Eduardo Sciammarella, Founder and CEO of Protomobl, has good post here.
The classic challenge inside large companies is for the business units to think beyond the coming quarter, next model or feature. While they race to capture the revenue stream that exists today, new entrants disrupt the market. Often, companies will have R&D groups that are flush with innovative ideas but completely disconnected from the business units. One of the ways to overcome this is to have the R&D group and the business unit agree on a time frame and a shared vision. The R&D group can then go off and execute in line with that vision, with the business unit's buy-in. This is important inside a large company - but buy-in alone does not equate with successful innovation.
The challenge outside is different. Sometimes, large companies approach small start-ups to see how they can benefit from each other. This can be a very risky proposition for a start-up. You must be hyper aware of the fact that everything is going to take much longer than you anticipate. Alternatively, large companies should be very careful about engaging small start-ups. If you are a large company thinking about approaching a start-up, make sure you have a clear goal with a set time-line and budget on hand. If you don't have all these things, please don't waste their time. Time is the life-blood of a start-up...
Friday, January 30, 2009
World Economic Forum 2009... News From Davos
CNN and The Financial Times have good overviews and news from Davos, Switzerland where the world's leaders are gathering.
CNN's DAVOS 2009
Financial Times' World Economic Forum - Davos 2009
"Merkel warns U.S. over auto bailout" CNN
"Blogger takes on world economy"
Blogger Loïc Le Meur asks participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos if we should go back to socialism
CNN's DAVOS 2009
Financial Times' World Economic Forum - Davos 2009
"Merkel warns U.S. over auto bailout" CNN
"Blogger takes on world economy"
Blogger Loïc Le Meur asks participants at the World Economic Forum in Davos if we should go back to socialism
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Include Africa at the G20 Summit... Sign the One Petition!
ONE.org is rallying a petition drive for a good cause to consider:
This spring, leaders from 20 of the world's largest economies will come together for the G20 summit in the United Kingdom. They'll be discussing the global financial system, and working on setting a course for the world to get out of the financial crisis. It is crucial that a representative from the African Union be present at those meeting to represent many of the world's poorest nations, and give voice to their concerns.
As host of the upcoming G20 summit, Prime Minister Gordon Brown can invite a representative of the African Union to participate.
Sign UP!
This spring, leaders from 20 of the world's largest economies will come together for the G20 summit in the United Kingdom. They'll be discussing the global financial system, and working on setting a course for the world to get out of the financial crisis. It is crucial that a representative from the African Union be present at those meeting to represent many of the world's poorest nations, and give voice to their concerns.
As host of the upcoming G20 summit, Prime Minister Gordon Brown can invite a representative of the African Union to participate.
Sign UP!
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Stimulus Bill... I Love Pork But Democrats Love it More!
As news come out of the Hill on what's in that stimulus package, reality sets in. This is Washington D.C. and this is politics. Not what is best for our nation, but many times what is best for you and your district. As "Tip" O'Neill once said, "All politics is local."
If there is one group of people that love pork more than me, it's the Democrats in Congress. I love bacon and baby back ribs, but those Dems love pork barrel spending.
While Rome is burning, they can't break their decades long tradition of frivolous spending for their home districts or pet causes. $1 billion for Amtrak? $2.4 billion for carbon-capture projects? $600 million to buy new cars for Congress?? Please. Habits are hard to break, but use a patch or something at least for this year.
If there is one group of people that love pork more than me, it's the Democrats in Congress. I love bacon and baby back ribs, but those Dems love pork barrel spending.
While Rome is burning, they can't break their decades long tradition of frivolous spending for their home districts or pet causes. $1 billion for Amtrak? $2.4 billion for carbon-capture projects? $600 million to buy new cars for Congress?? Please. Habits are hard to break, but use a patch or something at least for this year.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
If I could tame a wild animal
Cute Wabbit (Fikske) by Wesley Oostvogels (Wesley Oostvogels)
Oh definitely the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog. It has big fangs, so I probably have to filed them down to a couple inches. Otherwise, what wild animal provides security plus cuteness?
Noovo and Plinky... Next Wave of Publishing Tools for Lazy People
I recently got an invite to Noovo, which is an interesting content publishing play. ReadWriteWeb's Richard MacManus aptly called it "tumblr on steriods." When I first tried it out, I immediately thought "the child of Tumblr and Digg."
I like where Noovo going because it provides a filter for the growing streams of content from the vast digital world along with a publishing platform that you can share with your friends or the general public. It allows for lazy people like me to easily find and share their discoveries from the web or personal content from their blog, Twitter, Flickr and other multimedia services. One way they make it easy is on their "cover" page where you can see a list of articles, choose one that you want to post and share, and then just click to add it to your Noovo profile. For an example, you can view my profile here.
Founded by Slovenian entrepreneurs, it seems they have angel money from Esther Dyson, or she at least sits on their advisory board. Noovo's user interface isn't as simple as Tumblr's and they need a critical mass but are worth tracking.
Another lazy man's publishing tool is Plinky. Founded by Jason Shellen, a former Googler and Blogger guy. Plinky presents questions for you to answer, and then you can share them on Facebook, Twitter or your Plinky profile. They label these questions "prompts" and have a "Prompts" page that presents a new question every day. Again I like where this is going because it helps you generate content.
Interactive TV in the 90's was all about "lazy interactivity" because they discovered people (at least U.S. consumers) are lazy asses who didn't want too much complexity in their viewing choices or feature sets. Not many people really wanted to shop while they watched TV, pause, click on an actor's sweater, and then order it. You can still have a thousand channels and keep things simple. With a good filter and clean user interface, choices can be easily made and you can have a happy, lazy customer.
So Noovo and Plinky brings Web 2.0 back to this "lazy interactivity" model of consumer behavior since it syncs with the majority of web users and not the ten percent of users that like to work at their content creation.
I like where Noovo going because it provides a filter for the growing streams of content from the vast digital world along with a publishing platform that you can share with your friends or the general public. It allows for lazy people like me to easily find and share their discoveries from the web or personal content from their blog, Twitter, Flickr and other multimedia services. One way they make it easy is on their "cover" page where you can see a list of articles, choose one that you want to post and share, and then just click to add it to your Noovo profile. For an example, you can view my profile here.
Founded by Slovenian entrepreneurs, it seems they have angel money from Esther Dyson, or she at least sits on their advisory board. Noovo's user interface isn't as simple as Tumblr's and they need a critical mass but are worth tracking.
Another lazy man's publishing tool is Plinky. Founded by Jason Shellen, a former Googler and Blogger guy. Plinky presents questions for you to answer, and then you can share them on Facebook, Twitter or your Plinky profile. They label these questions "prompts" and have a "Prompts" page that presents a new question every day. Again I like where this is going because it helps you generate content.
