This week @EllensAdventure asked me if I had any book recommendations. I’ve had this draft saved for a couple of months so this was the motivation I needed to get it written. Here are some of my favorite books (these are all affiliate links, I am making enough per month to buy a box of diapers, that’s not incredible but beats a sharp stick in the eye). These are a few that come...

I remember when it began, around 1987. I had saved enough money mowing lawns, and managed to talk my parents into driving me to the Lechmere (Best Buy before there was a Best Buy) an hour away in Albany, New York. For $400 I got the second model Discman that Sony made and two CDs – Wang Chung’s Mosiac and Van Halen 5150. I didn’t have enough to complete the 1987 holy...

Note: I first published this post in September of 2009. I’m reminded of a Bill Gates quote: “We overestimate the impact of new technologies over the next 2 years, and underestimate its impact in 10 years”. I went back to this post for another writing project I’m working on and decided to update it and clean it up. I’m still interested in any comments and...

Yesterday I saw two demonstrations of  Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice in action. This is one of the most useful books about decision making that I have found, and is a must read for anyone in marketing. Jeff Bussgang asked why everyone still uses 4 year vesting schedules at startups when, in the current economy, exits usually take longer. For those that don’t speak VC...

Seth Godin had a post today about Becoming the Bus Company, a list of common behaviors that are exhibited by organizations well on the road to trading commodities as opposed to providing a remarkable service. It makes me wonder if all companies that fail to innovate are doomed to walk this path after their glory begins to fade? It seems like a vicious cycle – as competition gets...

This is kind of a spring cleaning post – stuff that I have on my list to write about (which forces me to think about), but after review is cool but for whatever reason there’s not much to say beyond “check this out”. Chrome OS – Google’s OS, the fact that you would log into any computer and if it was connected to the web it would be “your”...

I’ve talked a number of times about John Wall, who’s become the hottest thing going in college hoops. Although it’s killing my personal SEO, that would be worth the price if he can deliver a show like this: Popularity: 2% [?]

Here’s some of the stuff that I ran across over the past couple of weeks during my self-inflicted blogging exile: What will Sports Illustrated Look like? I am a huge fan of SI because of fantastic writing and incredible pictures, I follow sports in the papers but the magazine is in a league of it’s own. Mike Troiano had pointed this out in his blog: What can film makers do with...

Something underrated about impact of the web on how we communicate – the fact that you can now get just about any major news video on demand. I had heard a few things about Michael Jordan’s Hall of Fame acceptance speech and decided to consult the wise and powerful Google. I found a number of articles that were critical of the speech, and thought that it was a letdown. Prior to...

Sometimes my brain feels like my Grandfather’s workshop, overflowing with random stuff, ideas on projects all in varying states of completion. My daily dose of Seth Godin in Google Reader is like hurling a wrench into the workshop – it tends to knock some stuff around, wake me up, and perhaps think about something differently. This week he did a piece on critics, please check it...