Great News about the new Google Business Intelligence Solution

Google has renamed Data Studio to Looker Studio and Looker Studio Pro.

Now, Google releases Looker Studio Pro. Similar to the move from Data Studio to Looker Studio, Looker Studio Pro is basically what Looker was previously, but both solutions will merge. Google says the Pro edition will acquire new enterprise management features, team collaboration capabilities, and SLAs.

In addition to Google's announcements and sales methods, additional features include:

Looker Studio assets can now have organizational ownership. Customers can link Looker Studio to a Google Cloud project and migrate existing assets once. This provides:

• Your users' created Looker Studio assets are all kept in a Google Cloud project.

• When the users who own assets leave your organization, the assets won't be removed.

• Using IAM, you may provide each Looker Studio asset in your company project-level permissions.

• Other Cloud services can access Looker Studio assets that are owned by a Google Cloud project.

Looker Studio Pro clients may now manage report and data source access at scale using team workspaces.

Google announcing these features for the pro version is fascinating. Both products will likely converge, but Google may only release many features in the premium version in the future. Microsoft with Power BI and its free and premium variants already achieves this.

Sources and Further Readings

Google, Release Notes (2022)

Google, Looker (2022)

Is iPhone's Dynamic Island invention or a marketing ploy?

First of all, why the notch?

When Apple debuted the iPhone X with the notch, some were surprised, confused, and amused by the goof. Let the Brits keep the new meaning of top-notch.

Apple removed the bottom home button to enhance screen space. The tides couldn't overtake part of the top. This section contained sensors, a speaker, a microphone, and cameras for facial recognition. A town resisted Apple's new iPhone design.

From iPhone X to 13, the notch has gotten smaller. We expected this as technology and engineering progressed, but we hated the notch. Apple approved. They attached it to their other gadgets.

Apple accepted, owned, and ran with the iPhone notch, it has become iconic (or infamous); and that’s intentional.

The Island Where Apple Is

Apple needs to separate itself, but they know how to do it well. The iPhone 14 Pro finally has us oohing and aahing. Life-changing, not just higher pixel density or longer battery.

Dynamic Island turned a visual differentiation into great usefulness, which may not be life-changing. Apple always welcomes the controversy, whether it's $700 for iMac wheels, no charging block with a new phone, or removing the headphone jack.

Apple knows its customers will be loyal, even if they're irritated. Their odd design choices often cause controversy. It's calculated that people blog, review, and criticize Apple's products. We accept what works for them.

While the competition zigs, Apple zags. Sometimes they zag too hard and smash into a wall, but we talk about it anyways, and that’s great publicity for them.

Getting Dependent on the drug

The notch became a crop. Dynamic Island's design is helpful, intuitive, elegant, and useful. It increases iPhone usability, productivity (slightly), and joy. No longer unsightly.

The medication helps with multitasking. It's a compact version of the iPhone's Live Activities lock screen function. Dynamic Island enhances apps and activities with visual effects and animations whether you engage with it or not. As you use the pill, its usefulness lessens. It lowers user notifications and consolidates them with live and permanent feeds, delivering quick app statuses. It uses the black pixels on the iPhone 14's display, which looked like a poor haircut.

The pill may be a gimmick to entice customers to use more Apple products and services. Apps may promote to their users like a live billboard.

Be prepared to get a huge dose of Dynamic Island’s “pill” like you never had before with the notch. It might become so satisfying and addicting to use, that every interaction with it will become habit-forming, and you’re going to forget that it ever existed.

WARNING: A Few Potential Side Effects

Vision blurred Dynamic Island's proximity to the front-facing camera may leave behind grease that blurs photos. Before taking a selfie, wipe the camera clean.

Strained thumb To fully use Dynamic Island, extend your thumb's reach 6.7 inches beyond your typical, comfortable range.

Happiness, contentment The Dynamic Island may enhance Endorphins and Dopamine. Multitasking, interactions, animations, and haptic feedback make you want to use this function again and again.

Motion-sickness Dynamic Island's motions and effects may make some people dizzy. If you can disable animations, you can avoid motion sickness.

I'm not a doctor, therefore they aren't established adverse effects.

Does Dynamic Island Include Multiple Tasks?

Dynamic Islands is a placebo for multitasking. Apple might have compromised on iPhone multitasking. It won't make you super productive, but it's a step up.

iPhone is primarily for personal use, like watching videos, messaging friends, sending money to friends, calling friends about the money you were supposed to send them, taking 50 photos of the same leaf, investing in crypto, driving for Uber because you lost all your money investing in crypto, listening to music and hailing an Uber from a deserted crop field because while you were driving for Uber your passenger stole your car and left you stranded, so you used Apple’s new SOS satellite feature to message your friend, who still didn’t receive their money, to hail you an Uber; now you owe them more money… karma?

