Two little gems rolled across my desktop today: First, a blog about gift giving. Perhaps a little late for Mother's Day, but Father's Day is coming. Check out "The Art of Gift Giving" by Carolyn Goodwin. This is a great guide to getting more analog in a world that's too digital. I loved this little [...]
In the spirit of anti-bozosity that Pam Slim’s posting recently established, here is an interview with Bob Sutton. Bob is a professor of management science and engineering at the Stanford School of Engineering. His latest book, co-authored with Jeffrey Pfeffer, is called Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting From Evidence-Based Management. It’s a [...]
This is an MP3 recording of Jim Whittaker speaking at a Garage event in 2005. Jim is the first American to climb Mount Everest and the former CEO of REI. His topics include leadership, perseverance, and risk taking. Download 05_keynote__a_life_on_the_edge.mp3 Powered by Qumana
Check out this web site of world maps that are cartograms (density-equalising maps). The one on the right depicts the level of toy imports. There are ninety-two different maps covering population, imports, exports, tourism--you name it. Thanks to Jon G for bringing this to my attention. Seeing these maps definitely alters how one looks at [...]
Just read this blog entry by Pam Slim. Pam was a consultant to management (as opposed to a management consultant). In this piece, she lets it rip about what she thinks management does wrong. Very entertaining. You’ll love her spirit. It starts off like this: I am writing to you as a newly minted rebel. [...]
A few weeks ago I provided a site where you can see my Art of Innovation speech. My buddy, Mike Johnston, just showed me that my Art of the Start speech is online here. The Art of Innovation is a speech for any stage of company that is trying to create and marketing innovative products [...]
Saw this at Presentation Zen: Steve Jobs testifying at the Cupertino City Council. There is much to observe in this short clip: Casual speaking style No slides or multimedia crutches Friendly yet powerful: i.e., he's essentially saying, "We could have gone elsewhere, but we stuck with Cupertino so be nice to us..." What other Fortune [...]
Have you ever cleaned out the pockets of an old pair of pants and found a couple of twenty dollar bills all crumpled up, just waiting to be spent? Sometimes you can get the same feeling by receiving an unexpected email. For instance, a few weeks ago someone from Audi USA sent an email to [...]
My buddy at BlogHer, Elisa Camahort, pointed out a good article about blog marketing. It's called, "Strategic commenting: no blog is an island." The author is Amy Gahran (seen here). This is some text from it: If your weblog currently doesn't have much of an audience, then an easy way to build an audience is [...]
I must say that the "reality check" on Goowy worked better than I anticipated. Here's another product to look at called Jajah. Jajah is a VOIP company. It enables you to make long distance calls for about $.02/minute. Some people's initial reaction will be, "I can already do this with Skype." I don't think so. [...]
In the entire history of my blog (all 130 days or so), I probably haven't written an entry of less general interest than what you're about to read. "The Scourge of Arial" is a fascinating explanation of the creation of the Arial font. I had no idea that fonts could have such a "story." I'm [...]
Two blog postings opened my eyes about marketing. The first deals with the new 4Ps by John Sviokla and Antony Paoni called "Marketing Remix." The second is a very useful approach to marketing planning (what a great oxymoron) by Kelly Odell called "The World's Shortest Marketing Plan." With both party's permission, I was "inspired" by [...]
I've been tweaking my blog for the past few days. Just wanted to let you know: Check the siderail under my picture. My buddy Mike Johnston wrote a script that displays my Technorati rank plus the number of links I need to get into the top ten. I've found out that caring so blatantly about [...]
I met the founders of BlogHer today. This is a delightful group of people doing something very meaningful for the blogosphere. My interpretation of what they are doing is opening up the blogosphere to people who aren't "in the club" ... though I'm not sure they would put it that way. :-) Think: barbarellas at [...]
I'm going to add a new kind of posting. Sometimes I need a "reality check" on products or services--that is, I'd like to know what other people think of something I've found. (After all, what someone fifty-one years old thinks is cool, might not be cool.) Here's the first one: http://www.goowy.com/ This is a free [...]
By popular demand, here are the top ten lies of marketers. Actually, it was too hard to stop at ten, so this list is a dirty dozen. As my mother used to say, "How can you tell if a marketer is lying? His lips are moving." 1. "Our PR firm says it can get Walt [...]
My thanks to everyone who has linked to and evangelized this blog. As of this week, I'm in the Technorati top 50 with 3,450 links. (This fabulous graphic is from Hugh Macleod.) Some people are perplexed (perhaps even dismayed) with my high level of interest (aka, "obsession") in my Technorati ranking. I provide several explanations [...]
After a several month hiatus, I would like to return to my top-ten lies series. So far, I've covered entrepreneurs and VCs, Today's topic is the top ten lies of engineers. 1. “We're about to go into beta testing.” This is a meaningless statement because it doesn't matter when you go into beta testing--what matters [...]
My main man Steve Nipper pointed out this poem to me. There Is No Indispensable Manby Saxon N. White Kessinger, Copyright 1959 Sometime when you're feeling important;Sometime when your ego's in bloomSometime when you take it for grantedYou're the best qualified in the room,Sometime when you feel that your goingWould leave an unfillable hole,Just follow [...]
I just read some essays at John Sviokla's blog. He is the global managing director of Innovation & Research at DiamondCluster International, Inc. His bio is here: http://www.diamondcluster.com/People/BoardBio.asp?src=svioklaj My buddy Arthur Coleman pointed me to his blog, and John has three entries in his blog that you should read to gain a very interesting perspective [...]