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Fitbit, Just Another Victim of the Tech Bullies

By
Samuel Nwite
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0

The Google’s $2.1 billion purchase of Fitbit sounds like a great news not only because it saved the company from crumbling, but also because Apple will now have a competitor to beat when it comes to wearables. Apple has been enjoying the dominance orchestrated by less competitiveness and the monopoly that Fitbit’s undersize granted it.

But not anymore, with Google’s acquisition of Fitbit, the market for wearables has been thrown into competition once again. Google hopes that it can at least catch up in terms of fitness tracking and wellness functionality.

Upon the announcement of a deal by the two companies, Fitbit’s stock rose to almost 16 percent, the highest in recent times. As part of the deal, Fitbit will be pooling its resources under Google instead being a subsidiary of Alphabet.

Apple watch has dominated the market where Fitbit was only playing the underdog competitor. A situation the new deal will push to change. Google sought to fill a gap in its hardware lineup that currently lists phones, tablets, clamshells, headphones and speakers. But there are challenges, bordering on user privacy and shipping partner.

But in a statement, Fitbit called Google the “ideal partner to advance our mission,” it said that Google will only advance its tradition of putting users in control of their privacy and how their data is used. The statement made the assurance that users’ health and wellness information will not be used for targeted ads by Google. And in the matter of shipping, the future versions of Fitbit Versa is likely going to be shipped with the assistance of Google instead of Amazon’s Alexa.

Google also noted that the acquisition of Fitbit will bring the best out of its smartwatch platforms and health applications; revealing their intention to share the fitness tracking device with partners. But the acquisition was actually necessitated by the fact that Google has a slim chance of competition with Watch OS without the partnership that will create a diverse range of products.

Although the acquisition has created an avenue for Fitbit to compete with Apple, it has made the perceived monopoly of the tech industry by the dominant companies a truth.

Google had Facebook to compete with in the bidding to acquire Fitbit, but beat them to it by paying double the amount Facebook offered: A situation that confirmed the fears of many that the tech industry is gradually being narrowed to a few giants in field flexing financial muscle.

Earlier in the year, Google had acquired Fossil’s smartwatch technology for $40 million, showing aggressive determination to expand its paths in the field of wearables.

Facebook also has been trying to up its game in the hardware market with Oculus virtual headsets, smart speakers, planned AR glasses, the acquisition of the fitness app called Moves back in 2014, and recently, the CTRL-labs, a startup developing technology that can interpret human brain signals through an armband, acquired in a deal worth around $750 million.

It is noteworthy that the two companies have been on the list of antitrust probe in the U.S. where their activities have spurred the interest of regulators to investigate if they are leveraging their dominance unfairly to hurt competitors.

The mutual interest of the two companies in Fitbit and hardware tech is a confirmation that the anticipated muzzling of smaller companies in terms of value-based competition is becoming faster a reality than imagined. And that has been the basis for the call for a break-up of the big tech companies, currently being spearheaded by the Democratic presidential aspirant Elizabeth Warren.

In her publication on Medium on March 8, she decried the growing dominance of a few companies in the tech industry, and how it has enabled them to bully their way into position of acquisition of smaller companies that can’t keep up with the competing measures that has been set so high through accumulated influence of the big tech companies.

“Today’s big tech companies have too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy. They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. And in the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation.

“I want a government that makes sure everybody – even the biggest and most powerful companies in America – plays by the rules. And I want to make sure that the next generation of great American tech companies can flourish. To do that, we need to stop this generation of big tech companies from throwing around their political power to shape the rules around their economic power to snuff out or buy up every potential competitor.

“That’s why my administration will make big structural changes to the tech sector to promote more competition – including breaking up Amazon, Facebook and Google,” she promised.

It is a glaring fact swinging with crippling shots, and small businesses are at the receiving end of it.

Therefore, Fitbit didn’t fail because it lacked the needed substance to succeed, it failed because it lacked the weight and muscle to get into the ring with titans. Alas, it’s the same story with many other companies. It’s only a matter of time before they fell into acquisition space that the tech bullies have created.