We won't be watching videos on iPhones while perusing 10,000-row spreadsheets anytime soon. True multitasking and productivity aren't priorities for Apple's iPhone. Apple doesn't to preserve the iPhone's experience. Like why there's no iPad calculator. Apple doesn't want iPad users to do math, but isn't essential for productivity?

Digressing.

Apple will block certain functions so you must buy and use their gadgets and services, immersing yourself in their ecosystem and dictating how to use their goods.

Dynamic Island is a poor man’s multi-task for iPhone, and that’s fine it works for most iPhone users. For substantial productivity Apple prefers you to get an iPad or a MacBook. That’s part of the reason for restrictive features on certain Apple devices, but sometimes it’s based on principles to preserve the integrity of the product, according to Apple’s definition.

Is Apple using deception?

Dynamic Island may be distracting you from a design decision. The answer is kind of. Elegant distraction

When you pull down a smartphone webpage to refresh it or minimize an app, you get seamless animations. It's not simply because it appears better; it's due to iPhone and smartphone processing speeds. Such limits reduce the system's response to your activity, slowing the experience. Designers and developers use animations and effects to distract us from the time lag (most of the time) and sometimes because it looks cooler and smoother.

Dynamic Island makes apps more useable and interactive. It shows system states visually. Turn signal audio and visual cues, voice assistance, physical and digital haptic feedbacks, heads-up displays, fuel and battery level gauges, and gear shift indicators helped us overcome vehicle design problems.

Dynamic Island is a wonderfully delightful (and temporary) solution to a design “problem” until Apple or other companies can figure out a way to sink the cameras under the smartphone screen.

Apple Has Returned to Being an Innovative & Exciting Company

Now Apple's products are exciting. Next, bring back real Apple events, not pre-recorded demos.

Dynamic Island integrates hardware and software. What will this new tech do? How would this affect device use? Or is it just hype?

Dynamic Island may be an insignificant improvement to the iPhone, but it sure is promising for the future of bridging the human and computer interaction gap.

The trick Notion could use is simply Facebook-ing the hell out of them.

*Time travel to fifteen years ago.* Future-Me: “Hey! What are you up to?” Old-Me: “I am proofreading an article. It’s taking a few hours, but I will be done soon.” Future-Me: “You know, in the future, you will be using a google chrome plugin called Grammarly that will help you easily proofread articles in half that time.” Old-Me: “What is… Google Chrome?” Future-Me: “Gosh…”

I love Grammarly. It’s one of those products that I personally feel the effects of. I mean, Space X is a great company. But I am not a rocket writing this article in space (or am I?)…

No, I’m not. So I don’t personally feel a connection to Space X. So, if a company collapse occurs in the morning, I might write about it. But I will have zero emotions regarding it.

Yet, if Grammarly fails tomorrow, I will feel 1% emotionally distressed. So looking at the title of this article, you’d realize that I am betting against them. This is how much I believe in the critical business model that’s taking over the world, the one of Notion.

Notion How frequently do you go through your notes?

Grammarly is everywhere, which helps its success. Grammarly is available when you update LinkedIn on Chrome. Grammarly prevents errors in Google Docs.

My internal concentration isn't apparent in the previous paragraph. Not Grammarly. I should have used Chrome to make a Google doc and LinkedIn update. Without this base, Grammarly will be useless.

So, welcome to this business essay.

• Grammarly provides a solution.

• Another issue is resolved by Jasper.

• Your entire existence is supposed to be contained within Notion.

New Google Chrome is offline. It's an all-purpose notepad (in the near future.)

• How should I start my blog? Enter it in Note.

• an update on LinkedIn? If you mention it, it might be automatically uploaded there (with little help from another app.)

• An advanced thesis? You can brainstorm it with your coworkers.

This ad sounds great! I won't cry if Notion dies tomorrow.

I'll reread the following passages to illustrate why I think Notion could kill Grammarly and Jasper.

Notion is a fantastic app that incubates your work.

Smartly, they began with note-taking.

Hopefully, your work will be on Notion. Grammarly and Jasper are still must-haves.

Grammarly will proofread your typing while Jasper helps with copywriting and AI picture development.

They're the best, therefore you'll need them. Correct? Nah.

Notion might bombard them with Facebook posts.

Notion: “Hi Grammarly, do you want to sell your product to us?” Grammarly: “Dude, we are more valuable than you are. We’ve even raised $400m, while you raised $342m. Our last valuation round put us at $13 billion, while yours put you at $10 billion. Go to hell.” Notion: “Okay, we’ll speak again in five years.”

Notion: “Jasper, wanna sell?” Jasper: “Nah, we’re deep into AI and the field. You can’t compete with our people.” Notion: “How about you either sell or you turn into a Snapchat case?” Jasper: “…”

Notion is your home. Grammarly is your neighbor. Your track is Jasper.

