2008 US Open: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Don King and Nike’s Grapple in the Apple Begins

August 29, 2008

As reported before Nike has slowly began to distribute their massive new US Open timed tennis campaign titled: “The Grapple in the Apple” with a little taste to whet our palettes.

So far it seems that Nike is slowly establishing the players of this campaign with infamous iconic promoter Don King first.

More vignettes, global spots, development should continue to roll in the coming days but of course, as Ana Ivanovic’s loss reminds us, anything can happen at any time at Flushing Meadows.

More to come.

cap

2 Comments | life, tennis | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap

Tech News: Some Big Changes Coming to the IPods

August 23, 2008

If you’re like me, you might be in one form of iphone limbo or other. I am just starting year two of my two year mobile contract with T-Mobile, I’m very happy with my Dragon-Engraved Motorola Razr (minus the dying battery issue after the 12 month period) and it’s services. Because most of my day I’m in front of a fully wired computer and my current mobile contract sitch I don’t find myself yet at the point where I need to have a fully mobile 3G phone ala the mac iphone (besides, there are plenty of people out there who can’t stop showing off their lame ass lightsaber app on their iphone to me… fey).

Then recently all this news regarding google’s 3G enabled android began to build up steam once again and it made me 1) glad I didn’t commit to the iphone yet and 2) gave me more excuses to embrace the “wait and see” approach.

Now comes this week’s addition to my mental hell about all this which are these rumors from Digg’s Kevin Rose sharing his knowledge and information on the new line of ipods that are on the verge of making a huge splash in the next month.

I have an old ass ipod. During the early 2000’s it seemed like Apple was literally unveiling a bigger, cooler, smaller version of the ipod every other day. After playing the “wait and see” game for several months, the big 40 gig photo ipod with the click wheel came out to the market and I quickly purchased one. At the time I didn’t think that it could get any better than this. I have a HUGE CD collection and this ipod would still have all the room to carry all my music plus have like 10 gigs left for photos. The only next stage would probably be video but that won’t be for at least a year or two right? Screw it. I’m getting the ipod photo.

I think it was like the next month (at least that’s what it felt like to me at the time) Apple unveiled the ipod video. I went in too early again.

Now with the potential of a newly revamped ipod touch on the horizon, I may have the opportunity to get the best of all worlds. All the benefits of the iphone without the monthly fees, hassles, BS (the fact that AT&T is the only licensed US carrier still bugs me). Plus Apple is expected to lower the price on top of it? Sounds like a no brainer to me.

With my luck though I’m sure the day after I buy the new ipod touch, Apple will be like: “yo, check this shit out. new apple ipod teleportation! with the help of google earth and maps, you can now use apple’s gps technology and teleport yourself anywhere in the world! $299″.

cap

2 Comments | CAP Tech, DragonJungle, internet, life, potentially useful info | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap

The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman (and “Business as Usual” no longer exists)

August 14, 2008
The World is Flat and You Better Get With The Times

The World is Flat and You Better Get With The Times

I read (and was floored by) The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman a while back but couldn’t fathom how to write a post about something that is so big and fundamentally pivotal and necessary knowledge to find success in the modern global landscape. Then I realized that that is exactly what the book is for and about.

If you want to understand why oil (and life overall) has gotten so expensive so quickly… if you’re curious as to exactly how and when we went from hiring travel agents to priceline and expedia… if you want to know how some smart kid in India is answering all your technical questions about your Los Angeles based PC… if you wonder how we came from the encyclopedia Brittanica to Wikipedia, cable to youtube and Hulu, libraries to Google, Blockbuster to Netflix, iTunes and Pandora… if you want to know what is really the purpose and business model of UPS (those dudes in the brown shorts aren’t just about delivering packages. They are doing so much more)… if you want to know how you are actually working for Southwest airlines right now… if you want to get a grasp of where the next level of this hyper speed innovations are potentially headed… and so so so so much more.

You need to read this book.

And to all the readers born after the Reagan administration: This shit is mad important, yo!

First, let me share this audio clip from one of Friedman’s speaking engagements to whet your palette.