Trademark Law in Nigeria – The Sir Victor Uwaifo’s Suit Against Simi on ‘Joromi’

By
Orji Obinna
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10

  • “Turning and turning in the widening gyre
  • The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
  • Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
  • Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …”
  • (Culled from -The Second Coming. A poem by William Butler Yeats. )
It was from here that the author Chinua Achebe extracted the now famous phrase that later became the title of his book ‘Things Fall Apart’ which was written in 1958.

 In 2011, American rapper and Actor 50 Cent(real name is Curtis Jackson)  wrote and starred in a movie which was eventually titled ‘All Things Fall Apart ’ even though the original plan was for the movie to be called  ‘Things Fall Apart ’. 

The movie was produced under the same title as the 1958 novel by Chinua Achebe  Things Fall Apart. After contacting Achebe’s legal team ,50 Cent offered $1 million just to keep the title Things Fall Apart for his movie, but Achebe would not sell out at any price as he felt it was an insult to buy him over with money. The Foundation that manages Achebe’s copyrights said: “The novel with the said title was initially produced in 1958. It is listed as the most-read book in modern African literature, and won’t be sold for even £1 billion.” Eventually Mr Curtis Jackson had to settle with what was closest to what he had in mind – All Things Fall Apart. 

This was in 2011. Articles and opinions sprung up in the national dailies and on the Internet giving perspectives to it. One even went as far as saying that Achebe had no right to stop anybody from using the words since he also took it freely from another source. Superficially it does make a little sense to think in that direction, but a little dig beneath the surface shows how fundamentally different the two scenarios are. The words used by Mr Yeats are English words, and a book could contain as much as eighty thousand words and sometimes more. So are we prohibited from using any arrangement of words just because it happened to have appeared elsewhere?  No! The difference is that the title of a book or the name of a product is someone’s intellectual property and is often covered by patent and copyright  laws. 

So the contexts are different. Infact they have absolutely nothing in common. I could use phrases from Shakespeare’s literature for any purpose I deem fit so long as it is not the registerd product name of any individual or group, correct me if I’m wrong; but I can not name another book or product the same name Shakespeare had given any of his books. It’s understandable,and here is why: If someone walks into a store to buy a product that goes by a particular name, he expects to get just what he has in mind and not another item that goes by the same name, as having many items with the same product name would lead to confusion and a lot of uncertainties. Imagine if it was a drug for instance. 

The entire conversation above developed as a result of a recent fifty million naira law suit filed by Sir Victor Uwaifo on the award winning female musician Simi. Simi is being sued for N50 million as damages for using the word ‘Joromi’ in her song and as the title of one of her tracks. Remember ‘Joromi’ was also the title  Uwaifo gave to his 1979 global hit.

I think the problem here is the fact that her song bears the same title as Uwaifo’s. So if a foreigner walks into a store and asks for Joromi, he or she could be given Simi’s even though it may not be what the person had in mind. These are fundamental issues every musician should know, but is frequently violated by a good number of artistes we have today probably because there have been no consequences for neglecting  such rules.

Not long ago, American Musicians Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke were asked to pay a total of nearly $5 million (€4.4 million) to the family of Marvin Gaye, in a final judgment in the plagiarism case that found similarity between their song Blurred Lines and the song Got to Give It Up . In 2013, the song reached the top of the charts in the UK and US.

Yes! Just because the song sounds just like another song, those two musicians had to pay the the price.

In the case of Simi and Uwaifo, many Nigerians were of the opinion that Sir Victor did not invent the word Joromi and hence had no right to sue her for damages, highlighting how ignorant most people are when it comes to intellectual property laws. Other were of the opinion that he should just forgive as Simi is just like a daughter to her. 

In all these,this suit could be the beginning of many more to come, perhaps heralding the beginning of an industry where creativity and originality  will flourish as old resting vintage songs will not be disturbed in their resting place by crafty, desperate musicians who at will tamper and modify, and who believe that many living today  have absolutely no recollection of the past.

