Sunday, June 17, 2007
OPEN LETTER TO MICROSOFT: THE PERFECT TO DO LIST
The perfect to do list is a blank piece of paper or vanilla white computer screen, with all the world in order, just the way you want it. Nothing to list.
The perfect to do list exists only in the perfect world.
The perfect world is one where all actions are balanced out and all end objects of action are perfectly clear. Nothing to do but what is being done. Nothing undone before, nothing to do next. No competition of choices.
Here's the to-do list I would like to see Microsoft build.
Home Page: Scrollable Window with List of All Projects. Scrollable Window with List of Last 10 Projects accessed. Scrollable Window with List of 10 Most Non-accessed projects. Window with today's calendar across all Projects. Window with My Day (list of current ticklers for today and past). My 10 favorite links. My non-Outlook email account.
Better yet. Make the Home Page skinnable, with an option to determine what kind of letter box windows of the above type you want to put on it for you.
Oh, yes. Like this Blog. It will be web-based. Of course, it will be shareable.
Let's get to the projects.
Project Page: Calendar event window. Timed to-do list window, where tasks have dates and are sequenced. Undifferentiated task list window, where tasks are just created ad hoc like a shopping list and have no time-table. Thus, 3 types of tasks. Calendar. Timed. Untimed or undifferentiated. Of course, links and logs just like The MasterList.
Special Priority Tools: See The MasterList.
Features:
1. The model begins with a server farm, where your to-do "space" is housed.
2. Each user has their own "space", broken into projects as above
3. Key focus is Organizing what to do by project, category, type, date.
4. Key focus is clustering links, notes, and connections with tasks/projects.
5. Key focus is creating discrete permission connections for multi-users.
6. Document and file storage would be a plus.
7. A dedicated email account would be a plus.
8. Syncability with Outlook would be a plus.
9. Readbility from non PC devices such as cell phones, pda's, IPOD's is a goal.
There's more. Key focus is derived from The MasterList model. This configuration has not yet been created by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, anyone. This configuration is beyond the economic capacity of The MasterList creators to provide.
Here's Microsoft's problem:
1. Instead of being an innovator it tried to salvage MSN.
2. Instead of being an innovator it tried to impose Outlook as its internet model.
3. Instead of creating internet product it tried to impose MS PC product online.
4. Because it promoted Microsoft Project, Outlook was handicapped as a project tool.
Here's why The MasterList model above will work;
1. We all want the killer app that ties the world to the computer device in hand.
2. What we do is the ultimate subject matter of the killer app.
3. It's what Outlook, Excel, and Word are about: productivity.
4. The MasterList is a shareable project based PIM, based on connectivity.
5. The MasterList connects tasks, ideas, and links to the world at single screens.
6. The MasterList connects people across networks.
If Microsoft would do this, free, with an email account, free for individuals, it could create a craze like My Space. Particularly if it allowed pages to be developed by users with varieties of skins and content objects, never losing its focus as a person to task to project to target object to links to world connector. (The MasterList vision).
Then, the economics would and should follow in the traditional Microsoft way. Link free to X other people. Subscription fee for more complex links. Build a subscription-based business model that can sync in with the personal model, but with more complex features. Create a workable opt in to syncability with Outlook and Microsoft Exchange. Sell security and backup to off-server farm servers.
The MasterList is the one program vision that can do all of this for Microsoft. Microsoft has not yet seen the way. Microsoft has let the New Innovators take the field because it has tried to fortify its old innovations, rather than risking re-inventing itself and setting up competition with its old product portfolio.
Microsoft needs to take the risk and jump into a new product that is oil to Microsoft's water and stands on its own to capture the user imagination to fulfill one of our greatest societal needs: See, choose, and act as to what needs to be done, in a project-based organizational way, across everything and anything the user is concerned with, securely connected with anything and anyone. Stick with that primary dynamic and invite user participation in creating skins and screen-types that are viewable from any device anywhere, and you have a best-selling product for the wireless millennium.