Interactive TV in the 90's was all about "lazy interactivity" because they discovered people (at least U.S. consumers) are lazy asses who didn't want too much complexity in their viewing choices or feature sets. Not many people really wanted to shop while they watched TV, pause, click on an actor's sweater, and then order it. You can still have a thousand channels and keep things simple. With a good filter and clean user interface, choices can be easily made and you can have a happy, lazy customer.
So Noovo and Plinky brings Web 2.0 back to this "lazy interactivity" model of consumer behavior since it syncs with the majority of web users and not the ten percent of users that like to work at their content creation.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Cultural Cocktails: Biblical Faith and Work with a Splash of Eastern and Western Philosophies
Rereading an earlier post (Is Your Work Less Valuable), I deliberated on how much of our faith is influenced by past cultures and other worldviews. I looked into my own upbringing that straddled Eastern and Western cultures. My parents immigrated to the U.S. from Korea when I was one year old and I grew up in suburban Chicago where Asian Americans where the second largest minority (approximately 5%) after the Jewish community (approximately 40%), and I attended a Korean American church from my junior high years through college.
The influences of Confucian and Buddhist philosophies led to subtle differences between mainstream U.S. and Korean American churches. One amusing feature was that morning prayer time in Korean American churches was flooded once each year with mothers praying for their children’s SAT exams (the same phenomenon occurs in South Korea during the national college entrance exams). I don’t suppose it was amusing to those mothers, some of whom would pray for hours the same repetitive prayer (which seemed to me to confuse the notion of grace and work). This fervent style of praying might leave outsiders thinking all Koreans are Pentecostal, but this style was distributed across the board, even within more subdued denominations like Korean Lutherans or Methodists. (Not that I’m anyone to talk. I’m a practical person and not very righteous, so when it comes to praying, I think it would be far more effective to ask one of my upright, godly friends to pray for me for a few minutes than for me to pray for 10 hours straight. But I digress.)
One influence of Confucianism in Korean culture was evident in the careers that first generation Korean American parents emphasized to their children. I call them the three P’s: physician, professor and pastor. The honored class in Confucianism is the “scholar” and all three P’s are generally considered scholarly. Physician was always number one and what parents obsessed about. Sandra Oh’s character in Grey’s Anatomy is not the only Korean American you’ll see at a hospital. I can think of at least 10 “Cristina Yangs” I know off the bat. The second tier of acceptable professions would be in academia and a reason why South Korea was typically number one or two in the number of PhDs per capita. The last of the top three was entering the ministry. While not universally welcomed by parents, it was an acceptable option in many families.
The Western influence — and the primary foundation of my thinking — expressed the ideals held by most Americans. One aspect of this is the foundational philosophy of dualism, which traces its roots to Plato through René Descartes. Without going into the complexities, a basic influence of dualism is the separation of the spiritual or mental substances and physical substances, with no relationship between the two. You could picture a higher plane of life containing the spiritual substances and a lower plane housing the physical.
Dualism enabled many of us to grow up compartmentalizing our lives. This eased us into the role of “Sunday believers” since there is a “natural” separation between church and the rest of the week. This may be a reason why some “Christian” businessmen can be the most unscrupulous professionals you’ve met, since they can subdivide their conscience employing the “this is business” rationale.
Outside the church, dualism became evident to me through my involvement in two post-graduate programs at the intersection of the public and private sectors: the Public Policy program at Columbia University and the Coro Fellowship. The Coro Fellowship, a leadership development program for those interested in public service, sent about two-thirds of participants into the government and nonprofit sectors and one-third into the for-profit world. I saw a similar distribution in the Public Policy program at Columbia: 2/3 to government and nonprofit, 1/3 to business. What surprised me in these two programs at the confluence of human ideals and professional development was finding a measure of disdain for those of us who entered private industry. As if our choice repudiated of what we’d just experienced together by choosing to work on the lower plane.
I am no longer surprised to find evidence of this dualism in the world of believers. There is separation of church and work; Sunday and the rest of the week; faith and execution. Ambition for work is bad and sacrificing work is good. What happened to the stewardship of ALL that God gives us? Did Joseph choose to leave his day job as second in command only to the Pharaoh of Egypt and look for a less demanding “9 to 5″ job so he could volunteer more at church?
Joseph took his work to heart and glorified God in the best manner possible. The difference lay in his worldview which did not separate between his spiritual and physical worlds. Each was connected and united with the other. Even the word lev — the Hebrew word for heart — encompasses not only the heart and emotion but our intellect and mind. This biblical perspective doesn’t compartmentalize our worlds; it creates a holistic understanding of our lives.
I will acknowledge that taking such an approach might make life more complex and highlights tensions between the various circles of ours lives. But isn’t life about tension? Doesn’t this make things more exciting? To think about actually implementing our faith in our business decisions and professional relationships? To actually be salt and light outside of the salt mines and sunlit mountaintops?
Originally posted at InsideWork.
The influences of Confucian and Buddhist philosophies led to subtle differences between mainstream U.S. and Korean American churches. One amusing feature was that morning prayer time in Korean American churches was flooded once each year with mothers praying for their children’s SAT exams (the same phenomenon occurs in South Korea during the national college entrance exams). I don’t suppose it was amusing to those mothers, some of whom would pray for hours the same repetitive prayer (which seemed to me to confuse the notion of grace and work). This fervent style of praying might leave outsiders thinking all Koreans are Pentecostal, but this style was distributed across the board, even within more subdued denominations like Korean Lutherans or Methodists. (Not that I’m anyone to talk. I’m a practical person and not very righteous, so when it comes to praying, I think it would be far more effective to ask one of my upright, godly friends to pray for me for a few minutes than for me to pray for 10 hours straight. But I digress.)
One influence of Confucianism in Korean culture was evident in the careers that first generation Korean American parents emphasized to their children. I call them the three P’s: physician, professor and pastor. The honored class in Confucianism is the “scholar” and all three P’s are generally considered scholarly. Physician was always number one and what parents obsessed about. Sandra Oh’s character in Grey’s Anatomy is not the only Korean American you’ll see at a hospital. I can think of at least 10 “Cristina Yangs” I know off the bat. The second tier of acceptable professions would be in academia and a reason why South Korea was typically number one or two in the number of PhDs per capita. The last of the top three was entering the ministry. While not universally welcomed by parents, it was an acceptable option in many families.
The Western influence — and the primary foundation of my thinking — expressed the ideals held by most Americans. One aspect of this is the foundational philosophy of dualism, which traces its roots to Plato through René Descartes. Without going into the complexities, a basic influence of dualism is the separation of the spiritual or mental substances and physical substances, with no relationship between the two. You could picture a higher plane of life containing the spiritual substances and a lower plane housing the physical.
