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I wrote this text for a business class. It takes the perspective of a Sony executive in June 2008, soon after discovering poor sales of the Playstation 3, especially when compared with the Wii and XBox 360.

At Sony we gambled that consumers would seek out the next generation in entertainment delivery mechanisms: the Blue Ray. With its high definition playback and super capacity, the technology represents a ten-fold incremental increase in the capabilities of the standard DVD. The Playstation 3 was meant to give consumers this technology in both their content consumption (movies, music, etc.) and gaming. This strategy closely ties our three core sectors: electronics, games and entertainment into one system (especially as outlined in our 2005 press release on corporate strategy).

Why don’t consumers see the obvious technological superiority over the Wii? The industry has flipped on us–the basis of competition has moved from faster and more life-like to slower and child-like. I have never in my career encountered such a regression.

In my search for answers, the article Strategic Dissonance provides me with some evidence for what went wrong. Here at Sony we are a well oiled machine. Our strategic intent and action are totally in-line. Our distinctive competence is making consumer entertainment electronics and content that people want to buy. In 2006 we even tweaked our internal strategy selection environment by clearing out unprofitable product lines.

We were ready to push the latest and greatest technology on to consumers… and totally missed the consumer’s need.

Nintendo saw change coming that we didn’t.

How did we miss this? I remember working as the Product Manager for the first Playstation. It was faster and more life-like than our competition. We had a great team, and are all now running gaming and electronics.

Our strategy has not changed—and there lies the source of our problem. We kept doing what we knew well. In our minds, the Playstation had cojones, and what else could you possibly need out of your gaming (except more cojones!).

Enter our Strategic Inflection Point. What next? Purchasing Nintendo, which is at a market capitalization of about 10 Trillion Yen or $111 billion, is obviously not an option.

I think we can beat them at their game. With Sony Pictures and Sony Music, there are a lot of opportunities to exploit our content for sole Playstation use. Additionally, we need to have some hard debates.  Do we drop the Blueray as primary Playstation functionality in order to lower the price? Do we release a functionally scaled down version? I will be reworking our strategic intent, and completing the third aspect of Strategic Recognition.

Fast Company, “Sony’s Risky Game”, http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2006/11/sonys_risk.html

Sony.com, “Sony Corporate Strategy Press Release”,  http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/200509/05-050E/

Seems every blogger at some point does it.  After many years of religiously blogging at least weekly, I have gone months without posting a thing. I’ve been busy with work, life, yada yada.

So why have I neglected my writing? I changed jobs a couple of years back.  Since then, I’ve lost focus for a solid theme to write about. No theme makes it very hard.

I’m not going to make any promises with this post. I just wanted to do my token post. I’m trying to keep all of my sentences under 140 characters too. Not worried about exactly 140.

My brother and I got third in a veggie hot dog eating contest. He ate 13 dogs and I had 7 (buns included). He kicked my butt. I used the Tokyo method, but my brother\’s brute force technique prevailed. Good think I paired with him in the doubles, or I would have gotten nothing. The best award from the event was the little hot dog trophy.

My sister is putting on a performance for Mother’s Day in May.  See the Alamo Arts Spring 2007 Performance flier.

My sister is a bad-ass! She starred in the soon to be winning Incubus Dig video! The music video is very well edited, splicing scenes of my sister showing off her best ballet moves to the Incubus song, “Dig”.

The video was made for the I dig Incubus contest, a masterful guerilla marketing/PR tactic put on by the band Incubus. They posted a few videos and images for use in the contest, then let their fans do the real work. The band conjoins fan efforts with YouTube-fueled social networking. The other contestant submissions look pretty tough, though her groups submission is one of the strongest.

Please post some comments to show some support. Good luck Felicia McBride!

I survived 26.2 miles. It was 32 degrees this morning (I had shorts on!) in Phoenix Arizona as I crossed the starting line of the P.F. Chang’s Rock and Roll Marathon. I completed the race in 3 hours and 53 mintues. My splits can be found below. I am recovering now, slowly. I started smoothly and then pushed it just a little bit too hard during the second 10 miles. I crashed hard during the last 6 miles. The funny part is that I felt great from the knees up. But below there, ouch! My poor legs wouldn’t go.

This is my first real big event. I was struck by how friendly everyone was. The environment was very positive and encouraging. Bystanders would cheer for people they didn’t even know. The weather turned out to be very good running weather. The sun was out and it was nice and cold, which prevented a lot of sweating.

My sister’s already talking about an Ironman she wants me to do with her. Post race is NOT a good time to convince someone!

My Splits 8.47 8.42 8.47 8.59 8.10* 8.10* 8.10* 8.21 8.19 9.17 8.16 8.07 8.14* 8.25* 8.37 8.50 8.39 8.44 8.46 9.13 9.23 9.35 9.37 9.32 10.14 10.41 2.20

I was on vacation for a week and came back to the photos on the right. All of my daughters photos had been hijacked (even the ones in frames). I don’t even know how to describe my reaction. Just watch out if you work with any designers (thanks Byron).

Can you guess that Racker?

Tomorrow I leave for California for one week. I’ll be in Los Angeles and San Francisco. My first real vacation (with some work) in almost 3 years.

California here I come,
Right back where I started from,
Where bowers of flowers bloom in the sun,
Each morning at dawning
Birdies sing an’ ev’rything:
A sun-kiss’d miss said, “don’t be late,”
That’s why I can hardly wait,
Open up that Golden Gate,
California here I come

From the song, California, Here I Come. OK, enough for today. I thought about posting a link to a MIDI version, but its just not worth it

3 things scare me. Aliens, man eating water creatures (Jaws, piranas) and zombies. These are all from movies I saw when I was 8.

It seems that zombies are in vogue lately. Everywhere you turn there is a new game or Web site or movie. I might as well throw something out there too. Here is a quick little compilation of the Zombie stuff I find interesting.

• Zombie Infection Simulation - run pinkies!
• Z: A Zombie Musical - hot zombies that sing (film)
• When it all falls down - am I crazy or is my wife a zombie (film)?
• In case of zombies, break glass - hang it on your wall
• The Zombie Survival Guide - “studies are inconclusive regarding the undead’s visual abilities”
• Night of the Living Dead - The movie that did it for me
• Thriller! Indian Zombies - An indian version of the classic Micheal Jackson video