Though I had heard much about Friedman and this book in particular before, this was the catalyst that made me order the book on Amazon and devour the information in a few days. Then let it sink in and go over all my highlights at various time to make it stick.

Friedman lists out all the factors that contributed to the connected world we live in now:

Beginning at the fall of the Berlin Wall, to the day Netscape went public, to outsourcing, to insourcing, to the sudden awakening to the global network of potential employees (your job could be taken by someone who lives halfway around the world who has more qualifications and is cheaper. Plus they no longer even have to move to do your work!), to all the “technical steroids” that continue to speed up the innovations and workflows even further, The World is Flat is an extremely well researched and well communicated book that I just can’t stop lauding (in case you couldn’t tell).

I know it’s maddening right now. So many changes so fast. And just when you think you’ve got a grasp on one thing, another thousand pop up to change everything you’ve killed yourself to learn.

Yes, you can pay people to know this for you. But I’m perpetually curious with a voracious appetite to learn as much on my own as I can. It’s a blessing. But mostly it’s a curse.

I would consider this book almost a prerequisite to entering your adulthood. The best minds in our country are already hip to this. We all should be. Don’t be left out.

I said earlier that I didn’t know exactly how I was going to write a post about this book. I think I just ended up writing an expanded headline. And in doing so I’m hoping that some of you will stop wondering about why our wallets are getting lighter, our homes are losing value, food is costing more, etc. and start informing yourself of the factors behind it.

The World is Flat doesn’t try to answer all these questions directly but it does give you all the fundamental changes that occurred and continues to happen in the world so we get a better grasp as to how we got here and where we’re headed.

cap

2 Comments | DragonJungle, books, internet, life, potentially useful info, work | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap

Glassdoor.com: Rate, Review and Compare Salaries, CEO’s and More In Your Company

June 13, 2008

Glassdoor

Glassdoor.com

I had this idea about ten months ago. The idea was to have an open, anonymous forum where people of all industries, career stages, etc. have a forum to get all the knowledge they need in order to be fully prepared for salary negotiations with current and / or future employers.

In addition to the salary information, I wanted the network of users to help each other out by sharing their histories with their companies, bosses and peers to paint a good idea of what it was like to work for a particular industry, company or employer. Think about it, everyone knows that it must not be a cakewalk to work those long, thankless hours over at the McDonalds fryer station or the Ford assembly line. But what is it really like? Maybe the employee experience over at Burger King and Microsoft was better? I was curious and thirsty for the knowledge.

It was going to be called www.what-i-get-paid.com (minus the hyphens).

It was going to be something I work on during my off hours. My own private Google 20% passion project. Something of a hobby without the pressures of the typical deadlines, clients’ demands and life issues that generally keep these projects on the slow track.

Well, these guys over at glassdoor.com beat me to it. But looking at the actualization of this idea, I can’t help but wonder if it’s something that will catch on beyond the the niche silicon valley folk. I hope it does.

The mainstream, traditional media world and the financial world might be a bit colder and protective of it’s delicate information. I mean, what if you work for a company of 100 or less? If you post up an anonymous sheet on your company with a lot of dirt, don’t you think someone in the company or industry will be able to whittle that shit down to maybe a dozen or so folks and figure out who the rat is?

The traditional media sector is still filled with backwards thinking old school mental cases whose mantra is held firmly at the: “fake it til you make it” vibe. I remember when after I paid years of dues at my old company and finally took the position of my old boss, next to them, now a peer. I remember getting to that position and realizing… “that’s it”? There was no secret meetings, no handshakes, not even a big pay raise… or any raise really come to think of it. It was about as exciting for me as that one time they found 50 Cent at the front row of the Country Music Awards.

Alone.

Without his posse.

Or his Vitamin Water.

And echinacea.

The point is, I wonder if the more specialized industries and company folk would be as willing spill the beans as a company of faceless thousands.

I hope they do. And I hope the good folks over at glassdoor make it easy for these folks to do it without any potential recourse from their industries or peers.

cap

1 Comment | DragonJungle, internet, life, potentially useful info, work | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap

The Search: The Birth of Google

June 12, 2008

the search

Great book to get your internet and business geek on.

