Around the time of my last post I went from consultant, advisor, non-profit tech incubator to full-time up to the eyeballs COO of the Mobile Giving Foundation. What started with an open heart and a commitment to jump in and help where I could benefit most turned into a full-time, middle of an industry segment explosion 18+ hr workday gig.

Now don’t hear me complaining because that’s not the deal at all. I wake up every day knowing how lucky I am I get to do what I do and put my cape on and ask for Divine guidance. And every night I say “thank You” for the life I get to live.

Back in 2001 I turned 40 and forced fate’s hand. I told myself that if by my 40th birthday I hadn’t fulfilled a childhood dream (literally, a recurring one), I would pull the plug and go do it.

So it was that three days after my birthday I departed not knowing how long I was going for nor to what end. To make matters more complicated, the Universe, as it will, started throwing up hurdles and roadblocks to challenge my resolve. I met my wife and fell in love a few weeks before my departure.

This is going somewhere, and we’ll get there. But back to the story. It wasn’t normal love. I mean Margs is incredibly beautiful and the subject of another childhood vision. But this wasn’t wow she’s amazing love, it was more. I was spellbound, I’m sure by some witchery or at least magic knowing my wife. We just started talking one night. And we’d get together and talk some more. And then during the day I’d talk to her from my office and it seemed the whole world would block out and I was floating in space with just our voices joined in that space that we had crawled into.

I had a strategy consulting boutique and traveled a lot as I was winding down engagements. At night we’d slip back into that place. Sort of a quiet fort behind an ivy hedge in a secret garden on a hill in some metropolis.

And this I leave to go pursue a childhood quest. I didn’t know if she’d be there when I got back or when I would be back. But there was something very transparent in the way the Joker was testing fate. I had to go and I had to trust that everything was going to work out brilliantly.

For after all, the recurring childhood dream was to go live in a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the mountains. And to do so I would have to renounce everything (or at least put it in trust, right?–nah, gots to take that back: truth be told I really would have given it all away if that was what was supposed to be but never got the clear answer it was; believe me, I asked).

So I wind into the monastery by way of scuba diving certification in Koh Tao and then a tour of Bhutan. Remember, I’m a two phone to my head, three-to-five cities a week kind of guy going into this. So it took a few weeks to wind down.

Before I head up to the monastery I visit the monastery’s HQ in Kathmandu and meet the Lama who runs the show. We have an amazing climb the mountain and talk to a Lama chat and then a few days later I’m hiking up 4,000 vertical in 4 hours with a 14-year-old monk while a helicopter gunship empties out a 50MM gun into a valley a mile away.

I fast for 5 days. I climb up from 9,000 feet to 10,000 feet daily and meditate on a peak from which I can see Everest and her surrounding sisters. And I am tortured. I don’t think if I were sitting in the middle of Times Square on New Years Eve it could have been nosier where I was. The mind is not our friend and my mind was busy and yapping like, well, crazy.

I come down, talk to the Lama–a different Lama, as big and physical as a pro front linesman but with the gentleness and equanimity of your favorite teacher–and he gives me the remedy. Next day I go up the mountain and find peace, emptiness, quiet.

So a few days later I’m meditating. In the mornings I go to the peak for vipassana, come down for lunch, after the 10th day I teach an english class (I was silent for the first 10 days), and then after class I head to a stone hut to Om and do whatever other meditation seems right. Some days it’s shamanic, others pranayama, you name it. One day I’m doing the gratitude meditation where you go back as far as you can and think through all the conversations and people who have been in your life.

The meditation is like a balloon that expands out in places when you push on it but really you’re always working with the same universe of experience. It’s seemingly infinite but since we’re talking about the sum of my life it is by definition smaller than an atom particle of human experience.

I had my life flash in front of my eyes once, a week after a near fatal motorcycle accident back in ’94 that I managed to walk away from, sort of. And as I went through this meditation my life once again flashed in front of my eyes or more like ebbed and flowed with a Mandelbrot-like investigation of my life and relationships. It really is perfect how everything fits together. There’s absolutely no other conclusion as an observer. The timing and storyline and character development and seemingly random acts that weave themselves into the plot are just so magnificent. I applaud the Author.