Dualism enabled many of us to grow up compartmentalizing our lives. This eased us into the role of “Sunday believers” since there is a “natural” separation between church and the rest of the week. This may be a reason why some “Christian” businessmen can be the most unscrupulous professionals you’ve met, since they can subdivide their conscience employing the “this is business” rationale.
Outside the church, dualism became evident to me through my involvement in two post-graduate programs at the intersection of the public and private sectors: the Public Policy program at Columbia University and the Coro Fellowship. The Coro Fellowship, a leadership development program for those interested in public service, sent about two-thirds of participants into the government and nonprofit sectors and one-third into the for-profit world. I saw a similar distribution in the Public Policy program at Columbia: 2/3 to government and nonprofit, 1/3 to business. What surprised me in these two programs at the confluence of human ideals and professional development was finding a measure of disdain for those of us who entered private industry. As if our choice repudiated of what we’d just experienced together by choosing to work on the lower plane.
I am no longer surprised to find evidence of this dualism in the world of believers. There is separation of church and work; Sunday and the rest of the week; faith and execution. Ambition for work is bad and sacrificing work is good. What happened to the stewardship of ALL that God gives us? Did Joseph choose to leave his day job as second in command only to the Pharaoh of Egypt and look for a less demanding “9 to 5″ job so he could volunteer more at church?
Joseph took his work to heart and glorified God in the best manner possible. The difference lay in his worldview which did not separate between his spiritual and physical worlds. Each was connected and united with the other. Even the word lev — the Hebrew word for heart — encompasses not only the heart and emotion but our intellect and mind. This biblical perspective doesn’t compartmentalize our worlds; it creates a holistic understanding of our lives.
I will acknowledge that taking such an approach might make life more complex and highlights tensions between the various circles of ours lives. But isn’t life about tension? Doesn’t this make things more exciting? To think about actually implementing our faith in our business decisions and professional relationships? To actually be salt and light outside of the salt mines and sunlit mountaintops?
Originally posted at InsideWork.
News & Links List
"Four Things You Need To Know About Knol" by Matt Cutts
"VC or Angel Money?
Don't blow a financing opportunity by approaching the wrong source."
Brad Feld, my old advisor, writes a good overview.
"Sundance and a movie about a web pioneer you may have never heard of" BeyondVC
"Radically Reinventing Venture Capital" by PE Hub's Dan Primack
"'Flying Car' Goes to Market" Discovery
"College financial aid system 'in crisis'" USAToday
"'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years" WSJ's Stephen Moore
"The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media" Forbes
"Barney Frank Helped Home State Bank Get Bailout Money"
"The Jack Bauer Exception
Obama's executive order wants it both ways on interrogation." WSJ
"VC or Angel Money?
Don't blow a financing opportunity by approaching the wrong source."
Brad Feld, my old advisor, writes a good overview.
"Sundance and a movie about a web pioneer you may have never heard of" BeyondVC
"Radically Reinventing Venture Capital" by PE Hub's Dan Primack
"'Flying Car' Goes to Market" Discovery
"College financial aid system 'in crisis'" USAToday
"'Atlas Shrugged': From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years" WSJ's Stephen Moore
"The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media" Forbes
"Barney Frank Helped Home State Bank Get Bailout Money"
"The Jack Bauer Exception
Obama's executive order wants it both ways on interrogation." WSJ
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
New Red Mango Opening in Santa Clara... Free Yogurt All Day Saturday
A new Red Mango store in Westfield Valley Fair Mall is opening tomorrow, January 24th. Free yogurt all day! It also serves a good cause. More from Yul Kwon:
"We're also trying to use the occasion to help families in need, so we've also partnered with three local nonprofits to run a food, toy, and bone marrow drive (Second Harvest, Toys for Tots, and the Asian American Donor Program). The yogurt's free to anyone on Saturday, and to anyone who donates to the charity drive on Sunday."
"We're also trying to use the occasion to help families in need, so we've also partnered with three local nonprofits to run a food, toy, and bone marrow drive (Second Harvest, Toys for Tots, and the Asian American Donor Program). The yogurt's free to anyone on Saturday, and to anyone who donates to the charity drive on Sunday."
Order Subway Through SMS!
Subway in NYC is implementing SMS ordering. Pretty Awesome. Great move for Subway to do this. Island Burgers in NYC should implement SMS ordering too along with a walkup pickup window.
On the West Coast, I hope In-N-Out Burger allows for SMS ordering. Buffalo Joe's in Chicago, Portillo's in Chicago, Potbelly's in Chicago, Fat Burger in LA,... Heck, why not every fast food joint?
New Year's resolution to drop 30 lbs? Forget it, I'm gaining 30 lbs. after this news :)
Anyway, more from Springwise on this new service:
"We've already written on two separate occasions about GoMobo and its service enabling food ordering via text message. Always happy to see a good idea spread, we were recently pleased to note that the company has signed on sandwich chain Subway for text ordering in New York City.
Users of Subway Now begin by entering their address online to find the Subway shop nearest them. They then create and save their favourite orders, each of which is assigned a number. To order by text message, they simply text the word "menu" to Subway's shortcode, and the service sends back a list of their favourites. They reply with the number they want, and Subway Now responds with a text confirmation and pickup time. All orders are paid via credit card information saved on the Subway Now site, so customers can skip the line entirely when they pick up their food, and the service itself is free..."
On the West Coast, I hope In-N-Out Burger allows for SMS ordering. Buffalo Joe's in Chicago, Portillo's in Chicago, Potbelly's in Chicago, Fat Burger in LA,... Heck, why not every fast food joint?
New Year's resolution to drop 30 lbs? Forget it, I'm gaining 30 lbs. after this news :)
Anyway, more from Springwise on this new service:
"We've already written on two separate occasions about GoMobo and its service enabling food ordering via text message. Always happy to see a good idea spread, we were recently pleased to note that the company has signed on sandwich chain Subway for text ordering in New York City.
Users of Subway Now begin by entering their address online to find the Subway shop nearest them. They then create and save their favourite orders, each of which is assigned a number. To order by text message, they simply text the word "menu" to Subway's shortcode, and the service sends back a list of their favourites. They reply with the number they want, and Subway Now responds with a text confirmation and pickup time. All orders are paid via credit card information saved on the Subway Now site, so customers can skip the line entirely when they pick up their food, and the service itself is free..."
Thursday, January 22, 2009
News & Links List
"Obama and Guantanamo"' The Wall Street Journal
Ah, the reality when politics has to become policy.
"Stocks plummet on banking fears; Dow's worst Inaugural Day ever" USAToday
Worse Election Day drop and now the worst Inaugural Day drop. Markets trying to say something?
"Bush's Real Sin Was Winning in Iraq" by WSJ's William McGurn
"Web Design Trends For 2009" Smashing Magazine
"More Web Design Trends For 2009" Smashing Magazine
"IBM sunny about 2009 despite dreary forecasts"
Some good news for the tech sector. Maybe IT integrators will see some gains in 2009?
