Ross Mayfield is seriously noodling on the subject of enterprise decentralization.

First, Ross shows how the latest marketing cycle reveals big shifts in marketing organizations. Changes in marketing org structure, marketing focus, and the rise of indirect persuasion. 

Then Ross examines business architectures, models & systems in The Gravity of Decentralization.  

This post explores key benefits of cost and risk reduction:

• Capital Expense: Smart Build vs. Dumb Build
• Operating Expense: Centralized Complexity vs. Decentralized Service
• Market Risk: Centralized Liquidity vs. Decentralized Standardization
• Operational Risk: Centralized Security vs. Decentralized Defense

Identifying these benefits should help understanding how to achieve balance between centralized and decentralized gravitational forces.

Stay tuned.

The experience occurs at my fingertips. That's where my attention is as I write with a pen. (Not like touch typing with a keyboard.) Those 2-3 square centimeters where my pen has just been and where it is going next are everything.

Microsoft gets it.

I tried my first of the new tablets, Toshiba's Portégé 3500, at the Emeryville CompUSA. They were sold out, more coming soon, and they had the demo unit in shackles. People were crowding around the unit, politely vying to use the pen. One guy said he'd seen it at Comdex and was eager to get one.

It felt like a really good fountain pen. Smooth. Floating. Responsive. Precise. My penmanship looked great, with even, flowing script. I was actually writing better. 

I'm sold except for two things:

The 1.0 Premium. Toshiba is selling these for $2500+, at least $1000 more than comparable laptops, which are still selling for a $1000 more than comparable desktops. What would you pay for a P3-1.33 GHZ, 40GB, 512MB desktop? Pen-to-text is still processor intensive, so more CPU is better. I expect street prices to rise at least through 2003 unless the market gets swamped.

The 1.0 Shelf Life. It is still early. I may wait a year for feedback from the first 100Kusers. Tablet gear, OS, and apps will change a lot and fast. Buying now means running into all the rough edges and feeling geek envy sooner.