Smart meter
The Internet of Things: The Promise Versus the Tower of Hacked Babbling Things
The term “Internet of Things” (IoT) is being loosely tossed around in the media. But…
public relations
Management Communication: How Not To Embarrass Yourself
Some years ago, the British comedian and Monty Python member, John Cleese participated in a series of sales and management training videos. To this day, I still laugh remembering one of them, “How Not to Exhibit Yourself.” “How Not to Exhibit Yourself” focuses on trade show behavior and particularly how to effectively connect with potential customers, but in my mind, the humorous lessons offered by Cleese could just as easily apply to networking with people in general. My key point in this post is that regardless whatever field you work, your ability and skill in relating to people and communicating effectively will be crucial to your success.
Silicon Valley Culture
Silicon Valley Is Suffering From A Lack of Humanity
The genius of Steve Jobs lies in his hippie period and with his time at Reed College, the pre-eminent Liberal Arts college in North America. To his understanding of technology, Jobs brought an immersion in popular culture. In his 20s, he dated Joan Baez; Ella Fitzgerald sang at his 30th birthday party. His worldview was shaped by the ’60s counterculture in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he had grown up, the adopted son of a Silicon Valley machinist. When he graduated from high school in Cupertino in 1972, he said, “the very strong scent of the 1960s was still there. After dropping out of Reed College, a stronghold of liberal thought in Portland, Ore., in 1972, Mr. Jobs led a countercultural lifestyle himself. He told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics — even people who knew him well, including his wife — could never understand.
Computer graphics
The Importance of "Convergence" In Market and Industry Analysis
If You Get Technology “Convergence” Wrong, Nothing Else Matters I came across this book during…
Social Media Marketing
Okanagan Marketing Summit 2013: Wednesday, November 20th
Okanagan Marketing Summit 2013 Wednesday, November 20th, 2013, Rotary Centre for the Arts Full Event…
Silicon Valley Culture
The Incredible CardMunch for Android Mystery: Market Stolen by CamCard
Over a year ago now someone on the UBC campus, who was thinking of developing an app, told me about this cool application for capturing cards into your contacts by photographing them on your smart phone. It was Cardmunch. It turned out that the application was only available on the iPhone at that time, but as luck would have it, the company had just been acquired by LinkedIn. Voila! It would obviously only be a few months at most before I could obtain it for my Samsung Android smart phone, right? Wrong. That was over a year ago.
Argumentation & Debate
Believe It Or Not: Rituals and Superstition May Help You Ace A Job Interview
Baseball players, particularly pitchers, are known for being superstitious. These superstitions have been immortalized by characters like Pedro Cerrano, the Cuban center fielder and his doll Joboo, in the film Major League. Real life examples abound. But it now turns out that research has shown that following personal rituals may increase your self-confidence and actually help you ace a job interview or a big presentation.
Silicon Valley Culture
Ballmer Resignation From Microsoft and Missed Strategic Inflection Points
Microsoft Missed Key Strategic Inflection Points. Much has been written this week about the announcement from Steve Ballmer that he will resign from Microsoft within a year. Microsoft shares bounced upward on the news, giving an indication of investor sentiment, which might have been expected to drive the stock down. Some bloggers have commented with praise on his 13 years as President of Microsoft. But no less than Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, who also writes for All Things D, quietly tweeted an endorsement of the blog post below by Lauren Goode at “All Things D.” Goode chronicles the major product and strategic events over Ballmer’s helmsmanship of Microsoft. Perhaps the most glaring blunder has to be also the most recent: Windows 8.
Supercomputers
Larry Ellison's Extremely High Tech 2013 America's Cup Defense on SF Bay
This year’s America’s Cup Defense is a Tour de Force of technological innovation both on and off the water, Read on and I will explain. The America’s Cup events are hosted by the St. Francis Yacht Club on San Francisco Bay, and the defending team BMC Oracle, led by none other than Larry Ellison, Chairman and founder of Oracle in Silicon Valley. The qualifying races on Marina Green and San Francisco Bay. Every aspect of this has been planned in advance to showcase bleeding edge technology, and to turn the yacht races themselves into the spectator event The America’s Cup has never been,
Silicon Valley Culture
Social Media May Finally Have Become Radioactive to Investors…
One would think that this should have happened sooner….but, well, there is a human tradition here…Wikipedia currently lists 342 social media apps, emphasizing up front that their list is not exhaustive. I can think of at least two more local social media startups, one of which has just announced significant new investments. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds, the now legendary book by Charles Mackay, first published in 1841, remains a classic text revered for its insights into social psychology and economic bubbles.