"Where the Deals Are: Real Estate in Emerging Markets" Knowledge@Wharton
"Lesson One: What Really Lies Behind the Financial Crisis?" Knowledge@Wharton
"Is this the end of China's solar boom?"
"The Strategic Importance of Moral Capital" InsideWork
Ah, the reality when politics has to become policy.
"Stocks plummet on banking fears; Dow's worst Inaugural Day ever" USAToday
Worse Election Day drop and now the worst Inaugural Day drop. Markets trying to say something?
"Bush's Real Sin Was Winning in Iraq" by WSJ's William McGurn
"Web Design Trends For 2009" Smashing Magazine
"More Web Design Trends For 2009" Smashing Magazine
"IBM sunny about 2009 despite dreary forecasts"
Some good news for the tech sector. Maybe IT integrators will see some gains in 2009?
"Where the Deals Are: Real Estate in Emerging Markets" Knowledge@Wharton
"Lesson One: What Really Lies Behind the Financial Crisis?" Knowledge@Wharton
"Is this the end of China's solar boom?"
"The Strategic Importance of Moral Capital" InsideWork
Most Popular Alltop
If you're a news junkie like me, you might appreciate Alltop's new section, "The Most Popular news and pictures." Great idea, Guy!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Foodea.com... Food Social Network
Foodea.com is a social network that is trying to serve as a one-stop shop for recipes, restaurants and food ideas. Decent number of recipes but the restaurants are limited to Toronto, Canada. The graphics are a bit too simple for my taste. Seems like a newly graduated graphic artist did the site, so hopefully they will go through an upgrade later on.
"Social Media 'Experts' are the Cancer of Twitter"... Holy Hilarious Fanboy
Wow. Fanboy.com has a hilarious and spot-on post about Twitter. It's probably more amusing since I've been actively using Twitter over the past month, and I kept coming across people that are "social media experts." I would wince and wonder why are they an "expert"? I visit their blog or website and still wonder. So Fanboy.com has expressed similar thoughts but in public and has eloquently described the landscape for our enjoyment:
"The zombies then seek each other: You’ll always notice that of the 5,000 followers that a social media expert has that all 5,000 of them are also social media “experts”. Their only form of conversation is to quote each other and live tweet conferences where they gather...
On a related note there’s also a related clan of zombies which are the SEO “experts” — these creatures are a blue collar variation of the social media experts and usually have the term “web master” in their bio. Sometimes the social media and SEO zombies can mate to produce a marketing strategy monster, but most of these are harmless as they don’t use the auto-follow technique..."
"The zombies then seek each other: You’ll always notice that of the 5,000 followers that a social media expert has that all 5,000 of them are also social media “experts”. Their only form of conversation is to quote each other and live tweet conferences where they gather...
On a related note there’s also a related clan of zombies which are the SEO “experts” — these creatures are a blue collar variation of the social media experts and usually have the term “web master” in their bio. Sometimes the social media and SEO zombies can mate to produce a marketing strategy monster, but most of these are harmless as they don’t use the auto-follow technique..."
mEgo Closes $2.5 Milion... Congratulations Ariel and Julia!
Congratulations to the Co-CEO's of mEgo, Julia Johnston and Ariel McNichol, for closing a $2.5 million angel round. It's a large angel round especially for these times. I know Ariel from the early days of my old startup, GoingOn Networks. She was working with our crazy advisor, Marc Canter... crazy, crazy times. More from SocalTECH.com here.
YouNoodle... A Startup Platform
I came across YouNoodle recently. Pretty cool idea for young entrepreneurs and the college crowd. It's always great to encourage and support entrepreneurship for the next generation.
YouNoodle provides a platform for college entrepreneurship clubs and competitions. They have tools to manage business plan competitions and other events. YouNoodle also has an interesting tool called Startup Predictor:
"Startup Predictor is the first in a series of decision-making tools YouNoodle plans to introduce for the startup industry. Our development team studied thousands of current and past startups, using both publicly available and proprietary data, to determine patterns of predictive factors for early-stage companies' success. You can try the test for free."
An immediate benefit is their community where you can find startups, entrepreneurs, talent, and overall networking to help build your business or find a good one to join.
YouNoodle provides a platform for college entrepreneurship clubs and competitions. They have tools to manage business plan competitions and other events. YouNoodle also has an interesting tool called Startup Predictor:
"Startup Predictor is the first in a series of decision-making tools YouNoodle plans to introduce for the startup industry. Our development team studied thousands of current and past startups, using both publicly available and proprietary data, to determine patterns of predictive factors for early-stage companies' success. You can try the test for free."
An immediate benefit is their community where you can find startups, entrepreneurs, talent, and overall networking to help build your business or find a good one to join.
Monday, January 19, 2009
"Slim Saves Sulzberger! But BOY Was It Expensive (NYT)" Silicon Alley Insider
"Ginx: Pierre Omidyar's Stealthy New Social Recommendation Service" ReadWriteWeb
"As raw as it gets - Skype legend Morten Lund bankrupt" TechCrunch UK
"Why Google Employees Quit" TechCrunch
"New Enterprise Associates Said to Be Raising $2.5 Billion Fund"
"Mugging Bank of America" WSJ
"The Bush Economy" WSJ
"The Right Standard for Judging George W. Bush" by Michael Medved
"Admit It: The Surge Worked" by Peter Beinart
"No Regrets: Why I'm not sorry that George W. Bush beat Al Gore and John Kerry." By Christopher Hitchens
"No White House Food Fight" Newsweek
"South Korean President Lee Replaces Finance Minister"
"India razes slums, leaves poor homeless" CNN
"Ginx: Pierre Omidyar's Stealthy New Social Recommendation Service" ReadWriteWeb
"As raw as it gets - Skype legend Morten Lund bankrupt" TechCrunch UK
"Why Google Employees Quit" TechCrunch
"New Enterprise Associates Said to Be Raising $2.5 Billion Fund"
"Mugging Bank of America" WSJ
"The Bush Economy" WSJ
"The Right Standard for Judging George W. Bush" by Michael Medved
"Admit It: The Surge Worked" by Peter Beinart
"No Regrets: Why I'm not sorry that George W. Bush beat Al Gore and John Kerry." By Christopher Hitchens
"No White House Food Fight" Newsweek
"South Korean President Lee Replaces Finance Minister"
"India razes slums, leaves poor homeless" CNN
"Men's brains fight food urges better"
Obviously I wasn't a part of this experiment since it might have been skewed the other way. Many men who grew up in Chicago might have difficult fighting a food urge if a sausage or steak was placed in front of them.
Study: Men's brains fight food urges better
"When presented with a juicy cheeseburger, cinnamon bun, or other tempting treat, women may have a tougher time reining in their desire to eat when they are on a diet than their equally hungry male counterparts.
