Category Archives: Business

Reading List September 14, 2005

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Reading List September 13, 2005

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  • Seven Deadly Sins (A VC) – Fred expands on a few of the seven deadly sins for entrepreneurs that venture capitalist David Beisel posted about, speaking of which…
  • Seven Founding Sins (Genuine VC) – David Beisel looks at seven deadly sins commited by many company founders.  They include inauthenticity, sloth, extravagance, taciturnity, greed, arrogance and indecisiveness.
  • Skype-eBay and Today’s Lesson (The Post Money Value) – To see the potential in the eBay purchase of Skype you have to think big.
  • Where’s the Dog Bowl? (The Post Money Value) – Rick Segal thinks that Microsoft isn’t "eating its own dog food" when it comes to the use of Outlook with the IMAP protocol.  The real interest to me is that it was the first thing I’ve read that helped me understand what IMAP means/does.
  • Positive Image and Context (The Post Money Value) – Rick has an interesting take on the memo written by the now-resigned head of FEMA, Michael Brown.  He points out that in the context of the entire memo the infamous sentence “Convey a positive image of disaster operations to government officials, community organizations and the general public” isn’t really bad.  His feeling is that if Brown had used plain language like “You’ll need to keep the red tape crap in check, show people their
    gov’t actually cares and paying taxes has somewhat of a point.”     then this wouldn’t have blown up into a PR disaster.  He makes an interesting point.
  • NYT’s Brooks Revealed that "from Day One," the Bush White House "decided our public relations is not going to be honest" — Why Hasn’t He Written About This? (Media Matters) – During an interview on the Chris Matthews show David Brooks said that from day one the Bush administration wasn’t going to admit mistakes, even if it meant being dishonest.  Duh?
  • Jackson Compares FEMA Contracts to ‘White-Collar Looting’ (San Jose Mercury News) – From the article, "The Rev. Jesse Jackson suggested Sunday that
    the federal government was encouraging ‘white-collar looting’ by
    awarding no-bid contracts to favored companies to rebuild
    hurricane-ravaged areas, rather than giving those displaced by the
    disaster priority for jobs." The Rev. is beating the same old drum, and it’s going hurt the people he should be trying to help.  The jobs need to go to those who can do it best, period.

Reading List September 12, 2005

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  • Swimming to New Orleans (AlterNet via Moore’s Lore) – A first-hand account of a New Orleans native’s venture back into the city the weekend after Katrina.
  • Hurricane Katrina Timeline (PMwiki) – A wiki with a timeline of the Katrina disaster.  Fascinating, even if a third of it is factually off (which I doubt) due to the "citizens media" aspect of this, it’s a damning statement on the performance of the US government.

Reading List September 5, 2005

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  • The Age of Cheap Oil and Easy Ignorance is Over (Dave’s Travels) – Dave says we need to share responsibility for creating the situation that led to the disastrous response to the aftermath of the Katrina disaster.
  • What Dave Said (Rex Hammock) – Rex, who is Dave’s (see above) political polar opposite, says that people with opposite political leanings, but similar "foundational convictions" end up coming full circle to meet each other.
  • You Can’t Cross-Examine a Hurricane (Is that Legal? via Ed Cone) – I’ll let the post speak for itself: "Mike Chertoff is probably one of the 2 or 3 smartest people I have ever known…
    Mike Chertoff is a career prosecutor, and an outstanding one by any
    measure. He is a law enforcement guy in every fiber of his being. It’s
    how he made his name…Mike Chertoff doesn’t know natural disasters.  This is why he would say, without seeing the absurdity of it, that a hurricane followed by breached levees was an unforeseeable succession of catastrophes, rather than foreseeable parts of the same catastrophe…So what do I think? I think that we are seeing what happens when a
    career prosecutor tries his hand at civilian disaster relief. And more
    generally, I think we are seeing what happens when a nation gets so
    fixated on its human enemies that it forgets its other vulnerabilities."
  • Bush’s Hurricane Response Time (Joe Write) – Joe compare’s the time it took Bush to get on the ground after different hurricanes.
  • War on Error (Doc Searls) – Doc describes quite well the issues we face as our national priorities change and we focus on the politics of governance as well as the politics of elections.  Yes, they are different.
  • The Scandal of Katrina (Buzz Machine) – Jeff Jarvis has quotes from two sources, one an editorial from the Times-Picayune and the other an interview with the president of Jefferson Parish that call for the immediate firing/replacement of the leaders of FEMA.  They offer compelling testimony for why this is necessary now, not later. Not sure if I agree with them, but like I said it is compelling.
  • The Bursting Point (New York Times) – David Brooks compares the current climate in America to the 70s; he doesn’t think it’s quite as bad thanks to a robust economy, but he thinks it’s still bad enough that we’ll see political changes.  Personally I’m wondering if the economy might start looking like the 70s too.
  • The Unsinkable Data Center (business2blog) – Seems that there’s a data center in New Orleans that has stayed operational throughout the disaster thanks to a diesel generator and a deeply buried cable.  An employee has kept his blog going throughout as well.  A full article from a Wired magazine about the center is here.  And in the ironic news of the day, the data center was built by Enron:)

Reading List September 3, 2005

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  • Ballmer Throws a Chair at "F*ing Google" (John Battelle’s Search Blog) – John has an excerpt from a legal document in the case where Microsoft is suing Google over the hiring of a valued techie.  It is the testimony of someone else who left Microsoft for Google and it involves Ballmer doing a Bobby Knight with a chair and calling Google’s CEO an "f*ing p*ssy."  Nice.
  • Horror Show (Crooks and Liars) – There’s a link to a Hannity & Colmes segment from last night that is remarkable in that the reporters in New Orleans (Geraldo Rivera and Shepard Smith) pretty much take the government to task for the response to Katrina and don’t let the hosts spin this thing at all.