What It Takes To Be Outstanding

By
David Alade
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0
elon musk
elon musk

Over the period in the history of humankind and its development, the desire to be outstanding in terms of achievement, success and discovery has haunted men like a hunter hunts its prey. Yet, standing out remains a puzzle to a lot, a puzzle that is difficult to solve. This puzzle and the desire to provide an answer to it has been responsible for masterpieces like the book Outliers, the Innovator’s Dilemma, and Think and Grow Rich, to name a few. But what seats at the centre of outstanding?

The principle of a personal moat

Moat is generally a concept used in describing a company’s competitive advantage. A company with a moat is one with an advantage over competitors for an extended period, e.g. having a patent, having a cost advantage, customer loyalty etc.

Applying this principle on a personal level is an idea popularized by Eric Torenberg in a now well-referenced Twitter thread. Eric defines personal moat as a unique, accumulating competitive advantage that compounds over time. To be outstanding, therefore, you need a personal moat. You need to do those unique things that accumulate over the period with a tendency to compound.

Standing out – doing unique things that accumulate

It is not enough to have activities going on in your life, those activities must be such that accumulate. Accumulation means add up. Things you do must always add up with things you’ve done and things you will do. You must pursue your goals holistically. Your goals and desire to stand out must be at the centre of your activities, and all must add up. Attending a meetup in a community of people whom you might need a few years from now is a good add up, sleeping 8 hours a day is compelling add up, adding a new skill in a new but related domain to your current domain is a great add up. These things accumulate and come to pay in a matter of years.

Standing out – doing things that compound

It is not enough for things that you do to accumulate, they must compound. How do things like personal moat compound? Let me use the examples from above.

  1. Attending meetup

You meet one more person that may go on being a great influence in helping you get a competitive advantage and hence standing out. Do this for an extended period and you have a powerful network of friends. Friends whom themselves go on to become great in their respective endeavours. The result is compounding and you will see that when you need to call on them.

  1. Sleeping 8 hours a day.

Counterintuitive right? Well, you need health to get wealth, if you are not healthy, a great ceiling is placed on what you can do. Mathew Walker said in his TED Talk….

“Sleep, unfortunately, is not an optional lifestyle luxury. Sleep is a non-negotiable biological necessity. It is your life-support system, and it is mother nature’s best effort yet at immortality”.

It looks like the most unproductive thing to do especially if you’ve heard about how some people work 16 – 18 hours before they became outstanding. But for health sake and immortality sake, taking enough rest compounds.

  1. Adding new skills.

If you add more and more new skills enough, you will find intersections of these skills and you might end up innovating the erstwhile unimagined. Adding new skills also enables you to be able to think from first principle.

What it takes to stand out is a lot, and there is no one-way road to follow. The path is rough, but those who have gone through it left traces. One of the traces left has been conceptualized on the principle of a personal moat which I have tried to distill. Personal moats are those unique things that accumulate and compound overtime for you. They set you out and place you on a pedestal of outstanding if you carefully cultivate them.

Embracing Change Through Effective Communication

By
David Alade
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0

Among all things difficult for human beings, change will be part of the top 1%. We are so anti-change such that we would rather that we remained in our caves, hunting and gathering for survival than what we have now if change wasn’t forced on us. Yet, the pages of history are full of retrospective appreciation of change. Now we cannot imagine a world without a mobile phone, immersive connectivity and electricity. If it is such that change always ushers us good fortune, why do we still fight and repulse change?

The narrative of change makes us fear it. Change, especially the systemic ones, almost always promise to change the very way we live our lives (culture). And this is not something we are by nature wired to embrace. We are wired to embrace comfort and status quo, it takes extra willpower from us to embrace change. This extra willpower is more often than not difficult to get on a populace level. It is easier to get one person to embrace a new way of life than for a group of ten to embrace the same. The dynamics though is that if these individuals are approached individually, they may embrace the same more than being in a group. 

To drive change and see people embrace change both on an individual level, and populace level, I have found that communication is the number one most important thing. 

Communicating change to drive acceptance

The history of humankind is laden in different believe in stories. Stories matter to humans and we have developed and got better at telling these stories over the centuries. How you communicate change matters, and the best way to do so is to tell stories of the change.

