cool:

1)     Old movies. This makes you cool at the Turner Classic Movies film festival, but that’s about it. Couldn’t care less that this makes me not cool. To me, this just represents a deficiency in taste on the part of my peers.

2)     Pop culture basics. For better or worse, I tuned out the music and TV of my youth. No Cosby Show, no In Living Color, no… I’m not sure what music I didn’t listen to, because I’m not sure who was big then, because, well, I didn’t listen to it then and I don’t listen to it now. Tiffany. Was that a thing?

3)     Technology. I always seem to be one (or a dozen) steps behind in adoption of gadgets. As an example, I got my first iPhone this past December. This phone is the coolest, you guys! I can take videos! The photo quality is great! The background noise is almost nonexistent! I realize that these remarks were far more relevant in, say, 2007. This is what I mean by being not cool.

Which brings me to my next point. As I said, I’ve just come around to how great my iPhone is, and I’m enjoying the heck out of it. And then I open up the Wall Street Journal today, and I see this article comparing the iPhone to the Model T. The Model T! The must-have car of 1924! Whether you were an early adopter or a late one like me, you’d have to be living under a rock not to know that the iPhone (its many iterations, launches, sleek design, nifty-looking headphones) has been one of the most exciting, have-to-have-it product introductions of our lifetime. It’s still flying off the shelves as I write this. What on earth could the iPhone possibly have in common with the car that pioneered the power of mass production in early 20^th Century America? Here’s the author’s argument:

The Model T couldn’t have been the Model T unless the automobile were on its way to becoming too interesting a product for consumers ever to be satisfied with a single model, a single manufacturer, a single design statement.

The same is true of the iPhone. Different customers not only want different things from their smartphones, they want difference for its own sake, which explains the otherwise inscrutable shifting of coolness cache from the iPhone to Samsung’s Galaxy S line.

In sum, the smartphone market that Apple essentially pioneered now wants to “explode into diversity,” and Apple may not be ready for it. You can have any phone you want, so long as it’s white?*

I think the remark about the inscrutable shifting of coolness cache is interesting. For a very long time (an eternity in technology time, really), the iPhone has been a status symbol phone. This author seems to be arguing that it’s someone else’s turn now. Uncool people like me are starting to embrace the iPhone, and that must mean it’s not cool anymore. If it’s not cool anymore, something else is, and at least in this author’s opinion, that something may be the Galaxy (which, by the way, I considered purchasing instead of the iPhone, but it was frankly too cool for me…I’m not making that up).

Anyway, if I worked for Apple, I would cringe at any comparison of our trendiest, most breakthrough product to a car whose time passed almost a century ago. The stakes, and the challenges, for Apple are now extremely high. Reinvent the category yet again, or be surpassed by those with a new idea.

I’ll leave the adoption of those new ideas to the trendier set. For me, the iPhone is perfect. It’s just the right amount of cool – its own, very distinct, kind of cool. Just like its owner.

*I know that the iPhone also comes in black. But it’s more poetic to stick to just one color. Go with it.

Katherine is the Director of Strategic Communications for Growth Team Membership, a premier best practices research group within Frost & Sullivan. You can follow her on Twitter: @KatherineSBurns.

Every once in a while, you read something that really blows your hair back. Few things are better than having a moment of enlightenment – having a new idea presented to you that helps you make sense of your world in a better, simpler, way.

That’s what happened to me when I came across a book from the 1960s entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This book’s author, Thomas Kuhn, argued that periodically practitioners of a shared discipline find that the framework (or paradigm) in which they operate has been undermined by a series of events that cannot be explained by the prevailing paradigm. If they continue to accumulate, these incidents combine to create a state of crisis. Out of the crisis and the chaos come a revolution and out of that an altogether new paradigm – a new way of looking at the world, a new framework for working, existing, and thinking.

What an incredibly simple, but sophisticated, concept: a period of stability, followed by a period of chaos, followed by a new order of things. I know the phrase “paradigm shift” is no longer new, but that didn’t make it any less earth-shattering to me when I first came across it.

This idea has deeply, fundamentally affected the way I look at things, and it certainly affected my approach to writing the growth process toolkit for technology strategy, which I have discussed in my two previous blogs. We are living through a paradigm shift right now – each of us trying to make sense of the chaos and searching for clues of what the new paradigm will be.

Funnily enough, my own life is in the midst of something of a paradigm shift itself. I’m already a mother to a wonderful two-year-old boy, and I am about to have a daughter. My stable world will soon, to quote myself, find itself in a state of chaos. What will the new paradigm look like?

And what is my daughter’s paradigm going to be? How will she look at the world? What truths will govern it? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately – what do I want to teach her? What do I want her to like (hint: old movies, Esther Williams, sparkles)? What do I want her to not like (hint: scary movies, New York Giants, sugar)? What things do I really want her to believe? At the risk of falling into platitudes, I thought I’d share a few of my lessons with you all (no guffaws or eye-rolling allowed, I don’t care if it’s cyberspace).