What if you grew enough vegetables in your backyard to avoid the supermarket? No more visits.

What if your home had a beautiful treadmill? You won't rush outside as much (I disagree with my own metaphor). (You get it.)

It's Facebooking. Instagram Stories reduced your Snapchat usage. Notion will reduce your need to use Grammarly.

The Final Piece of the AI Puzzle

Let's talk about Notion first, since you've probably read about it everywhere.

• They raised $343 million, as I previously reported, and bought four businesses

• According to Forbes, Notion will have more than 20 million users by 2022. The number of users is up from 4 million in 2020.

If raising $1.8 billion was impressive, FTX wouldn't have fallen.

This article compares the basic product to two others. Notion is a day-long app.

Notion has released Notion AI to support writers. It's early, so it's not as good as Jasper. Then-Jasper isn't now-Jasper. In five years, Notion AI will be different.

With hard work, they may construct a Jasper-like writing assistant. They have resources and users.

At this point, it's all speculation. Jasper's copywriting is top-notch. Grammarly's proofreading is top-notch. Businesses are constrained by user activities.

If Notion's future business movements are strategic, they might become a blue ocean shark (or get acquired by an unbelievable amount.)

I love business mental teasers, so tell me:

• How do you feel? Are you a frequent Notion user?

• Do you dispute my position? I enjoy hearing opposing viewpoints.

Ironically, I proofread this with Grammarly.

I've always bucked social media norms. YouTube doesn't compare. Traditional video made me zig when everyone zagged. Audio, picture personality animation, thought movies, and slide show videos are most popular and profitable.

YouTube's business is shifting. While most video experts swear by the idea that YouTube success is all about making personal and professional Face-Share-Videos, those who use YouTube for business know things are different.

In this article, I will share concepts from my mini master class Figures to Followers: Prioritizing Purposeful Profits Over Popularity on YouTube to Create the Win-Win for You, Your Audience & More and my forthcoming publication The WOWTUBE-PRENEUR FACTOR EVOLUTION: The Basics of Powerfully & Profitably Positioning Yourself as a Video Communications Authority to Broadcast Your WOW Effect as a Video Entrepreneur.

I've researched the psychology, anthropology, and anatomy of significant social media platforms as an entrepreneur and social media marketing expert. While building my YouTube empire, I've paid particular attention to what works for short, mid, and long-term success, whether it's a niche-focused, lifestyle, or multi-interest channel.

Most new, semi-new, and seasoned YouTubers feel vlog-style or live-on-camera videos are popular. Faceless, animated, music-text-based, and slideshow videos do well for businesses.

Buyer-consumer vs. content-consumer thinking is totally different when absorbing content. Profitability and popularity are closely related, however most people become popular with traditional means but not profitable.

In my experience, Faceless videos are more profitable, although it depends on the channel's style. Several professionals are now teaching in their courses that non-traditional films are making the difference in their business success and popularity.

Face-Share-Personal-Touch videos make audiences feel like they know the personality, but they're not profitable.

Most spend hours creating articles, videos, and thumbnails to seem good. That's how most YouTubers gained their success in the past, but not anymore.

Looking the part and performing a typical role in videos doesn't convert well, especially for newbie channels.

Working with video marketers and YouTubers for years, I've noticed that most struggle to be consistent with content publishing since they exclusively use formats that need extensive development. Camera and green screen set ups, shooting/filming, and editing for post productions require their time, making it less appealing to post consistently, especially if they're doing all the work themselves.

Because they won't make simple format videos or audio videos with an overlay image, they overcomplicate the procedure (even with YouTube Shorts), and they leave their channels for weeks or months. Again, they believe YouTube only allows specific types of videos. Even though this procedure isn't working, they plan to keep at it.

A successful YouTube channel needs multiple video formats to suit viewer needs, I teach. Face-Share-Personal Touch and Faceless videos are both useful.

How people engage with YouTube content has changed over the years, and the average customer is no longer interested in an all-video channel.

Face-Share-Personal-Touch videos are great

• Google Live

• Online training

• Giving listeners a different way to access your podcast that is being broadcast on sites like Anchor, BlogTalkRadio, Spreaker, Google, Apple Store, and others Many people enjoy using a video camera to record themselves while performing the internet radio, Facebook, or Instagram Live versions of their podcasts.

• Video Blog Updates

• even more

Faceless videos are popular for business and benefit both entrepreneurs and audiences.

For the business owner/entrepreneur…

• Less production time results in time dollar savings.

• enables the business owner to demonstrate the diversity of content development

For the Audience…

• The channel offers a variety of appealing content options.

• The same format is not monotonous or overly repetitive for the viewers.

Below are a couple videos from YouTube guru Make Money Matt's channel, which has over 347K subscribers.