And when I finally ended the meditation in close to the great loves I’ve been so fortunate to have been given. My sweethearts, romances, flings, my brothers and sisters, my clan, my riding buddies and teammates, my father, my mother, my twin brother and it brought me to my knees heaving, humbled in grace for the gifts bestowed.

Why me? As far as I could tell to that point in my life it had been about the Mike show so there wasn’t a lot of balance between the give and take side of the equation.

But more importantly, now that I knew this, “What can I do to pay back?” And I was prepared to do anything that was presented to me.

Everyday I meditated 12-15 hours a day. Emptying everything save for one intention and one goal: guidance. I was ok if nothing showed up, that would have been funny in itself. But on the 2nd to last day the Voice came. It said that I was the perfect person to be of maximum benefit to all sentient beings just by being me. All those experiences, all those people I knew and love, all that work stuff, all of it will fit into the grand scheme.

All I had to do was set my intent.

Fast forward through meeting Margs on Bali and spending the first month of our lives together in tropical island paradise; to San Francisco where we spent the next month in that Dr. Seuss house on Potrero Hill I had remodeled; to the Geodesic dome in Carlsbad with Gigolo the peacock and Presh the cat in the yard where Bodhi was conceived; to wildfires and gas leaks that sent us up to Seattle to family for refuge; to AT&T Wireless, to Qpass, to UIE to my brother-in-law Mike’s death and the realization that I had been building up interesting experiences but hadn’t focused my intent.

So I once again pulled the plug-in December of 2008 and spent 2009 working on a couple of consulting assignments but mostly on Non-Profit applied technology, goals, sociology, etc.

And then here I am, today, COO of a non-profit that enables text donations to show up on your mobile bill. And I have a magnanimous family–way more than I could have wanted or hoped for. I know today is just another marker in the timeline I’ll get to review again someday. But it really is pretty incredible.

So no, I’m not complaining about the long hours right now. We’re at a turning point. We’ve had the devastation of the Haiti earthquake. One month of challenges at work does not compare to one minute on the ground in Haiti where 200,000 lost their lives and millions lost family members and loved ones.

We’ve got commercial interests and other parties looking to help themselves to the cookie jar of the channel that the Foundation has built. We’re building platform tools that will allow Mobile Giving to go global, and to allow many stakeholders to participate, from activists to corporate matchers. And a way for many more to receive.

Now is the time not a year from now. I say that everyday. We can’t wait for the next Haiti or Katrina or Tsunami. We need to be ready now. We need to help save lives now through Non-Profits like WorldVision and Malaria No More and the food banks we support here in the US.

If I’ve been assigned to this job by the Boss then I need to answer the call and step up to the challenges.

That’s what I’ve been doing.

If I don’t post for a while that’s the reason. I’m trying to figure out how to switch this over from a mobile and emerging technology blog to a Mobile Giving guy blog. Maybe I don’t, maybe it’ll just stay Mike’s blog.

I love tech. I’m good at it. After saying why the Palm was going to fail, a friend gave me one. I love it. I finally gave up my 2G iPhone for the Palm. I can get any device I want, just keep giving them back. I haven’t found anything as good as iOS for a Smartphone OS for the way I work. Anyway, so I have my Palm and love it but it sucks for exactly my point: only 500 apps int he appstore and some are leaving–they’re not increasing to 100k+ anytime soon. Android’s cool and I’ll probably get one if the battery life improves.

And in the meantime Google has just announced phat (anyone use that term still?) earnings and are taking heat for going evil with a VZ Net Neutrality hookup. It’s still about advertising, I keep telling you.

There it is. I’m consummately Mobile Giving Mike and at the same time tech pontificator. See you back here again soon.

Palm had a great PR start to the year with announcements that it was launching on AT&T and Verizon in addition to Sprint, springing hope to investors that it could hit critical mass. At that time I opined that developers weren’t jumping on board, and it’s a 3rd or 4th OS to support at both AT&T and VZW, so Palm was going to face challenges gaining market share.

On February 3rd I wrote that Jonathan Goldberg of Deutshce Bank had penned a rosy report on Palm and upgraded the stock, providing a brief 10%+ spike interrupting a steady fall that began when the stock peaked at $14.17 on the 19th of January. At the time I said there were too many strikes against Palm to support Deutsche Bank’s outlook.