In a new brain-scan study, researchers flashed tasty food in front of men and women who hadn't eaten anything in at least 17 hours. Both were told to fight their hunger, but only men showed a drop in activity in brain regions involved in emotion and motivation.
Men may have better tools for appetite control, which may help explain why women are more likely to be obese than men and have a tougher time dieting, according to the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Something happens in the brains of men which does not happen in the brains of women. It's quite amazing," said Paul A. M. Smeets, of the Image Sciences Institute at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands..."
Study: Men's brains fight food urges better
"When presented with a juicy cheeseburger, cinnamon bun, or other tempting treat, women may have a tougher time reining in their desire to eat when they are on a diet than their equally hungry male counterparts.
In a new brain-scan study, researchers flashed tasty food in front of men and women who hadn't eaten anything in at least 17 hours. Both were told to fight their hunger, but only men showed a drop in activity in brain regions involved in emotion and motivation.
Men may have better tools for appetite control, which may help explain why women are more likely to be obese than men and have a tougher time dieting, according to the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Something happens in the brains of men which does not happen in the brains of women. It's quite amazing," said Paul A. M. Smeets, of the Image Sciences Institute at the University Medical Center Utrecht, in the Netherlands..."
Thursday, January 15, 2009
WSJ's Hit Job on Yahoo's Susan Decker... Loss of Yahoo's Culture
I don't know what motivated The Wall Street Journal to write a hit piece on Former Yahoo! President Susan Decker, but they did ("Departing Yahoo President Has History of Missteps").
It lays out her faults and some mistakes, but it seems too hyped. I doubt Decker was even a primary problem and reason for Yahoo's demise. Yahoo lost its way years ago. Somewhere from becoming an icon in Silicon Valley and all that was good about the boom times, to becoming the antithesis of our region. It became too stiff, too risk adverse, too hollywood, too corporate,...
The rep of ex-Yahoos in some circles were that they were good at blaming others and not taking responsibility. Great at managing upward but not their teams or division, which matters most for a healthy company. So people talk and wonder about when did the culture change at Yahoo? When did it become so corporate that people learn to dodge blame so well? Such a corporate ladder that you need to call the fire station for assistance? I don't know but it would be interesting to learn how it all happened.
It lays out her faults and some mistakes, but it seems too hyped. I doubt Decker was even a primary problem and reason for Yahoo's demise. Yahoo lost its way years ago. Somewhere from becoming an icon in Silicon Valley and all that was good about the boom times, to becoming the antithesis of our region. It became too stiff, too risk adverse, too hollywood, too corporate,...
The rep of ex-Yahoos in some circles were that they were good at blaming others and not taking responsibility. Great at managing upward but not their teams or division, which matters most for a healthy company. So people talk and wonder about when did the culture change at Yahoo? When did it become so corporate that people learn to dodge blame so well? Such a corporate ladder that you need to call the fire station for assistance? I don't know but it would be interesting to learn how it all happened.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
"The Piano Teacher" By Janice Y.K. Lee
My friend's sister has come out with a new book, "The Piano Teacher"
Some good reviews by a few Amazon top reviewers and other solid reviews by various critics. Here are a couple of them...
Chicago Tribune, January 3, 2009
"Evocative, poignant and skillfully crafted, "The Piano Teacher" is more than an epic tale of war and a tangled, tortured love story. It is the kind of novel one consumes in great, greedy gulps, pausing (grudgingly) only when absolutely necessary..."
Marie Claire, January 3, 2009
"In her debut novel, Lee tells two engrossing love stories, both involving the same man. Just hide your phone before cracking this one open - or risk calling your ex..."
Synopsis:
In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences for both of them, and for members of their fragile community who will betray each other in the darkest days of the war.
Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter’s piano teacher. A provincial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the colony’s heady social life. She soon begins an affair, only to discover that her lover’s enigmatic demeanor hides a devastating past.
As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine and converge, a landscape of impossible choices emerges—between love and safety, courage and survival, the present and, above all, the past.
Some good reviews by a few Amazon top reviewers and other solid reviews by various critics. Here are a couple of them...
Chicago Tribune, January 3, 2009
"Evocative, poignant and skillfully crafted, "The Piano Teacher" is more than an epic tale of war and a tangled, tortured love story. It is the kind of novel one consumes in great, greedy gulps, pausing (grudgingly) only when absolutely necessary..."
Marie Claire, January 3, 2009
"In her debut novel, Lee tells two engrossing love stories, both involving the same man. Just hide your phone before cracking this one open - or risk calling your ex..."
Synopsis:
In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their love affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese, with terrible consequences for both of them, and for members of their fragile community who will betray each other in the darkest days of the war.
Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter’s piano teacher. A provincial English newlywed, Claire is seduced by the colony’s heady social life. She soon begins an affair, only to discover that her lover’s enigmatic demeanor hides a devastating past.
As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine and converge, a landscape of impossible choices emerges—between love and safety, courage and survival, the present and, above all, the past.
Netexplorateur 100 Released!
Forum Netexplorateur is a technology and digital culture conference held in Paris every year. They recently released their hot list of emerging innovations called the Netexplorateur 100. The conference organizers of Open Web Asia, which I'm a part of, contributed to their selection process. More from their announcement:
To reveal emerging innovations in the way Internet and digital media are used, the forum’s founders had the idea of a global selection of the most promising initiatives in digital culture, the Netexplorateur 100. The pioneers on the annual list publish Web 2.0 sites, software or electronic games, break new ground in culture or education, invent new forms of citizenship or transform management methods and business models. These 100 “Netexplorateurs” are blazing trails in the Web’s uncharted territories and developing new practices that are likely to have significant economic or social impact. They embody the future of the Net and, more generally, the digital era.
To reveal emerging innovations in the way Internet and digital media are used, the forum’s founders had the idea of a global selection of the most promising initiatives in digital culture, the Netexplorateur 100. The pioneers on the annual list publish Web 2.0 sites, software or electronic games, break new ground in culture or education, invent new forms of citizenship or transform management methods and business models. These 100 “Netexplorateurs” are blazing trails in the Web’s uncharted territories and developing new practices that are likely to have significant economic or social impact. They embody the future of the Net and, more generally, the digital era.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
News & Links List
"Yahoo Names Bartz as CEO; Decker Resigns" WSJ
"Yahoo Confirms Bartz To Be CEO, Decker Resigns" TechCrunch
"Why Pre is the right move for Palm" CNET's Crave
"Can Pre Save Palm From Being Put Out to Pasture?" GigaOm
Om takes the other side.