In 2015, for example, we agreed with President Buhari (PMB) to change the fuel price from N97 to N145, this was a different attitude from what we had with President Goodluck (GEJ). What changed between GEJ and PMB? Simply story! Not to say that President Buhari is better at telling stories, but to point out that we chose to believe a different story from what we earlier believed.

We believed that unlike President Goodluck, President Buhari will remove subsidy and make good use of the money. Hence, no clampdown at the price hike. Whether we like it or not, how the stories of that period were shaped made us believe that. And when you think about it, the story started by parading PMB as the messiah, before we saw him clearly.

Well, that was just an example of how proper communication (storytelling of change) can help drive change acceptance where it was erstwhile rejected.

 The next time you aim to implement a change in your personal life or within a group of people (company, organization, country, community etc), learn to effectively communicate the story behind the change. Story matters to humans by their nature and they tend to always buy-in to stories that even though promises a change, also promises a good end.

Five Things To Avoid When Building Great Teams

By
Chinedu Junior Ihekwoaba
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0

Common mistakes most employers make – they put the company over the employees. A great leader knows that the employees make the company.

Employees are like the engine in a vehicle. Investing in them makes everything works. If you value your workers, they will definitely value your company.

Besides, employees are brand ambassadors. They represent your company. They interact with the customers every day and have total power control over the future of your company. The best way to drive your company forward is by ensuring there is an employee engagement policy being laid down.

Employee engagement is perceived to be one of the essential points for improving business results. The notion of effectively shaping the worker’s expertise is targeted on improving the engagement of employees to cut back turnover, improve productivity, increase accountability and achieve results. Also, it gives the employee a sense of belonging, therefore, enabling them to treat the company like their own.

However, in spite of all the analysis that abounds on improving engagement, it is noteworthy that several organizations still do very little to enhance the leadership’s engagement within the workforce. No wonder many of these companies have folded. They are no longer in operation.

The first problem most companies encounter is from the employees. The moment a company loses the trust of the employees, it becomes difficult to grow because every other department of the company can never function.

Listed below are five ways to destroy worker engagement:

  • Don’t attempt to offer a vision: You know the task your department must accomplish. There’s no need to offer any reasonable vision or purpose; employees got to do what’s expected of them. Everyone ought to grasp the tasks they have to complete; don’t worry about helping employees understand how what they are doing ties into a bigger image of what you’re attempting to accomplish and why. Too much information just muddies the waters and it is distracting. It doesn’t make sense to hire a smart person and tell him what to do. Rather, let him tell you what to do. It makes him feel trusted, and that will enhance his self-confidence.
  • Don’t be afraid to let your true feelings show: When things begin to go awry or once employees don’t meet your expectations, you must be at liberty to express your negative emotions with all of the intensity that you simply can muster. Keeping your emotions at bay within yourself sometimes doesn’t work very well. They’re going to come out sooner or later, therefore you may as well let them loose. Feel free to yell, scream, and use profanity. All of those behaviours can serve to get people’s attention and allow them to understand their lack of performance is completely unacceptable.
  • Don’t express appreciation: People don’t need to be recognized or appreciated. All of this verbal praise becomes pointless if you are doing it all of the time. Individuals are paid for what they are doing, therefore don’t worry concerning expressing any kind of verbal appreciation or recognizing them in any other means. The monetary rewards associated with their work is satisfying enough.
  • Don’t encourage people to work together: It is better if people simply specialize in doing their work without distraction. All this getting together to collaborate could be a waste of your time. Decisions in groups often take too long and are often not made at all. Keep people targeted on their specific goals while not involving others.
  • Don’t offer feedback: The whole notion that people need or want feedback is overrated. The most effective feedback is the results that individuals receive from the work that they are doing. Tell individuals to take stock of what they are doing and alter what they have to get higher results. They shouldn’t have to be checking in with you to understand how they’re doing.

Conclusion

If this is the method you lead your team, I can guarantee that turnover is going to be high, productivity is going to be lower, morale is going to be in the tank, and you may not get the results that you simply need.

Simply take every point above and take away the word “don’t,” turning the suggestions into a positive statement of what you must be doing to increase worker engagement.

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