This isn’t an “I told you so” post. But it is a “The market agrees with me and so does Bank of America/Merrill Lynch (BAC) analyst Vivek Arya.” Back in November 2009 Arya wrote, “Despite increasing smartphone competition, Palm can maintain differentiation and remains well-positioned to launch its products with multiple new Tier-1 carriers in early 2010 by which time it should have a robust apps catalog,” Arya wrote. “While we expect the stock to remain volatile, the recent sell-off [ed: referencing late October, 2009, when PALM fell from $17 to $11/share] creates an interesting buying opportunity, in our opinion, for a company with an attractive platform, selling into a high-growth market, and at a compelling valuation.”

Only, as I continue to point out, the developers aren’t building apps for WebOS, meaning it doesn’t have a robust apps catalog. Back when Arya wrote his report he cited the fact that Palm was adding 50 apps a week to its app store and that apps will be delivered via URL in the future. 50 apps per week doesn’t come close to Apple’s 3-5,000/week or Android’s 500-1,000/week (estimated based on Dec 2009 numbers), and URL delivery begs for discovery and fulfillment. In other words, how are the developers going to make money?

So the platform is attractive, Smartphone is a high-growth market segment, but the valuation was high for everything but an acquisition arbitrage in November even when carrier deals were priced in.

I don’t know if Arya reads this blog, but this today he reversed course and downgraded Palm, leading to a 10%+ nose dive saying, “Palm’s superior platform features have not translated into sufficient carrier support and consumer demand, and we are concerned the window of opportunity may be closing as Google’s Android ecosystem gains ground, RIM revitalizes its portfolio, iPhone increases its presence, and as Microsoft reboots its efforts with Windows Phone 7,” Arya wrote in a research note. “With only $130 million of net cash in an opex intensive space, Palm’s options may be limited in our view.”

Rather than go grab more capital, Palm may do better by its investors to look to companies where OpEx could be slashed and WebOS leveraged towards higher volumes–companies like MSFT, RIM, Nokia, HTC, LG, or Samsung for an exit. I know MOT doesn’t have the stomach and SonyEricsson doesn’t have BOD level support.

http://twitter.com/michaelpsilva

Frank, Todd, and I would surf together, go on weekend motorcycle rides to Tecate, triple date or think of who we might set Frank up with (he really didn’t need any help). Todd and I spent the most time together, but Frank was always a welcomed 3rd any time we were out socially.

Frank is just one of those guys who you can meet once and you’re friends from that point on. He makes everyone feel special. If a man can be judged by the friends he keeps, I’ll be just fine having Frank and Todd as pals.

A few years ago Frank was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gherig’s disease. He vowed to fight it. And fight it he has. Frank doesn’t know “quit.” He’s outlived every prediction of life expectancy he’s been given. He’s seen healers, shamans, preachers, he’s done it all.

But more commendable than his tenacity and resourcefulness is how he’s chosen to move through his diagnosis. We’ve never heard a complaint from Frank, and he’s met every challenge with grace, even some interpersonal challenges that one should never have to go through. He moved past a classic giver/taker marriage that had turned unfathomably abusive with clear boundaries but with love and dignity and without animosity that his more protective friends wanted to direct towards his ex.

Frank really believes in a concept called Big Fat Love. In a world with Big Fat Love there’s no room for pettiness, resentments or grudges. As soon as Frank crystalized his Big Fat Love ideal and shared it, friends picked it up and ran with it, knowing it’s what Frank had been showing us by living example all these years.

I spent a few days down at Frank’s place in Point Loma and got to see Big Fat Love in action. There is a constant flow of grade and high school pals coming down from OC. We had a sleepover last night with half a dozen friends and we laughed and had verbal pillow fights and ate popcorn and told stories to the wee hours.

As I snuck out early the next morning to catch my flight I knew I may not see Frank again. But it is really hard to grieve. Before I went down I was pretty torn up. It’s tragic to see one of the most vital guys on the planet–a guy who could surf 3-4 hours past when I had gone home to nap and had been at it a few hours before I got there–stuck in his withering body, unable to speak or move at will, but 100% there intellectually. But the legacy Frank leaves and the heroism with which he lives erases any notion of tragedy. The torch and intent with which all we Frankites live our life now gives him immortalilty even in life.