Fred Astaire made it look easy. The lesson: the harder you work, the more effortless it will seem. There is no substitute for hours upon hours of practice, frustration, setbacks, and breakthroughs. Talent alone is one step above laziness.

Find your brilliance. My dad used to tell me, you’re probably not going to be a genius at everything. But you might be lucky enough to be a genius at one thing. Have the courage to run at that strength with everything you’ve got.

Use your words. The English language is a wondrous thing. Treat it with respect. Learn your grammar. Diagram sentences. Speak properly. Write beautifully. Read E.B. White and P.G. Wodehouse. Listen to Cole Porter.

Daddy’s wrong about Mommy’s movies. Just because it’s old doesn’t mean it’s outdated. I know there’s something to be said for special effects, but could any technology of today improve upon Gone With the Wind? I rest my case. The past is a treasure trove of awesomeness.

Every day is a happy day. Start every day believing that it will be better than the one preceding it. Never think you’ve peaked. What was the line from Anne of Green Gables? Each new day is a new beginning, with “no mistakes in it.” Isn’t that comforting?

Anyway, this is sort of my blogging swan song, at least until November. So with that, I leave you all with a few thoughts:

1)     I just recorded a podcast revisiting the concept of technology strategy (its opportunities and risks, success stories and cautionary tales), and I’d love for you all to take a listen. Please forgive my voice – I’ve been battling laryngitis. My husband says I just talk too much.

2)     If the toolkits seem interesting to you, take note: There are 10 of them! You can see them all here.

3)     If you’re not a member of Growth Team Membership, and therefore can’t access these materials but would like to, let us know.

4)     Enjoy the Olympics! Enjoy Halloween! I’ll see you at Thanksgiving!

As always, happy computing.

Katherine Burns

Katherine is the Director of Strategic Communications for Growth Team Membership, a premier best practices research group within Frost & Sullivan. You can follow her on Twitter: @KatherineSBurns.

I once read an article in the Wall Street Journal about how writing the pilot episode of a new series is usually easier than writing the second episode, which can be an excruciating process. Maybe it’s because writers use all their good material in the first attempt, and feel a bit empty for the second go-round.

I hope this isn’t the case with me and this blog. I so enjoyed writing the first one – I hope you enjoy reading the second one as much.

At least I teed up a few things to discuss in this one, so I’m not starting at ground zero. Wasn’t that savvy of me?

For instance, I promised you all a list of my favorite detective stories. The “Professional Communicator” in me thinks that it would be a good idea to close with this, rather than lead with it…so scroll to the end if that’s why you’re here. I also promised to tell you more about something that I just wrote – a new growth process toolkit on technology strategy.

There can’t be a more satisfying feeling in the world that finishing a large project, especially one that took a great deal of personal blood, sweat, and tears (and no, for a writer, that’s no exaggeration: writing is a blood sport, played sitting down). I love to finish writing something, and then not look at it for a few weeks. That way, when I read it again, I see it with fresh eyes. Sometimes this means I’m disappointed in something that I previously had thought was terrific—and other times, I feel nothing but pride in what has been produced.

I’m happy to say that in this case, my re-reading of this toolkit produced the latter sentiment. Maybe it’s obnoxious of me to say that, but trust me – my standards are high, and this isn’t praise I would give myself, or anyone else, lightly. Furthermore, I think it’s probably a good thing for a writer to believe in her work. If you don’t, who will?

And if I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t be blogging about it right now. I wouldn’t be telling you how I think there’s something in it that will strike a chord with many of you. As I mentioned in my previous posting, technology is such a complex, moving target that it’s nearly impossible for anyone to make sense of the chaos. Patterns are fleeting, and moments of normalcy or consistency even more so. What this toolkit is designed to do is to help you stay calm in the storm. To take a systematic approach to understanding your business, identifying market opportunities, and evaluating them. To nurture creativity within your organization, because without it, you’re a sitting duck. These are really important ideas—and perhaps not entirely new, but still meaningful, and difficult to execute. The toolkit’s purpose is to aid that execution to the greatest extent possible. If you’re interested in reading the entire thing, and you are a member of Growth Team Membership, you can click here.

If you’re interested in reading the entire thing, but you’re not a member of Growth Team Membership, you can still read an excerpt by clicking here.

Enough about that. I mentioned at the start of this blog that I would close with a list of my favorite detective stories. In the interest of brevity, because brevity is the soul of wit, I shall keep the list to five (starting with my favorite).

1)     Some Buried Caesar, by Rex Stout

2)     Black Orchids, by Rex Stout (I realize it would be more interesting not to repeat an author, but…my blog, my rules)

3)     Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie

4)     The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler (read this, and then watch the movie: Bogie and Bacall at their most snazzy)

5)     The Maltese Falcon, by Dashielle Hammett (read this, and then watch the movie: Bogie at his most Bogie, sans Bacall)

For a more in-depth book discussion, or to share your thoughts on technology strategy and its myriad challenges (none of which really existed in the lovely 1930s, “stuff dreams are made of” world I’ve just recommended for you), please take to the comments.

