18
Dec
Words fail me…
Burger King has launched a new men’s body spray called “Flame,” which it describes as “the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat.”
![[Post to Twitter]](/Code-https-web.archive.org/web/20081222132404im_/http://getdonkey.com/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/tweet-this/tweet-this-small.png)
Tweet ThisI completed a series of brainstorming sessions this week. I was looking for a nice tool to display all of the ideas, but highlight the most common ideas. I pasted the text of my notes in to Wordle and created a nice visual display of all the words that came up during the sessions. The only problem is that Wordle only allows you to print the results or upload the Word Cloud to their gallery. I am wondering if there is a service out there that does the same thing as wordle, but lets you save the cloud as an image. Does anyone know of any?
Continue Reading “Using Word Clouds to highlight brainstorming results”
As mentioned earlier, I have taken an interest in Thai politics (I currently have two Au Pairs from Thailand living in the house). The fact that the King has endorsed the new PM will hopefully settle things a bit
Fascinating article about Christian and Buddhist missions co-existing in the 700’s.
When Nestorian Christians were pressing across Central Asia during the sixth and seventh centuries, they met the missionaries and saints of an equally confident and expansionist religion: Mahayana Buddhism. Buddhists too wanted to take their saving message to the world, and launched great missions from India’s monasteries and temples. In this diverse world, Buddhist and Christian monasteries were likely to stand side by side, as neighbors and even, sometimes, as collaborators. Some historians believe that Nestorian missionaries influenced the religious practices of the Buddhist religion then developing in Tibet. Monks spoke to monks.
Continue Reading “Buddhists and Christians working together 1200 years ago”
The NY Working Families Party has commissioned a poll that finds that New Yorkers are against Governor Paterson’s proposed budget cuts to schools and health care:
The poll showed that New Yorkers were strongly resistant to the proposed massive cuts to healthcare, education programs, and the safety net. When asked whether the state should “seriously consider” a list of budget proposals in order to close the budget gap, or should “definitely not consider taking that step,” between 60% and 75% of all voters said Albany should “definitely not” consider any of the following steps:
· Reducing the amount the state would reimburse hospitals for services provided under the Medicaid program (60% say “definitely do not take that step”)· Reducing state funding for Medicaid and other health care services by $1.7 billion over the next year and a half (65%)
· Cutting state aid to public schools by $1.4 billion over the next year and a half (75%).
Continue Reading “New Yorkers don’t want cuts to schools or healthcare”
15
Dec
PR 2.0: Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals — A lengthy and informative roundup of the plethora of Twitter tools that are out there.
14
Dec
A few pics I took from my front yard yesterday morning of the iced-over trees on Mt Beacon.
12
Dec
Bruce Temkin (have I mentioned how useful his site is?) posts a link to an interview with former-McKinsey director Richard Foster (registration required). As Temkin points out, this interview is one of the best explanations of the current economic out there. The whole interview is worth reading, but here are some of the juicy points:
The granddaddy of cycles in this economy is the equity premium, which is the difference between the longer-term total returns to shareholders and the supposedly risk-free debt rate. It is the premium the equity investor gets for taking the equity risk. Looking back, we can see seven great cycles. During the boom times, when the equity premium goes way too high, everybody hocks everything to get in on the game, and this creates the conditions for a crash. When the crash occurs, the politicians come in and say it was this or that person’s fault. Then they create regulatory institutions, and virtually every one of those institutions—starting with the Federal Reserve, in 1913, as a result of the crash of 1907—has been quite productive for the nation in the longer term. This includes the formation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 1934; the Investment Company Act, in 1940; the beginning of the end of fixed commission rates in 1970; and the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, in the early 2000s.
So that’s where we were before the current meltdown. How did the problems occur?
Interesting Conversation Starter at HarvardBiz on how to
sell yourself when you job may be at risk. In this climate, everyone’s
job is. Here are the main points:
Continue Reading “How to keep your profile high in a recession”
11
Dec
Mixing a little eastern influence in with our western traditions… The Buddhist channel has an interesting piece entitled What Would the Buddha Buy?
What would the Buddha buy? Not too much, not too little. Picture him with his own reusable grocery bag slung over his shoulder, talking to a shopper about making mindful choices: “Do you really need it?” “Where does it come from?” “How will it affect the environment when you’re done?”
[snip]
The Buddha’s critique of mindless craving and needless suffering
pinpoints the precise moment during which real pleasure becomes
abstract desire – the want to want. In our addictive culture of
capitalism, it’s the exact same vital acupressure point that our basic
market economy capitalizes on. “Don’t get hooked,” the Buddha says.
Fortune has a piece outlining 8 experts’ predictions about the future of the economy. Most of these folks predicted our current predicaments. As per usual, Nouriel Roubini brings the scary:
I’ve come across a useful series of top-ten articles from insideCRM (here, here, here).
I am catching up on some reading and had this article from Harvard Management Update on the list. It’s a bit heavy, but the crux of it is focusing on services that clients want and not solely on things like technology, features, and functionality. I agree with everything in the article. It seems obvious–a service will fail if it is not something a client needs or sees value in. The value part is the trickiest, in my opinion. Further, it’s getting increasingly hard to demonstrate value in this economic climate. Understandably, most of the services clients, myself included, want right now involve the word “free” or at least “extremely low cost”. Continue Reading “Focusing on Clients When Developing Professional Services”
Anyone else out there use Redbox to rent movies? I love it. The only flaw I have found is getting stuck behind an indecisve person when waiting to pick up movies.