"What Happened to Search Spending in 2008?" eMarketer
"The Secret To Wooing Investors" Forbes
"Palm and Sony out-Apple Apple" ComputerWorld
"Our Picks for 10 Industries: Recent Business Ideas That Will Provide Opportunities and Inspiration in 2009 and Beyond" Springwise
"A User's Guide to 21st Century Economics" by Umair Haque
"Yahoo Korea CEO jumps ship to Microsoft Korea" Web 2.0 Asia
"Seoul Tries To Make Web Prophet Log Off" Forbes
"Christian Girls Drugged and Sold as Sex Slaves in Pakistan" Right Side News
Hamas using children as human shield
"A closer, faster walk with thee" LA Times
HatTip to Dan.
"Bo Pilgrim’s “Mission From God” Backfires" InsideWork
"Yahoo Confirms Bartz To Be CEO, Decker Resigns" TechCrunch
"Why Pre is the right move for Palm" CNET's Crave
"Can Pre Save Palm From Being Put Out to Pasture?" GigaOm
Om takes the other side.
"What Happened to Search Spending in 2008?" eMarketer
"The Secret To Wooing Investors" Forbes
"Palm and Sony out-Apple Apple" ComputerWorld
"Our Picks for 10 Industries: Recent Business Ideas That Will Provide Opportunities and Inspiration in 2009 and Beyond" Springwise
"A User's Guide to 21st Century Economics" by Umair Haque
"Yahoo Korea CEO jumps ship to Microsoft Korea" Web 2.0 Asia
"Seoul Tries To Make Web Prophet Log Off" Forbes
"Christian Girls Drugged and Sold as Sex Slaves in Pakistan" Right Side News
Hamas using children as human shield
"A closer, faster walk with thee" LA Times
HatTip to Dan.
"Bo Pilgrim’s “Mission From God” Backfires" InsideWork
"A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan"
Love Kiva and donate to it. Great video summary by Kiva Fellow, Kieran Ball:
This video follows the path of a $25 loan from London, England to Preak Tamao village, Cambodia. Kiva.org is a website that allows internet users like you or I to lend money to people that need it in developing countries, with the aim of empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.
A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.
This video follows the path of a $25 loan from London, England to Preak Tamao village, Cambodia. Kiva.org is a website that allows internet users like you or I to lend money to people that need it in developing countries, with the aim of empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.
A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Loss of Posterity in America
(heads up since this article has religious references)
My grandfather was president of one of the largest of the old banks that ruled Korea’s business landscape before the chaebols (conglomerates) dominated South Korea. He was a banker well known for his acumen and wisdom. Some saw these attributes as shrewd and cold-hearted. Whatever the label, he made a lasting imprint on the industry.
My grandfather managed his household affairs with similar strong discernment (though I would not call him cold-hearted). I primarily knew him and my grandmother as my caretakers for a few years during early childhood while my parents studied in the U.S. As he did on his industry, my grandfather also left a lasting imprint on me.
One of my father’s siblings — there were ten in all — failed at numerous stages of adulthood. So one day my grandfather made him a proposition.
“Since you haven’t done much with your life so far, I’ll give you a portion of your inheritance now. Let’s see what you will do with it.”
My grandfather bought him some property. After some time, my uncle revealed that he had done nothing but collect rent on the property, which he spent frivolously. So that was that. Years later, when my grandfather’s will was read, my uncle received nothing more than shock and confusion.
I’m almost certain my grandfather never read the Bible, but his wisdom in managing one of his sons reminds me of Christ’s Parable of the Talents:
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money…
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.” — Matthew 25: 14-18, 26-27
My grandfather believed in responsible stewardship, but I believe what drove his decisions was the importance of his legacy and how future generations — posterity — would reflect his values. Severing my uncle from his will was not only a financial act, but also a relational one.
The idea of posterity is prevalent in East Asian cultures. People think in terms of generations of families and peoples. Because he was a third-generation only son, my wife’s brother served in a lighter six-month program in the South Korean Army versus a standard two-year commitment. Some laws in China carry punishments that last for three generations, and the Chinese government creates 100-year plans for its nation’s development.
Posterity was a common ideal woven into the fabric of America’s founding that seems to have unraveled. Maybe it started with the dissolute Me Decade that straddled the 60s and 70s? Maybe the Greatest Generation’s weakness lay in its inability or unwillingness to raise a generation of equally disciplined, self-sacrificing, public-spirited citizens? Perhaps it was lost in the gold rush… There are other places to go for that analysis. What seems clear is, it’s missing now.
It’s interesting to note that the U.S.household savings rate has been in rapid decline since the 1990s. The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) personal saving rate was approximately 10% during the 1970s, 8% in the 1980s, and dropped to less than 1% by 2006. What happened? Did the wisdom of planning for retirement and the possibility of doing good beyond our lifetime become passé in 1990? Spend your money on the here and now. Hopefully our 401(k) is enough! And social security will be on its last leg, but we should get ours!
The Biblical perspective upholds posterity. God provides promises not only to Abram, but his future generations:
Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” — Genesis 15: 13-16
David declares both rich and poor have a legacy in the kingdom of God.
All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn—for he has done it. — Psalm 22: 29-31
This sort of long-term thinking has become foreign to many of us. As a new parent, these words force me to consider how my behavior and actions affect my children and their children. But, whether we have children or not, how can we take up our responsibility to influence future generations in the ongoing community of God’s people? If I am blessed with wealth, how I should manage it? Pass it on to my children? Donate it to a well managed church or nonprofit? Set up a foundation? Besides which, not everyone is blessed with wealth — and some gain wealth late in life, while others lose it — which makes David’s words in Psalm 22 all the more meaningful for their focus on the spiritual legacy we can pass to the next generation. This idea of posterity seems a bit burdensome, so maybe its loss from our cultural norms isn’t a surprise. So many questions and no simple answers. If it’s clear the idea of posterity is missing in this culture, it’s just as clear that we are the ones who must restore it.
Do you cringe at all this because you think you’re just a horrible example to follow — Genghis Khan is a better person than you? You can’t plan three months ahead, so how can you be expected to think about future generations? I know people who are better now than they once were, but I don’t know anyone who is prepared to be a perfect example for their children and future generations. So let’s just take simple steps. Take it one day at a time. One prayer at a time. One decision at a time. One verse at a time. One action at at time. One moment at a time.
Originally posted at InsideWork.
My grandfather was president of one of the largest of the old banks that ruled Korea’s business landscape before the chaebols (conglomerates) dominated South Korea. He was a banker well known for his acumen and wisdom. Some saw these attributes as shrewd and cold-hearted. Whatever the label, he made a lasting imprint on the industry.
My grandfather managed his household affairs with similar strong discernment (though I would not call him cold-hearted). I primarily knew him and my grandmother as my caretakers for a few years during early childhood while my parents studied in the U.S. As he did on his industry, my grandfather also left a lasting imprint on me.
One of my father’s siblings — there were ten in all — failed at numerous stages of adulthood. So one day my grandfather made him a proposition.
