Perfectly explains the product, its goal, how it works, and why it matters to you and the world. Also, it’s simple and beautiful. Yeah, I said beautiful.
Living Like a Billionaire, if Only for a Day
Everywhere he goes, he gets four-star service. Doors are opened, luggage is carried away wordlessly, and at one point, warm chocolate chip cookies magically appear. When his brakes sputter and his convertible starts spewing smoke, he picks up another Mercedes.
[...]
I feel bad admitting it, but my billionaire day has been stressful. Without an assistant, just keeping up with the hundreds of moving parts — the driver, the security detail, the minute-by-minute scheduling — has been a full-time job and then some.
…BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, located just outside the company’s Cupertino Campus.
It’s such a popular destination that employees even call it Infinite Loop 7, a reference to an Apple building that doesn’t actually exist.
And the restaurant is not without its share of Apple mythos, either — the company supposedly plants plainclothes security workers inside in order to identify people who might be talking too much about goings-on at the company. People have supposedly been fired for their discussions at the restaurant.
[via BI]
“Same” may be an overstatement, but to call them “eerily similar” wouldn’t be a stretch.
Kudos to ‘Running From The Law‘ for pointing this out… something that is quite obvious and my brain has been all “where have I seen that logo before?” lately.
Writing on the issues surrounding Path’s unauthorized obtaining of your contacts via your iPhone, and Path CEO David Morin’s response to the matter.
At Mr. Morin’s last job at Facebook, his boss Mark Zuckerberg apologized publicly more than 10 times for privacy breaches.
It seems the management philosophy of “ask for forgiveness, not permission” is becoming the “industry best practice.” And based on the response to Mr. Morin, tech executives are even lauded for it.
Rework is a business book that explains who your employees and your bosses age 20-35 do what they do, and/or how you should more effectively run your business, work day, and life.
That “motorcycle” pictured above? It’s made in Birmingham.
Inside a former flower shop, this team creates kinetic art, metal sculptures of museum quality that are also capable of moving more than 160 miles an hour. Critics have called the fruits of their labor “stunning,” “startling,” “sexy,” “unapologetic” and “astounding.”
The Wall Street Journal actually called their new product “perfect.”
When Chelsea and moved back to the South last year we arrived in Jasper, Alabama on December 17. From December 17, 2010 to December 17, 2011 I consumed Chick-fil-A 110 times. I know this because I’ve used Foursquare to track my activities for the last 2+ years.
I love Foursquare because at the heart of my discombobulated life and ADHD-ish attention span, I am a number geek and map geek. I like to track my activities, and Foursqaure does a good job of that, despite the occasional this.
Foursquare doesn’t yet provide what I would term “substantial analytics” tools to help me break down my activity into something more meaningful like the number of locations visited, the most frequented locations, or breakfast vs. lunch vs. dinner vs. snack binging… but 110 is n indicator nonetheless.
Why the obsession? I wouldn’t call it so much an obsession and I would call it the lack of food and service quality across the board at other fast food chains and restaurants, and how Chick-fil-A has them beat by light years. I love the products Chick-fil-A makes, and how each one (aside from the coffee) is pretty much near perfect. I love the way they treat their employees, and how that translates into how their employees treat me. I love how fast and easy it is to buy something from Chick-fil-A. But at the end of the day Chick-fil-A is simply a great place to eat and always a pleasant, enjoyable experience.
Before I moved to Seattle in August 2006 I faced the stark reality that the business I love the mostest was nowhere near Seattle. By “nowhere near” I mean 763 miles. When one opened about 2 hours north in the Western Washington University student union, I ensured that a weekend trip revolve around food… but the Chick-fil-A was closed the first time… but open the second… and the third, etc. I spent many days trolling them on Twitter to open a Seattle location, and sometimes they responded.
They’ve yet to expand in to Seattle, but I hope they do because every time we drove north to Western Washington University we would always bump into other Seattleites equipped with coolers and dry ice, prepared to haul back weeks of sandwiches to quell their cravings. I’m not joking. That type of behavior makes my 110 visits pale in comparison.
This image (via reddit) puts it in a little better perspective… though Netflix still has a way to go before regaining customer trust due to their recent pricing and Qwikster snafus.
I love LinkedIn. Love it. Having been in business development roles for for years it’s one of my first stops in the morning and I probably visit the site 20+ times a day.
However, someone over there needs to get their act together.
Background: I’m headed to the first Seattle Interactive Conference (aka: SIC) in November. We’re (we = Doozer) in the midst of launching our new online tool Mittix, and this conference is important for a slew of networking reason.