With all the French Open coverage I’ve been consuming the last couple of weeks, I also used the time to catch up on some much needed research and reading to feed my brain.

John Battelle’s The Search is both a highly informative and fascinating book on the origins of the search engine, it’s present status, a well educated guesstimate of where it’s headed and it tells these complex tales of history and subject matters in a relatively, fun and non-tech geeky way for anyone to understand. It merely and clearly defines the values and benefits of the search engine and discusses why there’s so much resource being put into this next generation of technology.

The Search also uses the search engine / corporation / new most powerful entity / every other superlative juggernaut in the known world in Google to tell this story. If you’re going to tell any tales of this stature, you might as well start from the top.

A few key points learned from reading The Search by John Battelle:

- Google and most search engines are really in the business less about what actual words we’re typing into our search boxes and more into learning about our intentions. The “why” we’re typing in certain terms or phrases into the search boxes. They’re literally in the business of trying to read our minds and thoughts.

- Jerry Yang and David Filo started off Yahoo as a way to try to win some fantasy basketball league (which they did).

- Yahoo and Google have very fundamentally opposing philosophies on how best to satisfy searcher’s needs using the technology of search. Complex algorithms and text ads aside, the end goal is to properly read our true intentions and purposes in our search. What are we searching for and why?

- No matter how advanced all the search technology seems to be to us plebians, the general concensus is that it’s all still very much at it’s infancy. Just about every expert in the industry believes that we’re only about 10% into getting to the “perfect search”.

- As powerful as Yahoo and Google are now, neither seem to flex much muscle when opposed by the Chinese government. In order to enter the highly lucrative Chinese market, both companies (as well as many others) have had to bend on their principles and previously “unbendable rules”.

- The guys over at Google, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, etc are all extremely powerful companies filled with highly intelligent people. But at the end of the day, they’re learning this as they go along just like the rest of us.

- Brin and Page both like to eat Burger King after a major breakthrough.

There are countless other points of interest that make this book a worthwhile read.

The Search is an easy, fascinating read told very well. It’s not nearly as juicy in terms of dirt as James Stewart’s Disney War and that’s a good thing. Besides, Google is far too new and riding high to warrant much negative “inside” gossip… Yet.

As this relatively new and perpetually innovative industry continues to change, update and repeat itself, The Search is a great book to start to learn about the humble beginnings and see where all this crazy ass interweb stuff came from.

cap

2 Comments | DragonJungle, books, internet, life, potentially useful info, work | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap

Roger Federer: My Modern Day Sun Tzu?

June 5, 2008

I’ve Learned Much About Business From Watching Roger Federer Play Tennis

I’m sure you’ve heard all the cliches: business is war. It can be the ultimate sports competition. When we see Kobe play basketball, we obviously enjoy his stellar athleticism. But I believe that a lot of us see a bit of ourselves in great athletes as well. The way they handle pressure. The way they lead their team to believe against conventional wisdom. The way they’re willing to take the ultimate shot in the end carrying the whole game on their shoulders time and time again.

I’m not the biggest basketball fan but I am a lifelong tennis fan.

And though the popularity of tennis has waned in America recently, it’s never been a better time to enjoy this sport for us true hard core fans. Mainly this is due to having the privilege of watching the one guy who just may well be the greatest of all time: Roger Federer.

He’s at the peak of his abilities at 26. He’s broken just about every conceivable record out there. He’s only three Grand Slam titles away from besting Pete Sampras’ record 14 Grand Slam titles. Blah blah blah.

Besides the obvious accolades that make Federer great, what really sets him apart for me and many others is just how much of a class act he carries himself in spite of his herculean achievements. Lesser people would cry and plead for the adoration. That’s not Federer’s way. It’s not what brought him to the dance and it’s not motivates him.

He wasn’t always like this. There are great tales of a younger Federer being quite temperamental: throwing racquets, screaming, hitting balls out to the nose bleed sections, etc.

I’ve had those days too.

