Friday September 30, 2005

OpenCourseWare Finder

As heard over at MonkeyFilter:

Take University Courses for free over the Web. Type in your subject. Check out the courses available. Now you to can study cognitive robotics at MIT, pathophysicology of infectious diseases at Tufts, or causal and statistical reasonaing at Carnegie-Mellon. Or how about some artsier stuff?

Not a bad way for blowing a few hours on a weekend, is it?

(Pardon the recently fluffy posts. It's just an indication of life out of balance. Which is just fine every now and then.)

( Sep 30 2005, 04:31:57 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Thursday September 29, 2005

Darwin awards for Marketing

Sadly, there are no Darwin Awards for Marketing. But if there were, Dell might qualify for the first round. Enjoy.

( Sep 29 2005, 12:26:41 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Tuesday September 20, 2005

Twelve days away

You miss me. Go on, say it. If you won't, then I will. (I see I already did.) Great! Welcome back. Glad to have you, ye of the interesting and interested.

Okay, on with the show. Let's recap: a tumultous few weeks thinking about New Orleans (too many painful facets, still unresolved, but a tad more upbeat if you can't tell); a fascinating conference in Keystone, Colorado for ThinkAbout (hosted by Pine & Gilmore, the Experience Economy gurus and featuring Tom Peters [TP event slides here]); Mom and Dad come to town for ten days starting tonight; and there's the Sun Brand Summit down in Santa Clara on Thursday.

Oh, and yes, there's work. That thing we do.

Nonetheless, my brain runneth over. Plenty to discuss here in the next few days, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile, link it up:

Semapedia: Place-marking via cellphone. (Yes, it's technology you already own.)
THR: The Future of Entertainment. (One word: Participate.)
Mark Hurst: How to Start Customer Research. (Hint: it doesn't involve surveys.)

Talk with you soon, kids.

( Sep 20 2005, 02:15:20 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Thursday September 08, 2005

Don't just sit there. Save the world.

Okay all you brilliant developers, programmers, creatives, designers, and the like -- here's your chance to participate in something far bigger than any specific product or package of solutions ever could. This is your chance to help eliminate the digital divide...it's the very first face-to-face meeting for Recovery 2.0.

The aim, again, is to bring together smart people trying to do good things so we can do them better, not to create any giant organization and bureacracy (we already have FEMA and we know how well that’s working…).

The brainstorming begins October 6 in San Francisco. Spread the word. Hope you can make it.

( Sep 08 2005, 05:41:01 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

82nd Airbone Surprises NOLA ISP

I'm growing weary of the New Orleans links. I'm frustrated, sad, raging and tired, yet there's little I can say that isn't already being said out there. However, this story is certainly worth passing on:

Intercosmos/DirectNIC, that ISP whose team stuck it out in New Orleans' Central Business District (already mentioned here), was given a surprise visit yesterday by the 82nd Airborne.

I asked them to sweep the building for us. And they did. All 27 floors of it with no elevators.

What a nightmare. Thanks to Sun's Mike Belch for the pointer.

( Sep 08 2005, 09:48:23 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Free Webcast: Seamless Customer Experience

I like the folks over at MarketingProfs.com. Sure, they humor me on occasion by publishing some of my stuff, but more importantly their articles are often a step above the noise that's typically floating in the marketingsphere. Many of their pieces provide a great case for why all of us (whether we're in engineering, product development, facilities or sales) play a not only an important role in creating value for our companies, but a connected role, too -- because in your paying cutomer's view, no company individual or department is an island.

That said, MarketingProfs.com's Allen Weiss is giving a free webcast on September 22: "Busting Silos: Create a Seamless Customer Experience." Expectations are high. Consider clicking on over.

( Sep 08 2005, 09:30:27 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Wednesday September 07, 2005

Rethinking relief

Jeff Jarvis is asking the BHAG questions that need to be asked: how do we rethink relief? What are we capable of? Apparently much more than what's out there.

Let’s be honest: The web, too, was not fully prepared for the disaster of Katrina. If we’d truly learned the lessons of the tsunami and even 9/11, there was more we could have done to be ready to help.

I would like to see us convene a meeting to bring together the best of the web — software, hardware, infrastructure, media, money — to start to gather around needs and solutions. Maybe these should be a series of Meetups. Or why not convene a session around Web 2.0?

...Someone...looked at this as one big system, impossible to build. I said that’s 1.0 thinking. This is about people doing what they do in a distributed way but just trying to get them to swarm together around standards, links, ideas, and so on. That’s 2.0.

( Sep 07 2005, 04:17:24 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

Tuesday September 06, 2005

Front-page landscape, midday September 6

Here's a look at the front pages of a scattering of sites, ranging from the New Orleans Times Picayune to the national media outlets to FEMA and the White House. It's interesting to see the subtle differences in how each outlet communicates the latest.

( Sep 06 2005, 12:36:26 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [1]

Friday September 02, 2005

Disaster relief for an ISP

By now, you've probably heard about the ISP team that's been blogging from 27 stories up in downtown New Orleans.

Now they need help: as of 5 p.m. Pacific time Friday, they're looking for temporary (wired) space for their staff. Time to get the word out -- I have a feeling this might be the right audience for a request like that. Spread the word.

( Sep 02 2005, 05:18:13 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]

New Orleans Mayor rips current relief efforts

Mayor Ray Nagin blasts the federal response in no unclear terms on WWL radio.

MP3 | Transcript

It's politics, they're playing games and they're spinning for the camera...I keep hearing that it's (help is) coming. My answer to that is BS...his flying over in Air Force One does not do it justice...they don't have a clue what's going on down here...I am pissed.

A stirring, uncut look into one man's attempt to save his city.

( Sep 02 2005, 09:25:03 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [3]

Thursday September 01, 2005

New Orleans Disaster Links, 9/01/2005

Some of the stories that aren't making the front pages, but are worth a few minutes. (I obviously can't get New Orleans off my mind.)

NPR: the New Orleans Times-Picayune saw it coming back in 2002, and in eerily foreboding fashion. Having lived there for four years, I can relate. The Big One never really comes, or so we all assume. Unfortunately nobody understood the threat as real or serious enough as it's outlined in the TP series.

Slate: Lost in the Flood...Why no mention of race or class? A very poignant essay on that nagging question we're all thinking but few journalists are really asking: why didn't they leave?

Andrei Codrescu/Poet on Call: Mourning for a Flooded Crescent City. Romanian-born New Orleans resident Codrescu reflects from Baton Rouge in a most eloquent and wholly agreeable manner. An NPR All Things Considered clip from Wednesday.

Salon: My City Was Gone. What it means to see your neighborhood washed away -- from the distance that only a picture can provide.

Saint James Infirmary: a Metafilter thread on New Orleans songs that seemed to hit the mark for the moment. Add yours here.

( Sep 01 2005, 07:31:46 AM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]