So I head to the events page for SIC and see that I have 2 connections attending. Two out of ~80? Meh… at lest I’ll have 2 friends there.
I then select the drop-down menu to see that I am one of those connections. The other being a former coworker at ChemPoint who has since launched his own venture.
How the heck and I connected to myself?
This bug has been present on LinkedIn for quite some time and it’s annoying as any bug in the social media tools I use. If LinkedIn can get Obama to visit their Palo Alto campus for a townhall, they should be able to fix an obvious bug.
So, my question is quite ironic: Who has a LinkedIn connection at LinkedIn to whom I can petition the removal of this bug?
Yes, one can refer to it as a “feature gap” or what have you, but it’s obvious that a feature isn’t performing in the manner it should; that’s a bug and I want to report it because I’ve had too much coffee and feeling a little judgmental.
Contact me if you have a LinkedIn contact.
PS – If we’re not connected already, holler.
Nothing just happens.
Jack Dorsey invented Twitter, founded and co-created Square, and co-created my favorite early podcasting site Odeo. In short, he’s full of ideas and, from the look of it, incredibly humble.
Here’s an interview from early 2011 where Jack talks with Kevin Rose, Digg founder.
More great interviews at Foundation.
A screenshot a took during Mark Zuckerberg’s July 6 announcement from Facebook HQ in Palo Alto.
There is one individual making eye contact with the creator and curator of one of the most influential website of the last 10. See red arrow… that’s the only lady not glued to her MacBook keys, reporting to the twitter and blog-reading masses.
Oh… and one girl on the left who had just taken a picture of Markie Z and was, I assume, uploading it to Facebook.
“Well, I don’t love it,” Phil Knight said at the time, “but maybe it will grow on me.”
Aside from the McDonalds arches, the script of Coca-Cola, and the Christian cross, I cannot think of a more timeless and recognizable symbol in the world than the Nike swoosh.
Read the full article over at OregonLive.com.
I harp with people all the time to “just make a decision”. Taking calculated risks is fun, but they have to be calculated. In my brief 30 years my calculated risks surrounded attending a university where I knew no one, solo backpacking through Europe, and moving to the Pacific Northwest with only a room found on Craigslist and no job.
Some risks proved fruitful, some not. Though despite the outcome I wouldn’t change a thing because even through “failure” a ‘Plan B’ and sometimes ‘Plan C’ and ‘Plan D’ were in place prior to action.
With all that said I’m about to kick my own rear into gear, calculating a next step if I aim to meet one of my 2011 personal goals. One of my goals this year, no matter if it flies or flops, is to launch a mobile app compatible with iOS and Android.
One could easily argue that going it alone is quite silly. Therefore, if you’ve got the idea, then I’ve got the resources. We can even draw up an agreement to prevent one another from going all “Winklevi” on each other.
Note that it’s not “You break it, you buy it.” That phrase has been repeated so many times, and with such implied anger toward the customer, that it falls on deaf ears.
Take a note from the Christmas Round The Corner store in Fairhope, Alabama and 1) change a cliché message, and 2) stop wagging your finger at a customer during their first interaction with your company.
I’ll be traveling more than normal in 2011, therefore I’m doing my darndest to travel better.
“Better” is defined as:
- lighter suitcase
- smaller suitcase
- faster through security
- faster at packing
- faster at repacking
- activity learning and practicing airport security tips/tricks
Sound cheesy? I agree… until one has to get from DFW’s Terminal A to Terminal E in 16 minutes.
To assist in my efforts I’ve been reading up on what others have to say about the ins and outs of business and personal travel.
One of my particular favorites was this blog post, and the following snippets.
I am very minimal when I travel.
I never check luggage. I refuse to check luggage. I look down at people who check luggage. When I get on the plane I have a backpack with my laptop and a carry-on—that’s it.If you’re going to check luggage…
you basically should just get back in your car, go home and not fly anywhere.[...]
When you fly: don’t wear sweatpants.
Wearing sweatpants on a plane is like wearing a fanny-pack walking around Paris. It’s pretty much the same thing.[...]
I was on a plane once that lost all cabin pressure.
We had to make an emergency landing in Buffalo. My nose started bleeding because there was no air-pressure…and then we realized that the only thing worse than crashing and dying was landing in Buffalo.[...]
One time I sat on a plane next to Britney Spears’ mom.
That was hilarious. We talked about Britney for two and a half hours.