If you’re a praying sort, please think of Frank. If you’re not, open up a little more to those around you and spread a little Big Fat Love around your world. And if you’d like to learn more about Frank and support his charity, visit www.friendsforfrank.com

“A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.” Will Rogers

“Big Fat Love to you all.” Frank Teixeira

I’m just not seeing it. I don’t hear developers running to Palm. Android, yes; Palm, no. And some developers are scratching their heads and trying to figure out how to fit BREW in given AT&T’s announcement at CES and the sheer number of handsets that will support BREW.

Which goes to my previous assertion . . . I believe Palm will have a lift by virtue of having 3 NA Tier1s as channels of distribution. And WebOS is beautiful as are Palm’s devices. However, without apps and without a clear path for monetization by developers, AND without the marketing muscle of Apple, I don’t see Palm getting to 7MM units this year.

If Palm hits the ball out of the park –and I’m talking bases loaded, Grand Slam–I’m guessing they’ll do 2MM devices at Sprint, 500k-1MM at AT&T, and since VZWs smartphone lineup is week, let’s say they do 2-3MM at VZW. Grand Slam, high-end, says 6MM (15% below Goldberg’s CY2010 forecast). Pragmatism in channel filling, carrier training, etc., and flawless execution, says Palm will ship 4MM and should consider that a terrific year.

Palm was Sprint’s answer to the iPhone but Instinct did a better job of filling the consumers needs by virtue of adoption metric. Palm may fill a similar role at VZW, but both Sprint and VZW have other options, including murmurs of Apple SKUs on the way. This means that Palm will be relegated to an also ran, rather than a core device as it was at Sprint with its Treo, or as the Sidekick was at T-Mobile for so long.

And lacking the marketing muscle or the carrier marketing dollars, and competing against Android OEMs head to head, I still say Palm doesn’t have enough gas in its tank to reach critical mass. And therefore I still say Palm is better suited as an acquisition target as per my previous post, albeit a very expensive buy today.

It’s an ugly and grim term, and so it is when applied to industries that are being uprooted by Google’s business models.

Take, for example, the damage Google has inflicted on the Portable Navigation Device market by offering turn-by-turn for free on Android (thereby forcing Nokia to offer Navteq turn-by-turn on Nokia devices). Or how it appears inevitable to wrest marketshare from Microsoft’s Office programs and potentially render Microsoft’s PC-based software business irrelevant (note–I don’t believe this is going to happen overnight and there are plenty of opportunities for MSFT to fight back; and I believe clouded apps still need host storage and computing for the near term).

Google with their motto, “Do no evil” seems a lot like the invaders from the 1996 cult classic “Mars Attacks” who say, “Do not run! We are your friends! We come in peace!” as they’re firing off rounds from their laser guns.

But is Google really evil or is this just capitalism at its finest? Google’s business is Advertising. I have an agency friend who likes to say Google “sucked all the advertising revenue out of the Internet in Phase I.” And if you look at Google’s reach past online to billboards, this rings true about other areas of advertising. Search is their means to facilitate advertising. And mapping or location is a subset of Search.

Google, then, isn’t in the business of Maps, they’re in the business of Advertising and the companies who were in the business of maps just got a big hurt put on them by a company that is protecting its business in advertising.

Likewise, if you look at the desktop and mobile, the two main platforms for interactive advertising, Google should give away an OS and optimize its services for that OS so that it commands a huge share of the next computing platform, one that will dwarf the desktop in a few years. (see my CES presentation for forecasts of Android).

Apple and Microsoft are just collateral damage in Google’s quest to own search and therefore, advertising. The same can be said of Cable and Satellite companies who have worked so hard to wrestle free TV away from the consumer, only to have it handed back by YouTube and other advertising supported models. If you follow viewership trends, you’ll see a whole generation moving to online for media and gaming.

I’ve worked for, invested in, and advised over 100 startups thus far. We feared the Goliaths but would compete against them by innovating and moving faster. We would drive new areas of opportunity and growth via category creation. And when we reached critical mass we would exit either by owning a category or by a Goliath acquiring us to support their innovation or product needs.

