May 2008
31 posts
Michael Crichton's 1993 prediction of mass-media... →
“Why have hedge funds evaded government regulation?” and what specific lifestyle changes will every American have to make “to reduce CO2 emissions by 60 percent?” would be great assignments for news desks.
“I want a news service that tells me what no one knows but is true nonetheless,” says Crichton.
—-
sounds like news for smart people. i’d...
Corporate companies killing geeks →
“Here is a quick “how-to” on finding out if you have a geeky job: read the first article that seems interesting on Slashdot [I’d say Hacker News] and then tell your colleagues about it … if more than 50% of them generate traffic on [Hacker News] within the next 30 minutes, you should be proud of your job (and you should also write an article about it on your blog)!”
No Hacker...
Bullfrog Power making a mark in Ontario
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700 customers showed up for Bullfrog’s annual party (Bullfrog is a utility company). Why? The clean-tech power company has a remarkable, meaningful product, makes customers feel special, and acts human.
3 Big Ideas & 7 Tips on Building a Business →
Mike Speiser started Bix and Epinions, and from reading this deck, is a very smart guy.
“We should have more trust in our own resilience and less confidence in our...”
– Dan Gilbert, in Forget the soul search; just do something
Photojojo Screws Up On Mother’s Day… →
Putting a human face on your company can work wonders for customer loyalty (especially when you screw up!)
WatchI Love Twistori, via Amit
HOWTO: Draft A Good Complaint Letter →
Summarize the problem, requeste a resolution, and specify a timeframe for the response, all while remaining professional and polite.
Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit—And You... →
Zappos, which works hard to recruit people to join, says to its newest employees: “If you quit today, we will pay you for the amount of time you’ve worked, plus we will offer you a $1,000 bonus.” Zappos actually bribes its new employees to quit! Why? Because if you’re willing to take the offer, you obviously don’t have the sense of commitment they are looking for.
“As interaction explodes, the costs of evil are starting to outweigh the...”
– Haque’s Law - Jeff Jarvis, formalizing Umair Haque’s take on 21st century business strategy.
WatchI love Vimeo’s Upload Process (via Vimeo, how meta!)
Gladwell on The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters →
“What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement.”
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
– Einstein, via Noah
“No matter what road I travel, I’m going home.”
– Shinso (Japanese Buddhist Priest)
Using Data to Build Your Business →
Example: “The average fiction book is read within two weeks of purchase. So if you purchased a John Grisham book for $8.75 on Half.com, chances are that you will finish it within 14 days. We decided to implement an auto-email that was sent 17 days after purchase that said “Want your $8.75 back, click here to list your Grisham book for sale”. We found that the open (and...
Change We Can Stomach - New York Times →
“Small farms are the most productive on earth. A four-acre farm in the United States nets, on average, $1,400 per acre; a 1,364-acre farm nets $39 an acre. Big farms have long compensated for the disequilibrium with sheer quantity. But their economies of scale come from mass distribution, and with diesel fuel costing more than $4 per gallon in many locations, it’s no longer efficient to...
“If you have the same problem for a really long period of time, maybe it’s not a...”
– Clay Shirky
Interview with Daniel Gilbert, author of Stumbling... →
Why I tend to spend my money on experiences, not things: ‘People tend to take more pleasure in experiences than in things. So if you have “x” amount of dollars to spend on a vacation or a good meal or movies, it will get you more happiness than a durable good or an object. One reason for this is that experiences tend to be shared with other people and objects usually aren’t.’
From Little Things, Big Things Grow (Building... →
‘Treat your [community] like your home: welcome people, fix them a drink and make them feel comfortable. Before you know it, your guests will be chatting amongst themselves, the party will be pumping, and people will be making plans together.’
Annals of Innovation (Malcolm Gladwell) →
‘Our romantic notion of the genius must be wrong. A scientific genius is not a person who does what no one else can do; he or she is someone who does what it takes many others to do. The genius is not a unique source of insight; he is merely an efficient source of insight.’
Secrets of greatness: Practice and hard work bring... →
‘The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call “deliberate practice.” It’s activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.’
“Doing the wrong thing is not worth the loss of one night’s good sleep.”
– Charles E. Murphy, former New York State Supreme Court Justice, on ethics.