Enjoy

24 Best Niches to Make Money on YouTube Without Showing Your Face

Make Money on YouTube Without Making Videos (Free Course)

In conclusion, you have everything it takes to build your own YouTube brand and empire. Learn the rules, then adapt them to succeed.

Please reread this and the other suggested articles for optimal benefit.

I hope this helped. How has this article helped you? Follow me for more articles like this and more multi-mission expressions.

This is for young entrepreneurs, especially in tech.

People give useless success advice on TikTok and Reddit. Early risers, bookworms, etc. Entrepreneurship courses. Work hard and hustle.

False. These aren't successful traits.

I mean, organization is good. As someone who founded several businesses and now works at a VC firm, I find these tips to be clichés.

Based on founding four successful businesses and working with other successful firms, here's my best actionable advice:

1. Choose a sector or a niche and become an expert in it.

This is more generic than my next tip, but it's a must-do that's often overlooked. Become an expert in the industry or niche you want to enter. Discover everything.

Buy (future) competitors' products. Understand consumers' pain points. Market-test. Target keyword combos. Learn technical details.

The most successful businesses I've worked with were all formed by 9-5 employees. They knew the industry's pain points. They started a business targeting these pain points.

2. Choose a niche or industry crossroads to target.

How do you choose an industry or niche? What if your industry is too competitive?

List your skills and hobbies. Randomness is fine. Find an intersection between two interests or skills.

Say you build websites well. You like cars.

Web design is a *very* competitive industry. Cars and web design?

Instead of web design, target car dealers and mechanics. Build a few fake demo auto mechanic websites, then cold call shops with poor websites. Verticalize.

I've noticed a pattern:

• Person works in a particular industry for a corporation.

• Person gains expertise in the relevant industry.

• Person quits their job and launches a small business to address a problem that their former employer was unwilling to address.

I originally posted this on Reddit and it seemed to have taken off so I decided to share it with you all.

Focus on the product. When someone buys from you, you convince them the product's value exceeds the price. It's not fair and favors the buyer.

Creating a superior product or service will win. Narrowing this helps you outcompete others.

You may be their only (lucky) option.

Startup entrepreneurs assume what risks when pitching?

Last week I signed four NDAs.

Four!

NDA stands for non-disclosure agreement. A legal document given to someone receiving confidential information. By signing, the person pledges not to share the information for a certain time. If they do, they may be in breach of contract and face legal action.

Companies use NDAs to protect trade secrets and confidential internal information from employees and contractors. Appropriate. If you manage a huge, successful firm, you don't want your employees selling their information to your competitors. To be true, business NDAs don't always prevent corporate espionage, but they usually make employees and contractors think twice before sharing.

I understand employee and contractor NDAs, but I wasn't asked to sign one. I counsel entrepreneurs, thus the NDAs I signed last week were from startups that wanted my feedback on their concepts.

I’m not a startup investor. I give startup guidance online. Despite that, four entrepreneurs thought their company ideas were so important they wanted me to sign a generically written legal form they probably acquired from a shady, spam-filled legal templates website before we could chat.

False. One company tried to get me to sign their NDA a few days after our conversation. I gently rejected, but their tenacity encouraged me. I considered sending retroactive NDAs to everyone I've ever talked to about one of my startups in case they establish a successful company based on something I said.

Two of the other three NDAs were from nearly identical companies. Good thing I didn't sign an NDA for the first one, else they may have sued me for talking to the second one as though I control the firms people pitch me.

I wasn't talking to the fourth NDA company. Instead, I received an unsolicited email from someone who wanted comments on their fundraising pitch deck but required me to sign an NDA before sending it.

That's right, before I could read a random Internet stranger's unsolicited pitch deck, I had to sign his NDA, potentially limiting my ability to discuss what was in it.

You should understand. Advisors, mentors, investors, etc. talk to hundreds of businesses each year. They cannot manage all the companies they deal with, thus they cannot risk legal trouble by talking to someone. Well, if I signed NDAs for all the startups I spoke with, half of the 300+ articles I've written on Medium over the past several years could get me sued into the next century because I've undoubtedly addressed topics in my articles that I discussed with them.

The four NDAs I received last week are part of a recent trend of entrepreneurs sending out NDAs before meetings, despite the practical and legal issues. They act like asking someone to sign away their right to talk about all they see and hear in a day is as straightforward as asking for a glass of water.

Given this inflow of NDAs, I wanted to briefly remind entrepreneurs reading this blog about the merits and cons of requesting investors (or others in the startup ecosystem) to sign your NDA.

Benefits of having investors sign your NDA include:

None. Zero. Nothing.

Disadvantages of requesting investor NDAs:

• You'll come off as an amateur who has no idea what it takes to launch a successful firm.

• Investors won't trust you with their money since you appear to be a complete amateur.

• Printing NDAs will be a waste of paper because no genuine entrepreneur will ever sign one.

I apologize for missing any cons. Please leave your remarks.