But how do you compete against a company like Google that runs category creation through its labs, uses agile development to innovate and develop rapidly, and has a pile of cash that grows by the second?

Ask Yelp. Or look at MSFT & AAPL who are reported to be teaming up in an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” partnership. I’ll blog more on this, but my initial pass is block and tackle–be better, drive differentiation that is highly valued, look to non-Google Ad networks and build a parallel business that will be competitive to Google, etc. And by all means, understand that you may be next, and set a plan in action now to ensure you minimize your collateral damage.

Although Mobile Gifting Foundation was founded in 2007, it took a catastrophe as momentous and tragic as the Haiti earthquake to mobilize folks to make text donations in previously unheard of volume.

So overwhelming was the response that the voicemail system got clogged up. Thankfully the gifting systems firing on all cylinders.

I stopped in the other day to see how I could help and we got right to work on fixing the voicemail issue.

We forwarded support voicemails to GoogleVoice for transcription on any incoming calls, then turned to PhoneTag to use their speech recognition engine to convert almost 2,000 voicemails to emails from which volunteers could make outbound calls to help folks with their giving.

We estimate that we’ll be able to get new charities online supporting the cause much faster which means more funding sourcing and giving efforts. If we convert each of the callers at an average of $10, we’ll raise $20,000 in donations that otherwise would not have been processed, with about 20 hours of volunteer time. Not a bad hourly return for non-profit.

And, more importantly, we’re able to contribute in a meaningful way to reach out to friends, neighbors, and our global family to provide food, water, shelter, aide, and hopefully, in the end, comfort.

If you’d like to help make outbound calls, please contact me directly via the Contact Tab on this blog. When we’re sending out call logs to folks we include the original voicemail. As I was auditing the messages to characterize the support requests I was moved deeply by the motivation and, at times, desperation of the callers to help out.

And don’t get me started on Facebook. People always ask me why I don’t have pics of my son and wife and life out there hanging in the wind like everyone else? I’m happy to share that with friends, family, and colleagues, but, you know, all those other people I don’t know? What about SNS faux pas like pics of a great day on the mountain when I was supposed to be somewhere else?

You see where I’m going here:
If I blog daily it usually means I’m keeping up on everything else in my life–the workout or running routine, family time and chores, etc. My life is in balance and my blog is fed.

If I’m dark I’m negotiating a transaction or buried in a sprint project for a client.

And just forget about the whole Facebook thing. I’ll beg it off to privacy but it’s really just too much lifting with potential social consequences I prefer to remain unaware of.

We all know that it will take time for consumers to adopt Android, whether it mean switching service provider (SP) or buying a new device. And with all the Android offers out there, which devices will rise to the top? There are bound to be devices that are so revolutionary that App support will be low initially (in effect setting up a “Pre” effect for innovative form factors and features).

But by 2012, 3 years from now, I agree, adoption will have taken hold. Developers certainly are agreeing with that assumption as well.

So what does it mean for a carrier to Let Google In? Android ships optimized for Google Apps and Google services. Many of those services compete with existing offers from the SPs such as GPS, or, LBS more appropriately. The SPs have been counting on knowing a whole lot more about their customers than any web services company, and leveraging that knowledge to provide better content, services, and communications offers.

When an OEM adds a Ux and customization layer on top of Android, such as MOT’s MOTOBLUR or HTC’s Sense UI, the OEMs can hook up the SPs services and remove GOOGs, thereby being a better vendor to the SP, and (possibly) limiting the “Letting In” factor.

But how will the consumer feel about these moves? A good pal who studies mobile app psychographics says, “consumers are lazy.” Meaning that the more integrated and easy apps and services are, the more likely the users will use GOOG apps and services. (Log on once to any Android device and prepare to be delighted if you’re set up with Gmail, Google Apps, GoogleVoice, etc.) And these devices from the SPs could wind up causing confusion or inspire themes that end-around the carrier attempts to keep GOOG at bay.

Bill Gurley has a nice piece on why Android is here to stay and why the SPs are having a hard time keeping (and wanting to keep) Android out.

The OEMs are embracing Android as a means to move their featurephones up market with a low cost (free) OS that has nice standardized handset applications with beautiful APIs like SMS, messaging, web, etc. (versus the old featurephone “OS” and apps) which lead to a much lower cost of porting, customizing, and upgrading devices. In other words, OEMs are able to lower their OpEx with Android devices even as they now face the challenge to differentiate (but not too much) as I’ve opined above.