As always, happy computing.

Katherine Burns

Katherine is the Director of Strategic Communications for Growth Team Membership, a premier best practices research group within Frost & Sullivan. You can follow her on Twitter: @KatherineSBurns.

Well, it’s my first blog. Not just my first one for Frost & Sullivan – my first blog ever. As a professional writer, and professional communicator, I guess this means I’m somewhat old-fashioned. I’d rather write something longhand than type it, and I wish we’d all put the Postal Service back in business by sending each other some letters. (Remember letters? No “you’ve got mail” ding, dong, ping, or gong could ever be better than the silent anticipation of opening an envelope.)

Anyway, I’m old-fashioned in most aspects of my life. I love old movies. I love old music. A few weeks ago my husband asked me to name a famous Grunge band, and the best I could do was Aerosmith (apparently they are NOT “Grunge”). Somehow this makes me eccentric, whereas the fact that he couldn’t tell me the difference between Ella Fitzgerald and Julie London just means he’s cool. Whatever.

And so I’ve skipped through life, mostly paying homage to things that happened before I was born, and all to a Cole Porter soundtrack. I’ve watched Singing in the Rain more times than I could count; I’ve memorized all of Fred Astaire’s movies. I’ve devoured books on the Golden Age of Hollywood. Mid-20^th Century detective stories are my vice (I’ve read them all, but Nero Wolfe’s brownstone is my absolute ideal…and if that doesn’t mean anything to you, do yourself a favor and pick up Some Buried Caesar, or maybe Champagne for One).

Speaking of mid-20^th Century detective stories: One of the lovely things about them is the way the detecting is done. There’s no scanning of Twitter pages, no research of Facebook posts. The hero might read back issues of the New York Times, or he might pay a trip to the library. He might even go really high-tech and type something, on a really snazzy machine like an Underwood. In all, a decidedly low-tech (but always successful) way of arriving at whodunit.

Imagine my anxiety, then, when I was asked to write about technology. Not the technology of yesteryear—but the technology of tomorrow! Technology that hasn’t even happened yet, and how we can predict it and prepare for it! Did I mention I’ve barely started to blog? As I like to remind my boss, I have only to look at a computer to fry its insides past the point of hope or redemption.

Perhaps I should explain why I was so chosen. I’m responsible for writing a series of Growth Team Membership deliverables called the Growth Process Toolkits. These toolkits are essentially primers – how-to-manuals—on key topics that drive a company’s top-line growth. For example, we’ve published toolkits on M&A, new product launch, distribution channel optimization, and more. We needed to write a toolkit on technology strategy, and as the author of the series, the responsibility fell to me. I was, as I said, somewhat hesitant to begin. What could I possibly teach on this subject, when I was so ill-informed myself?

And then I realized two lovely things all at once:

I’m not the only one who’s overwhelmed by the rapid, nearly disorienting pace of technology evolution today. It’s OK to acknowledge this feeling, and to empathize with others who may also be struggling to make sense of the chaos. That’s why I decided to open the toolkit with a quotation from historian Henry Adams (for you history buffs out there, Mr. Adams was a direct descent of John, who was his great-grandfather). I came across this passage while reading David McCullough’s wonderful new book The Greater Journey: “Every day opens new horizons and the rate we are going gets faster and faster till my head spins and I hang on to the straps and shut my eyes.” He wrote those words in 1900 – but how apt they seem today! Maybe not everyone reading this would self-describe as “old-fashioned,” the way I have, but I think everyone can relate to that sentiment and sometimes feels powerless to keep up with…well, anything today. We live in a crazy time. That’s probably why we need a toolkit on technology strategy in the first place. And that leads me to my second realization:

The ideas don’t have to be mine; I just have to present them clearly. One of the great things about my job, and about writing these toolkits, is that it’s made easier by working with extremely smart people. I may not know a lot about technology, but I know who in our company does, and I know how to seek them out, ask them questions, and see how they’ve helped others think through technology-related challenges. All I have to do is collect the goods and translate them into a single, cohesive story. I might not be good at blogging (am I?), but I can certainly do that.

And so there was no need for trepidation—and in fact, this was a good chance for me to learn about something that I’ve avoided, perhaps to my detriment, for a very long time. I’m happy to say that the production of this new toolkit has been a learning experience for me; I hope reading it will be one for you as well.

That last sentence probably makes it sound like the toolkit is finished. It’s not. But it will be soon, and we’ll share it with you as soon as it is. Check back in with us next month, and we’ll provide some more detail on it (that, and my favorite detective stories).

Until then, happy computing.

Katherine Burns

Katherine is the Director of Strategic Communications for Growth Team Membership, a premier best practices research group within Frost & Sullivan.