Comments: write Tommy Vu at billnbrt@yahoo.com.
The perfect to do list is a blank piece of paper or vanilla white computer screen, with all the world in order, just the way you want it. Nothing to list.
The perfect to do list exists only in the perfect world.
The perfect world is one where all actions are balanced out and all end objects of action are perfectly clear. Nothing to do but what is being done. Nothing undone before, nothing to do next. No competition of choices.
Here's the to-do list I would like to see Microsoft build.
Home Page: Scrollable Window with List of All Projects. Scrollable Window with List of Last 10 Projects accessed. Scrollable Window with List of 10 Most Non-accessed projects. Window with today's calendar across all Projects. Window with My Day (list of current ticklers for today and past). My 10 favorite links. My non-Outlook email account.
Better yet. Make the Home Page skinnable, with an option to determine what kind of letter box windows of the above type you want to put on it for you.
Oh, yes. Like this Blog. It will be web-based. Of course, it will be shareable.
Let's get to the projects.
Project Page: Calendar event window. Timed to-do list window, where tasks have dates and are sequenced. Undifferentiated task list window, where tasks are just created ad hoc like a shopping list and have no time-table. Thus, 3 types of tasks. Calendar. Timed. Untimed or undifferentiated. Of course, links and logs just like The MasterList.
Special Priority Tools: See The MasterList.
Features:
1. The model begins with a server farm, where your to-do "space" is housed.
2. Each user has their own "space", broken into projects as above
3. Key focus is Organizing what to do by project, category, type, date.
4. Key focus is clustering links, notes, and connections with tasks/projects.
5. Key focus is creating discrete permission connections for multi-users.
6. Document and file storage would be a plus.
7. A dedicated email account would be a plus.
8. Syncability with Outlook would be a plus.
9. Readbility from non PC devices such as cell phones, pda's, IPOD's is a goal.
There's more. Key focus is derived from The MasterList model. This configuration has not yet been created by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, anyone. This configuration is beyond the economic capacity of The MasterList creators to provide.
Here's Microsoft's problem:
1. Instead of being an innovator it tried to salvage MSN.
2. Instead of being an innovator it tried to impose Outlook as its internet model.
3. Instead of creating internet product it tried to impose MS PC product online.
4. Because it promoted Microsoft Project, Outlook was handicapped as a project tool.
Here's why The MasterList model above will work;
1. We all want the killer app that ties the world to the computer device in hand.
2. What we do is the ultimate subject matter of the killer app.
3. It's what Outlook, Excel, and Word are about: productivity.
4. The MasterList is a shareable project based PIM, based on connectivity.
5. The MasterList connects tasks, ideas, and links to the world at single screens.
6. The MasterList connects people across networks.
If Microsoft would do this, free, with an email account, free for individuals, it could create a craze like My Space. Particularly if it allowed pages to be developed by users with varieties of skins and content objects, never losing its focus as a person to task to project to target object to links to world connector. (The MasterList vision).
Then, the economics would and should follow in the traditional Microsoft way. Link free to X other people. Subscription fee for more complex links. Build a subscription-based business model that can sync in with the personal model, but with more complex features. Create a workable opt in to syncability with Outlook and Microsoft Exchange. Sell security and backup to off-server farm servers.
The MasterList is the one program vision that can do all of this for Microsoft. Microsoft has not yet seen the way. Microsoft has let the New Innovators take the field because it has tried to fortify its old innovations, rather than risking re-inventing itself and setting up competition with its old product portfolio.
Microsoft needs to take the risk and jump into a new product that is oil to Microsoft's water and stands on its own to capture the user imagination to fulfill one of our greatest societal needs: See, choose, and act as to what needs to be done, in a project-based organizational way, across everything and anything the user is concerned with, securely connected with anything and anyone. Stick with that primary dynamic and invite user participation in creating skins and screen-types that are viewable from any device anywhere, and you have a best-selling product for the wireless millennium.
Comments: write Tommy Vu at billnbrt@yahoo.com.