But not so fast, folks. There still is a market for featurephones with a much lower Bill of Materials (BOM) than the Nexus or other Android phones.

And that gives AT&T and others reasons to adopt BREW MP or ALP’s LinuxMo plus Widgets solution. Featurephones aren’t going away soon. They fill a big need in the lower end of the market as freephones with their lower BOM and lots of smartphone-like functionality provided via better apps and widgets. Many folks outside our world of tech and mobile like phones that are just phones that call and text and hit the web when they need to, and if you can throw in customization like Samsung’s widget devices, they’re thrilled.

So yes, GOOG will pick up a huge chunk of the market. Carriers will have to deal with GOOG being in their infrastructure. Other Smartphone OS’s and Featurephones will be around for the next 5 years or more (Although Gerry Purdy at Frost & Sullivan says 100% of phones sold in the US will be Smartphones by 2014).

But how brilliant is GOOG on so many fronts?
- They launch phones without the manufacturing costs or risks
- All their services integrate seamlessly (versus other portal or app services like WinMo, Y!)
- They steamroll MSFT in no time
- More mobile computing devices than PCs in 2-3 years–they grab a lion’s share of the OS market on the next computing platform.
- They extend their monopoly on advertising
- And on and on . . .

Well done, GOOG! It’s not a matter of Letting Google In any longer for SPs if you look at all the data points, it’s how they’re going to respond, and what services they’re going to offer that GOOG doesn’t wind up offering at some point for free.

- Smaprthone Developers prioritize as follows:
– iPhone
– Android
– Blackberry
– WinMo and or Symbian
– And then, possibly, WebOS

- For communications demos, developers often use WinMo because of its rich features, or Symbian on high-end Nokias to emulate what their app might look like were they to develop towards featurephones (There are only a few Symbian devices that fit the Smartphone moniker, such as the Communicator. A good indicator of what’s a Smartphone and what’s a featurephone is the types of applications and their richness. If it doesn’t feel like an iPhone, Droid, Pre, or WinMo device, it’s a featurephone).

So why is WebOS such a distant runner?
Reach:
– The Pre was picked up by Sprint out of a desperate need to compete against iPhone. However, the Samsung Instinct has sold better and in retail I’ve seen a potential Pre owner swayed to Instinct.
– Sprint had 50MM+ subs at one point but has been losing market share steadily. And Smartphones are just a small portion of its overall handset mix vis-a-vis other carriers like AT&T. So WebOS, to date, has only had a small piece of an under-indexing portion of the Sprint handset portfolio, on a carrier that’s losing market share.
– AT&T and Verizon have announced they’ll be launching Palm devices in 2010, but will it be too little too late? Again, WebOS will represent only a very small part of both AT&T and Verizon’s handset lineup, and both carriers have put a great deal of support behind Android.

Monetization:
- How is a WebOS developer going to monetize?
– 100,000+ iPhone and 20,000+ Android apps mean users know there are options. 600 Pre apps mean there are big glaring holes in apps for WebOS
– EU Appstore just announced, but it may be too late. APAC has no appstore, nore does Canada.
– Support for Yahoo! APIs varies by region (as do other APIs, but just a sign of fragmentation on the platform–something an Apple dev doesn’t face).

I don’t count Palm out, especially in light of its new announcements with AT&T and Verizon, but somehow those news flashes seem more like a telegraphed counterweight to Android by the carriers than an outright embrace of WebOS.

And both AT&T and Verizon are looking for ways to take the 700k+ Treo users on Sprint and convert them to their networks: Palm adoption equals Sprint Churn.

In short, if you follow the money, and in the Mobile OS space, that’d be the developers, it’s hard to place bets on WebOS even as they start to pick up steam with distribution.

I believe it is too little, too late, and at $2B market cap, Palm is too expensive for anyone but MSFT, NOK, or MOT to pick up as an acquisition. RIM just acquired a Web-OSy company and doesn’t have the cash to buy Palm, although it would be an interesting move on their part. And YHOO has had its own challenges in mobile to double down and have the stomach for a Palm acquisition.