But now I watch this guy, this deity of the sport I hold so dear. I watch Federer conduct business in what is essentially his office. I see this and I see how I could pick up a few pointers from the (arguably) world’s greatest tennis player and use it in my business meetings.

    He’s cool.
    He works hard.
    He’s graceful.
    He’s respectful.
    He doesn’t give up.
    He’s always prepared.
    He has fun.
    He doesn’t expend his energies in anger and useless theatrics like many of our modern day celebrities subsist on.
    If something doesn’t go his way, he relies on all the off court hours worth of spotlight free training to switch his game plan.

    And he does all this to win.

These are characteristics that not only help great athletes but they help great businessmen, leaders and people overall.

Prior to becoming a Federer fan, I was a fan of Lleyton Hewitt. I enjoyed his scrappy play and great energy including his over the top “COME ON!” fist pumps. But I always wondered if all that was a little too much. After all, Sampras was never a big personality (most often he was downright chastised for it). Even Agassi’s greatest triumphs didn’t occur until after his “image is everything” phase had long faded away.

I’ve spent the bulk of my evening reading and re-reading another draft of a business contract that I’m hoping to close sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’ve put a lot of work and efforts into this deal over the past eight plus months. There have been ups and downs along the road. But ultimately whenever I find myself getting frustrated with any aspect of it, I remind myself how Federer might handle this situation if he was down a set and a break.

He’d stay cool, classy and allow his hard work and diligent preperation to pull him through to the Win column.

3 Comments | DragonJungle, internet, life, potentially useful info, work | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap

Earth Class Mail: A Virtual PO Box? Who gives a rat’s ass?

June 1, 2008

Earth Class Mail

What the heck are they supposedly introducing as a value based service again?

In my eternal search for new and innovative ways to avoid being productive (don’t bother me when it’s Grand Slam tournament season), a new reality show on Hulu found it’s way to invade my time.

Though I generally try to avoid reality shows (unless it’s got that Gordon Ramsay dude… but only because he calls his contestants “lazy cows”) this one piqued my interest because it’s about a tech based start up company. And I find said subject extremely fascinating.

The show is called Start-Up Junkies and it’s traditional TV home is the Mojo cable network. But if you’re like me and you basically have the French Open playing in the background on your TV, your best bet is to check out all eight full episodes on Hulu for free.

In a nutshell, Start-Up Junkies is about a group of rag tag entrepreneurs who start up a brand new tech based company to interrupt the multi billion (perhaps trillion?) dollar “snail mail” industry.

How, you may ask?

By intercepting your paper mail, scanning it and re-sending this mail to you via email as a pdf type file. But not to worry, you can still get your regular important mail the old school traditional ways, this service is really for those pesky junk mail type stuff that you wouldn’t really pay any mind to anyway. I mean bills, personal letters, health clinic reports, those are things too personal to allow some stranger to open, yes? Right.

The show itself sheds a spotlight on many of Earth Class Mail’s trials, tribulations and passionate sales presentations all mostly done by company jolly guy, Ron. It’s all very fascinating and kinda inspiring. A bunch of renegades bypass working for “the man” in order to create and grow a company to become “the man” themselves. Very touching.

Here’s what I don’t get. These folks over at Earth Class Mail and Mojo don’t do a very good job of explaining quite exactly what they are offering. Is it virtual mail? A virtual PO Box? A junk mail filter that actually just ends up as more junk email for the user? And they would actually pay for this service?

Just to be clear… I’m paying you to send me more junk email? Because I most certainly wouldn’t give the green light for total strangers to open my private mails, bills, checks, packages, etc.

WTF?

The other thing that kinda miffed me was that they call their company and service Earth Class Mail, no doubt an obvious effort of trying to ride the new “green” cultural revolution that’s taken over our country. But from what I gather, this company’s service doesn’t actually eliminate any of the paper based mail that the receiver would normally get. All it does is just send the same paper mail to another address where this huge, overpriced, oversized mail sorter machine just scans the original paper mail and sends a pdf type file to the recipient’s email. Then if there is anything of interest, I may print out the email to save for later. So, basically I just used up more paper for what I think may be a pretty lame service. Al Gore would be very displeased with me.