Reading List September 2, 2005

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  • Destroying FEMA (The Washington Post) – The Post looks at what the Department of Homeland Security is doing to FEMA.
  • Book Publishing and Management: Still Working Out the Kinks (The Post Money Value) – Book publishers are dinosaurs.
  • Katrina Heroes (Reveries.com) – What some people are doing to help Katrina relief cause.  Notable number: as of noon on Aug. 31 about $100 million had been raised from the private sector, and $70 million of that was raised by the Red Cross.

Reading List September 1, 2005

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  • Kids Just Get It (The Post Money Value) – While at dinner Rick Segal overheard a child say the following after hearing about benefit concerts being put together for Katrina victims: “How come they have to do music to get help, don’t people just want to help?”
  • Fred Barnes to Katrina Victims: Drop Dead (New Hounds) – Conservative pundits behaving badly.
  • Rant on the Hurricane (The Chairman’s Corner) – The Guilford County (NC) Republican Party is in deep doo-doo.  Why?  Just read a few posts from this guy’s blog for some clues.
  • Wedding Canceled (Patrick Eakes) – Anecdotal testimony from people on the ground in Louisiana.

Reading List August 31, 2005

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  • Should New Orleans Be Rebuilt? (BuzzMachine) – Jeff Jarvis asks the question I suspect many Americans are thinking and he gets dozens of remarkably un-troll-like comments.
  • Is Dell Dying? (Slate) – The headline is really, well stupid.  But the article itself takes a hard look at Dell’s real business problems for the near future.
  • Terry’s Fortune Escapes High Point (Off the Record via Ed Cone) – Randall Terry, a local millionaire in High Point, NC died last year and his largest beneficiaries are his dogs ($1,000,000 +) and his foundation.  The foundation is principally focused on funding the NC State Veterinary school and Terry’s old boarding school in Virginia, so High Point won’t get any help from a man remembered as a true scrooge by the editorial writer.
  • Cover Your Eyes, Kids (Patrick Eakes) – Patrick, winner of the most popular Greensboro blog contest (I need to ask him if he gets to wear a tiara), doesn’t like how the NC Senate passed the lottery bill.  He’s right.
  • The Angry, Hate-Filled Left (OpinionEditorials) – I read this site every once in a while to keep an eye on what the "Righties" are saying.  I disagree with a lot of what this guys says, but I agree with his main point: while we (Americans) are all guaranteed the right to free speech that doesn’t mean we should not also show restraint.  By the way his title could just as easily be "The Angry, Hate-Filled Right."
  • Downturns (A VC) – Fred Wilson senses an economic downturn coming and has some good advice on how to deal with it, at least from an investor’s perspective.
  • National Bottle Museum (bookofjoe) – My neighbor, Curt Ewing, is an avid bottle collector will love finding this if he doesn’t already know about it.
  • Logistics of New Orleans’ Kidney Transplant (Moore’s Lore) – Dana Blankenhorn is thinking about the logistics of rebuilding New Orleans.  He’s right, it’s daunting.
  • Conservatism: A House Divided (Conservative Voice via Vie de Malchance) – Pat Buchanan writes an opinion piece on the state of the Republican Party.  My favorite quote: "
    But on spending, Bush and Congress do not even meet the Clinton standard. They qualify as Great Society Conservatives."
  • Copter Parents at 2 O’Clock! (Daniel Drezner) – Colleges are finding that this generation of students has parents that are "hyper-involved" in their lives, interfering with their childrens’ non-academic, problem-solving educational experience.  Sorry to see that namby-pamby parenting extends beyond middle-school.

Reading List August 29, 2005

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  • The Betting Site for Big Thinkers (Freakonomics) – A couple of surprises here: one that a noted economist enjoys gambling and two that there are some very nerdy gambling opportunities at places like LongBets.com.
  • Dell Calling (BuzzMachine) – Jeff Jarvis finally got a call from a Dell PR person and she just continued spouting the company line.  Jeff’s given up on them.
  • Eye to Eye: A Talk With the CBS Blogger (BuzzMachine) – Jarvis meets with the new official CBS blogger and finds him nice enough that he offers some friendly words of advice.
  • You ARE a Marketer. Deal with It (Creating Passionate Users via BuzzMachine) – Hugh MacLeod explains why we’re all marketers, whether we like it or not.
  • Ups and Downs (Hogg’s Blog) – Jinni Hoggard has been fighting cancer for a long time and the experience has been a roller coaster for her entire family.  Her husband, David, has been writing about it on his blog and yesterday he wrote a post about the roller coaster ride they had in just one week.  It’s a must read.

Reading List August 26, 2005

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  • How Blogs Pertain to You (iMedia Connecton via Micro Persuasion) – Had to mention this one since I’m quoted in it.  The article asks how small fry (i.e. me) get treated by companies when we complain, versus how blog heavyweights (Jeff Jarvis) get treated by companies  when they complain.  Good stuff!
  • As Blogging Grows Companies Eye Legal Pitfalls (Yahoo! News) – Corporate types wonder what their liabilities are when it comes to blogging.
  • Blog Tools Tackle Content Management (InfoWorld via Yahoo! News) – Blog tools are essentially stripped down content management systems, and some people are beginning to use them that way.
  • simplehuman Uses Typepad to Build Press Room (via MicroPersuasion) – A company called simplehuman used Typepad (same service I use for this blog) to build a press room.  My lesson learned: I need to either improve my templates myself or get a real designer to do it.