“Since you haven’t done much with your life so far, I’ll give you a portion of your inheritance now. Let’s see what you will do with it.”
My grandfather bought him some property. After some time, my uncle revealed that he had done nothing but collect rent on the property, which he spent frivolously. So that was that. Years later, when my grandfather’s will was read, my uncle received nothing more than shock and confusion.
I’m almost certain my grandfather never read the Bible, but his wisdom in managing one of his sons reminds me of Christ’s Parable of the Talents:
“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money…
“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.” — Matthew 25: 14-18, 26-27
My grandfather believed in responsible stewardship, but I believe what drove his decisions was the importance of his legacy and how future generations — posterity — would reflect his values. Severing my uncle from his will was not only a financial act, but also a relational one.
The idea of posterity is prevalent in East Asian cultures. People think in terms of generations of families and peoples. Because he was a third-generation only son, my wife’s brother served in a lighter six-month program in the South Korean Army versus a standard two-year commitment. Some laws in China carry punishments that last for three generations, and the Chinese government creates 100-year plans for its nation’s development.
Posterity was a common ideal woven into the fabric of America’s founding that seems to have unraveled. Maybe it started with the dissolute Me Decade that straddled the 60s and 70s? Maybe the Greatest Generation’s weakness lay in its inability or unwillingness to raise a generation of equally disciplined, self-sacrificing, public-spirited citizens? Perhaps it was lost in the gold rush… There are other places to go for that analysis. What seems clear is, it’s missing now.
It’s interesting to note that the U.S.household savings rate has been in rapid decline since the 1990s. The Bureau of Economic Analysis calculates the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) personal saving rate was approximately 10% during the 1970s, 8% in the 1980s, and dropped to less than 1% by 2006. What happened? Did the wisdom of planning for retirement and the possibility of doing good beyond our lifetime become passé in 1990? Spend your money on the here and now. Hopefully our 401(k) is enough! And social security will be on its last leg, but we should get ours!
The Biblical perspective upholds posterity. God provides promises not only to Abram, but his future generations:
Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your fathers in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” — Genesis 15: 13-16
David declares both rich and poor have a legacy in the kingdom of God.
All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—those who cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn—for he has done it. — Psalm 22: 29-31
This sort of long-term thinking has become foreign to many of us. As a new parent, these words force me to consider how my behavior and actions affect my children and their children. But, whether we have children or not, how can we take up our responsibility to influence future generations in the ongoing community of God’s people? If I am blessed with wealth, how I should manage it? Pass it on to my children? Donate it to a well managed church or nonprofit? Set up a foundation? Besides which, not everyone is blessed with wealth — and some gain wealth late in life, while others lose it — which makes David’s words in Psalm 22 all the more meaningful for their focus on the spiritual legacy we can pass to the next generation. This idea of posterity seems a bit burdensome, so maybe its loss from our cultural norms isn’t a surprise. So many questions and no simple answers. If it’s clear the idea of posterity is missing in this culture, it’s just as clear that we are the ones who must restore it.
Do you cringe at all this because you think you’re just a horrible example to follow — Genghis Khan is a better person than you? You can’t plan three months ahead, so how can you be expected to think about future generations? I know people who are better now than they once were, but I don’t know anyone who is prepared to be a perfect example for their children and future generations. So let’s just take simple steps. Take it one day at a time. One prayer at a time. One decision at a time. One verse at a time. One action at at time. One moment at a time.
Originally posted at InsideWork.
"The Trouble With Romance" Release
Our friend's movie is being release on pay-per-view or on-demand on February 1st. It's theatrical release will be on February 27th at New York's Quad Cinema theaters. Check local listings in NYC for showtimes or visit their website here.
It's cool that Warner Bros picked it up for distribution, but it is a low budget independent movie so Gene and his colleagues don't have the marketing muscle behind it. Hopefully some buzz will occur if there is strong widespread acceptance.
Also Mayor Gavin Newsom's new wife has a prominent role in the movie, so for you SFers check it out :)
San Francisco Chronicle Film Review:
'HIGHLY RECOMMENDED'
"An extraordinarily engaging, well-written and creatively filmed romantic comedy comprised of four stories set in hotel rooms on the same floor... Rhee's feature debut is in some ways a textbook for how to make a great low-budget feature: Start with a really good, tightly written script, hire some terrific, trained, hungry actors and shoot it economically on small interiors. For an audience, it's a winning combination."
It's cool that Warner Bros picked it up for distribution, but it is a low budget independent movie so Gene and his colleagues don't have the marketing muscle behind it. Hopefully some buzz will occur if there is strong widespread acceptance.
Also Mayor Gavin Newsom's new wife has a prominent role in the movie, so for you SFers check it out :)
San Francisco Chronicle Film Review:
'HIGHLY RECOMMENDED'
"An extraordinarily engaging, well-written and creatively filmed romantic comedy comprised of four stories set in hotel rooms on the same floor... Rhee's feature debut is in some ways a textbook for how to make a great low-budget feature: Start with a really good, tightly written script, hire some terrific, trained, hungry actors and shoot it economically on small interiors. For an audience, it's a winning combination."
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Planet B-Boy on MTV
If you didn't see Planet B-Boy in the theatre or on DVD, you can catch it on MTV this week...
Sunday, January 11
11:00AM PST/EST and 10:00AM CST
12:00AM PST/EST and 11:00PM CST
Wednesday January 14
1:30AM PST/EST and 12:30AM CST
8:00AM PST/EST and 7:00AM CST
Sunday, January 11
11:00AM PST/EST and 10:00AM CST
12:00AM PST/EST and 11:00PM CST
Wednesday January 14
1:30AM PST/EST and 12:30AM CST
8:00AM PST/EST and 7:00AM CST
Friday, January 9, 2009
News & Links List
"Is Google Developing a Router?" BNET
"Yelp user faces lawsuit over negative review" CNET
"Our 12 (Or So) Favorite Techie Cartoons of 2008" Wired
"Microsoft’s quest to beat Google" Financial Times
"20 Predictions for 2009" ParisLemon
"CES: More on the Palm Pre" BusinessWeek
"Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?" BusinessWeek
"China After 30 Years of Reform, I" Forbes
"China After 30 Years of Reform, III" Forbes
"End of Wall Street: What Happened" WSJ Video
"The End of the Financial World as We Know It" NYTimes, Michael Lewis and David Einhorn
"Advice For Laid-Off Engineers" by Sramana Mitra
"Bankers, Grocers and Lots of Kims
Our latest periodic look at Asia immigrants who are leaving their mark on the U.S. economy." Forbes
"Wal-Mart. Deserving of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize?" InsideWork
"Toward a Biblical Model of Economics" InsideWork
"Burris Expects To Be Seated" MSNBC
"The trouble with Sanjay Gupta" by Paul Krugman
Ah, my favorite economist... Not!