This all leads to my “duh” questions of the week: Why would I pay someone to go through my junk mail? If this company just scans stuff that I normally wouldn’t pay any mind to anyway, why would I care that someone else take the time and efforts to scan this for me and send it to me? Isn’t that just helping the junk mail senders instead of making my life easier? Oh, and I get to pay for this privilege too? Am I missing something here? Ooh, piece of candy!

If anyone out there knows about this company or watches the show and can explain exactly what service they are selling and why it may be something, anything of value, I’d appreciate a note or message here.

Cheers.

Rafael Nadal

This kid is looking more like he’s going to win four in a row in Paris.

By the way, Rafael Nadal just absolutely destroyed Verdasco 6-1, 6-0, 6-2 in the fourth round of the 2008 French Open.

cap

11 Comments | answer this for me, internet, such crap! | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap

Brand Simple: Great Introduction to Marketing and Branding Techniques

May 25, 2008

It’s Sunday afternoon and despite my best efforts to make this long weekend as productive as possible, I succumbed to a moment of weakness and went out to meet friends, grab a quick bite which lead to a few drinks and a slight hangover this morning.

But I woke up to the pleasant surpise of the opening day of The French Open which saw:

Brand Simple book cover

Now as a not so subtle means to procrastinate from finishing up some weekend work, I want to quickly think out loud about Allen Adamson’s Brand Simple.

Great book. Well written. Simply expressed. A fundamental must read for anyone who finds anything about anything interesting.

What I mean is that even though it’s primarily about marketing, advertising, branding and the such, the fundamentals of the messages contained within this little tome with a big punch can be applied to just about anything in modern day life from blogging to promoting to writing to many many more subjects.

Without getting too boring in my explanation (besides, this post is more about me trying to have an exercise to better remember the main points from the book) I’ll try to lay out the most important bullet points to hopefully get others interested in getting involved with the book.

    1) Brand and Branding are two two completely different concepts. A “Brand” is something, anything that someone associates with your product, service, company or individual associated with the company. “Branding” is the actual process of getting people to associate the right messages as it pertains to your product, service, etc.

    2) One of the most important steps to take when you’re about to brand or market something is really think about how your product, service, company, etc. differs from the competition. People are very savvy now. It just takes a few minutes on Google to figure out if your promises are legit or not.

    Once you’ve determined what that difference is, you must use that as the core method in which to market or brand your product or service.

    3) Know your audience. Know who you are marketing to. Specifically. You can’t please every demographic at once. Start with the core audience and expand accordingly.

    4) Don’t overcomplicate things. Most likely the thing that differentiates your product from your competition is probably right under your nose.

    5) Have a business strategy that coincides with your branding strategy. Once you figure out what and who you want to market to, stick to it. Don’t change either factors on a whim. This sends out too many signals to your audience and they are not going to respond to any of them. Stick to your game plan.

    6) Consider a tagline for your brand. In the film and TV world it’s sorta like the logline that best tells us about your product or service in a nutshell. Make sure it fits with the overall strategy.

    7) Map out how your typical customer will run through your product. From the initial thought of needing or wanting your product or service all the way to the actual purchase of it and beyond, walk it through and see where you can make the process simpler and more satisfying for the client or customer.

    Eight) Spend wisely. You can’t control every factor. Don’t be wasteful in the aspects of your strategies that you really don’t have any control over. And not just with money but with your time and energies as well.

    9) Make sure that the difference you promote for your product or service is a difference that people will genuinely care about. A difference for the sake of difference is not gonna do anyone any good.

    10) Remember that this is all a marathon and not a sprint. Once you’ve got your strategy and ready to execute your plan, stick to it and realize that time will be the only true tell sign on whether it will be effective or not.

Adamson really goes into quite a few examples based on personal experience to really flesh out these ideas above and it’s all very interesting.

I’m in the process of closing a pretty exciting deal myself for my company in the next few weeks and wholly plan on utilizing the techniques outlined and explained in Brand Simple.

Now if only I can be this focused with the rest of my life.

More to come.

cap

1 Comment | DragonJungle, books, internet, life, potentially useful info, work | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by cap