Inside Delphian

This is where commerce is headed ;)

One of the classes I teach at Seneca College is Virtual Fashion Retailing. It's a course I was given much latitude in shaping, and this is my second year teaching it. The students are all sixth semester students, and my mug is one of the last they'll see before heading off into the Wild West of the fashion industry. Technology changes rapidly in every field, and this includes e-tailing. With that in mind, I'd like to talk about some current trends in e-Commerce, then putting my 'fortune telling' hat on--and clearly, tongue-in-cheek--predict the future of electronic retailing.

E-commerce stands for electronic commerce. Electronic commerce is basically defined as the buying and selling of electronic goods and/or services over the Internet. Many brick-and-mortar (i.e., real) stores turned to e-Commerce early on, and are now called multi-channel retailers. Multi-channel retailers sell their goods or services in more than one way.

So the course I teach includes things like a brief history of e-Commerce, various classifications of retailers, the pros and cons of e-tailing, and, a fairly large component: the creation of a mock-up online store.

As I got started this year, I noted two interesting trends. One concerned a collection of products that not only sold well in the depths of the recession, but actually increased its sales (the merchandise included high end skin care and anti-aging products). The other trend was that some big-name retailers were beginning not only to target mobile phone users, but to actually develop marketing expressly for cell and smartphones. I thought, well, this is in keeping with reality. More and more, people are turning to smartphones for everything from social networking to televised events. So why not more commerce? This emerging and growing market is now referred to as "m-commerce". Of course!

In thinking about these interesting developments, I decided to don my 'fortune-telling' hat and peer, rather fearlessly, into the future of technology and commerce to see what's just around the corner...

Cloudy, at first, but then from the mists of the future the following name appeared: "r-commerce". I, too, thought it meant radio commerce. But the word spelled itself out and I found out it meant ... retina-commerce. Wow, thought I: they're going to target our eyeballs! The images didn't stay with me long enough to figure out exactly how this would work, but it seems it had something to do with 3-D images being projected onto our retinas, and ... well, I lost the signal. I wondered how they'd work sound into it.

Many were the images of futuristic marketing and advertising that appeared to me--some for but a second, others long enough for me to grasp their meaning. The last clear trend I saw happening came to me, again, as a word: "si-commerce". What the heck? Visions of Star Trek and other far-away and fantastic worlds began to bombard my consciousness. I couldn't for the life of me figure out the "si" part at first. I thought it might be "science", or "significant insight", or any number of other things. And then the words cleared up. This new marketing technique would involve subcutaneous implants. Wow! So in the future we'll have advertising chips implanted under our skin, and they'll deliver data directly to our bloodstream. Fantastic. Hmmm, I wondered aloud, how will they figure out a way to make us pay a monthly subscription for that? And what kind of bank machine or debit system will that entail?

The visions stopped, I took off my fortune-telling hat, and saw my laptop sitting on the dining room table. It was all a bad dream, or was it? e-Commerce and m-commerce are re ... sorry, hang on a second, I need to grab a phone call coming in somewhere in my shoulder.

Windows 7

So the street (public) release of Windows 7--in all its variations--happened a few weeks ago. Thinking of trading up?

In the late summer I downloaded and began, unofficially, testing this new operating system (Windows 7 Ultimate). Then, as good fortune would have it, I connected with an educational publishing firm and contracted for two different projects that involved ... Windows 7. (One also involved Internet Explorer 8). In one contract, I was hired to do 'line-editing', so I really, really got to know Windows 7 well. In the other, I was updating content written for Windows Vista that had to, now, fit into Windows 7. Both textbooks are due out in early 2010.

As time goes on, I'll be speaking more about what I've found--good and bad--in Windows 7, as observed over the past several months. And it's looking more and more possible that I'll be putting together an e-book on Windows 7 (and possibly on Microsoft Office 2010) this coming winter. For now, here's a quick teaser on Windows 7:

• It has a gorgeous interface (hasn't quite matched the Mac, but it is nice)
• It has better virus protection
• It has a few bells and whistles that are worth the upgrade price
• It has changed how some of the functionality works

Power consumption seems to have gone down (a good thing), while start-up and shut-down times seem to have sped up (another good thing). More later...

Back to work, or, what will I do in 2009?

In late 2008, I made the decision to stop publishing a monthly e-zine.

Well, I say "monthly"; but for a number of reasons I felt that wasn't the right schedule to follow, nor the best way for me to get my thoughts out there. This, my first post of the New Year, is dedicated to my e-zine subscribers, and indeed to all of you who are pondering this newly minted year.

While I don't make New Year's resolutions, I do review the past year--I always do in the closing days of any year--and I make some decisions about what I can or cannot not do moving forward, or can or cannot hang onto. For starters, my commitment to spirituality (to living life fully in body, mind, and spirit) has increased. It's a "keeper". One part of my reason has to do with the fact that my mother died in late October. Another has to do with my continuing relationship on a number of levels (including the spiritual, but if it works better for you, the "psychic") with several important people in my life. That part has never wavered, but I do think 2008 made it all the more stronger.

Another key area I revisited or reviewed was the always-interesting question of what I do, or will do, for a 'living' in the New Year. I think I've concluded that I adore my fellow virtual assistants, and yes, there are lots of reasons to adore the teacher's hat I wear several times a week in any active semester. In each of those two areas, I've increased my commitment and focus. In fact, on the virtual assistance front, I've already committed to being a facilitator for a workshop at FoVA 2009.

When you have "one of those days" (in my case, it was 2008, and it was "one of those years"), among the many things you want to do is make sure it doesn't happen again.

On the elevator on the way up to our floor earlier today, two other gentlemen and I engaged in a brief 45-60 second conversation (all the ride would allow). As we spoke briefly about the weather, we also touched briefly about what 2009 might bring. We all agreed that we were fortunate not to be mixed up in some of the very unfortunate (loathsome?) misfortunes in other parts of the world. My concluding remark was that there was only one direction for us--all of us--to go in 2009: and that was up.

I sincerely hope that's where you're headed in 2009 too. Happy New Year!