"Damned If They Do But Israel's Dead If They Don't" NY Post
"An Unnecessary War" by Jimmy Carter
Ah, my favorite former president... Not!
"The Jews Face a Double Standard" by Marvin Hier
"Yelp user faces lawsuit over negative review" CNET
"Our 12 (Or So) Favorite Techie Cartoons of 2008" Wired
"Microsoft’s quest to beat Google" Financial Times
"20 Predictions for 2009" ParisLemon
"CES: More on the Palm Pre" BusinessWeek
"Is Social Security a Ponzi Scheme?" BusinessWeek
"China After 30 Years of Reform, I" Forbes
"China After 30 Years of Reform, III" Forbes
"End of Wall Street: What Happened" WSJ Video
"The End of the Financial World as We Know It" NYTimes, Michael Lewis and David Einhorn
"Advice For Laid-Off Engineers" by Sramana Mitra
"Bankers, Grocers and Lots of Kims
Our latest periodic look at Asia immigrants who are leaving their mark on the U.S. economy." Forbes
"Wal-Mart. Deserving of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize?" InsideWork
"Toward a Biblical Model of Economics" InsideWork
"Burris Expects To Be Seated" MSNBC
"The trouble with Sanjay Gupta" by Paul Krugman
Ah, my favorite economist... Not!
"Damned If They Do But Israel's Dead If They Don't" NY Post
"An Unnecessary War" by Jimmy Carter
Ah, my favorite former president... Not!
"The Jews Face a Double Standard" by Marvin Hier
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Revisiting Milgram's Experiment and the Psychology of Evil
I came across this article at CNN, "Charting the psychology of evil, decades after 'shock' experiment," which revisits Stanley Milgram's famous "shock" experiment. Professor Jerry Burger at Santa Clara University recently replicated Milgram's experiment with some tweaks to reflect updates in ethical standards for human subjects:
The new results correlate well with Milgram's: 70 percent of the 40 participants were willing to continue after 150 volts, compared with 82.5 percent in Milgram's study -- a difference that is not statistically significant, Burger said.
Still, some psychologists quoted in the same issue of American Psychologist questioned how comparable this study is to Milgram's, given the differences in methods.
My old post on this topic has some additional thoughts, "Evil and Ethics in the Workplace"
The new results correlate well with Milgram's: 70 percent of the 40 participants were willing to continue after 150 volts, compared with 82.5 percent in Milgram's study -- a difference that is not statistically significant, Burger said.
Still, some psychologists quoted in the same issue of American Psychologist questioned how comparable this study is to Milgram's, given the differences in methods.
My old post on this topic has some additional thoughts, "Evil and Ethics in the Workplace"
Apologies... Back to Blogging
Still deep in diaperland and adjusting to this new life :) Also trying to get back into the groove of work again... and blogging and linking. So apologies for missing the past three days, which is probably the longest dry spell I've had since 2007.
Friday, January 2, 2009
News & Links List
"Moral Clarity in Gaza" by Charles Krauthammer
"Striking Deep Into Israel, Hamas Employs an Upgraded Arsenal" NYTimes
"Marty Peretz and the American political consensus on Israel" By Salon's Glenn Greenwald
"Attack on Gaza: As Usual, U.S. Media (And Most Liberals) Silent -- As Israeli Newspaper Raises Doubts"
One of Huffington Post's liberal viewpoints
"IDF Airstrikes Continue-- 110 Rockets Fired Into Israel-- Egyptian Foreign Minister Blames Hamas (Video)" Gateway Pundit
"Samuel Huntington's Warning" WSJ
"Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard Dies at 81" NYTimes
"What FriendFeed Needs to Do To Grow and Keep New Users" by Louis Gray
"Louis Gray on Why Friendfeed Will Fail" by Stowe Boyd
"Mr. Tweet speeds up its Twitter recommendations" VentureBeat
"Social Media Personality Types: Slideshow" by Adrian Chan
"Admiring Bill Gates" O'Reilly Radar
"Time to Reboot America" by Thomas Friedman
"Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin" by John O'Sullivan
Palin can be a national figure for the Republican Party, but I don't think she has the capacity to be president of our nation. I just want someone that doesn't have to be handled and protected. A leader with the intellectual and oratory skills to go at it alone. This is a basic requirement that shouldn't be asked of our national leaders.
"Rice: People will soon thank Bush for what he's done" CNN
"GOP reaction divided over controversial Obama song"
Chip Saltsman is a tool. Even if he isn't a racist, why go there? Why now? What an idiot.
"YouthAIDS' Kate Roberts: Using Marketing Skills and Media to Keep Young People Alive"
My fellow Socrates Society attendee interviewed by Wharton.
"A Faustian failure" by Adrian Hong
Excellent op-ed on the situation in North Korea. I serve as an advisor to LiNK (Liberty in North Korea)
"As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset"
"Striking Deep Into Israel, Hamas Employs an Upgraded Arsenal" NYTimes
"Marty Peretz and the American political consensus on Israel" By Salon's Glenn Greenwald
"Attack on Gaza: As Usual, U.S. Media (And Most Liberals) Silent -- As Israeli Newspaper Raises Doubts"
One of Huffington Post's liberal viewpoints
"IDF Airstrikes Continue-- 110 Rockets Fired Into Israel-- Egyptian Foreign Minister Blames Hamas (Video)" Gateway Pundit
"Samuel Huntington's Warning" WSJ
"Samuel P. Huntington of Harvard Dies at 81" NYTimes
"What FriendFeed Needs to Do To Grow and Keep New Users" by Louis Gray
"Louis Gray on Why Friendfeed Will Fail" by Stowe Boyd
"Mr. Tweet speeds up its Twitter recommendations" VentureBeat
"Social Media Personality Types: Slideshow" by Adrian Chan
"Admiring Bill Gates" O'Reilly Radar
"Time to Reboot America" by Thomas Friedman
"Conservative Snobs Are Wrong About Palin" by John O'Sullivan
Palin can be a national figure for the Republican Party, but I don't think she has the capacity to be president of our nation. I just want someone that doesn't have to be handled and protected. A leader with the intellectual and oratory skills to go at it alone. This is a basic requirement that shouldn't be asked of our national leaders.
"Rice: People will soon thank Bush for what he's done" CNN
"GOP reaction divided over controversial Obama song"
Chip Saltsman is a tool. Even if he isn't a racist, why go there? Why now? What an idiot.
"YouthAIDS' Kate Roberts: Using Marketing Skills and Media to Keep Young People Alive"
My fellow Socrates Society attendee interviewed by Wharton.
"A Faustian failure" by Adrian Hong
Excellent op-ed on the situation in North Korea. I serve as an advisor to LiNK (Liberty in North Korea)
"As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God
Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa's biggest problem - the crushing passivity of the people's mindset"
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