What a presentation should be like

Don't think of excuses - just watch and ask yourself can you do something like this instead of the usual bullets and text blobs.


Sky McCloud Presentation from Duarte Design on Vimeo.

For Corin Wagen

littleBits coffemaker from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

hat tip:: full post here

Not sending any signals but seriously

how cool is this....

Making small progress in the footsteps of Giants

India won its first Olympic Gold since they started competing in the Olympics in 1928.

Abhinav Bindra won India's first individual Olympic gold medal on Monday with a thrilling come-from-behind victory in the men's 10m air rifle.

How much #$%# are we willing to put up with

Umair Haque as usual has a thoughtful and provocative post on the need for fundamental change

Yes, business really does change. 400 years ago, corporations were formed by royal decree. 300 years ago, many countries were powered by slave labour, or its closest moral equivalent. 200 years ago, debtors didn't go bankrupt, they went to prison. 100 years ago - well, business is largely the same as it was a century ago. And that's exactly the problem. Business hasn't changed, but today's array of tectonic global shocks demands a different, radically better kind of business. Yesterday's corporations visibly cannot meet today's economic challenges.

Complete post here.

Let us learn from others mistakes but with caution

My context here is a blog post on Alfresco's blog roll that discusses Vignette's slow but sure decline - full post here.
I don't have domain expertise in the CMS/ECM market and in general i agree with a lot of what Uzi says in his post. He points out the Vignette is "losing the people that they should keep. And they’re keeping the people that they should lose" - which leads me to assume that has inside knowledge about what is going on at Vignette.

My bone of contention is with that following phrase (please read the full post for context before jumping here)

And that’s where the old businesses are falling over. Customers cannot trust in how their money is being spent. It isn’t simply that Vignette’s brand has lost its trust - it’s that the products actually do not work.

Why? Because managers don’t know how to develop good code.

Give them credit, though, for knowing how to keep their jobs.

Umm... really, that is the problem --- "managers don't know how to develop good code". Wow! that scares me.
So let us trace this a little.

a. the brand lost its trust ---> (why?)
b. the products do not actually work ----> (i can see how this can lead to 'a') (why?)
c. managers don't know how to develop good code ----> (let me ask you again -- FOR REAL?)

Products don't work for a lot of reasons - chief amongst them being being poor software, poor understanding of the market problems, poor quality of requirements being given to engineering, ignorance of how the market has changed since v1.0 of the product came out, etc. But rarely does "managers not developing good code" show up on that list.
I would agree that if the product direction is driven by a manager with no technical background or software development experience, that is not a recipe for success. But that is a far cry from "managers don't know how to develop good code".

I understand the point Uzi is trying to make and the distinction being drawn between open source philosophies and "big elephants" but i caution against blaming everything associated with "big elephants" by association.

Imho, one of the reasons I think Alfresco executed so well out of the gate and continues to build on that momentum is Kevin Cochrane - who did not necessarily code (he might have a coding background, i don't know) but did a stellar job of understanding market needs and helped R&D build against it. Kevin's title was product MANAGER :-) if I remember correctly.

Disclosure - I have no stake, interest or strong affiliation with Vignette or the CMS industry. This is more from my perspective as a product manager.

My jaw continues to stay open...

CNN Money headlines

UPDATE: GM Loses $15.5 Billion As Sales Plunge, Charges Mount

This is just Q2 loss - i.e. in a 3 month period. Is this funny money, is this real money. Can we make sense of WT$ this means to a lay man.

How does a company send this information out, lose "investor confidence" but talk about "putting this behind us". How many layers of funny talk and magic financial numbers are we hiding behind.

Forget GM shareholders --- what does this mean to the auto industry in the country?

This is not just GM though, we saw almost all the big financial institutions do this and continue to do this. What needs to happen before there is a outcry for clarity and simplicity in messaging?

Mysteries of Pittsburgh

I am visiting Pittsburgh this week on business. I was uninformed and sadly had prejudged this city. I thought the only thing that was noteworthy about Pittsburgh was the fact that it is the Steeler's town.

This is a really cool city. I have the pleasure of a pitt native guide me through the city and i am really seeing it in a different light. Here are some neat facts about Pittsburgh.

• Pittsburgh turns 250 years old this year.
  
• The Cathedral of Learning - the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh is a remarkable building.

Standing at 535 feet (>163 m)^[4], the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the western hemisphere and the second tallest educational building in the world. (Moscow State University's main building in Russia is the tallest.)

• Pittsburgh has the second most funiculars (active and inactive) of any state or province in the world (Valparaíso Chile has the first)

I am sure there are many more things cool about this city - I am just starting to scratch the surface :-). Yes, the title is a nod to michael chabon.

Success..Success..Success... what next?

If you are Pixar --- you freak out and decide to shake things up. That will turn out to be the best darn thing you could have possibly done.

I just read a McKinsey Quarterly article on innovation (thanks boss :)). It was an interview with Pixar's director Brad Bird. In this Brad talks about how Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter came to him because they were afraid. They were coming of 3 huge movie wins in Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2. They were clearly the best animation movie studio in the world and 3 continuous wins to prove it. So what was their reaction?

They were afraid of complacency and sought Brad Bird. Brad's latest venture "The Iron Giant" had received critical reviews but was a financial flop. An unorthodox move at the very least :-) so what do you think happened.

Incredibles - Oscar
Ratatouille - Oscar

Some great quotes in this article but the gist of it seems to be locating, encouraging and harnessing the power of the "black sheep" within your company. Brad defines black sheeps as restless contributors with unconventional ideas.

Who are your black sheeps?

Change is typically met with resistance - PSA

(from my inbox)

Thank you for signing up to "opt out" from getting telephone books at www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org.

A quick update on what is going on in the Yellow Page industry and their resistance to changing their behavior. The following is an excerpt from one of the Yellow Pages leading advocates to help fight anything anti-Yellow Pages:

Time to fight back!!! "Contrary to what you may be hearing and reading, the print Yellow Pages are NOT dead. Far from it. It’s time for the 50,000+ people who make their living from this industry — publishers, agencies, and suppliers, to start to fight back. Now."

www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is a grass roots organization that can use your help to combat the 50,000+ group of people that don’t understand the issue. As we have stated previously, we are not against the telephone book, rather the unsolicited delivery of its many versions on our doorsteps without our permission.

Please send out our link www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org to as many people as possible. The "opt out" request is growing monthly, and the way to change the world for the better is growing rapidly.

Thanks for your help!

YPGG Organization

Ask yourself "why" before you do something

1. if you are going to record a short video -- Believe in your message
2. if you are going to record a short video -- stitch it together from beginning to end with a good story.
3. if you are going to record a short video just for the sake of putting up a video - it will show.

Gartner video telling you why YOU should attend the BPM summit this fall - http://www.gartner.com/it/summits/611409/video/index.html

Fascinating to read but why?...

Swimming the Amazon: 3,274 Miles on the World’s Deadliest River

Amazon book link

Btw the same gentleman has also conquered the Danube, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze. In 1997, he became the first to swim non-stop from Africa to Europe, and he did it in 29 hours, 36 minutes, and 57 seconds… without a wetsuit. WTF? Seven swimmers had attempted it before and all had failed.

Reality check - a pilot's blog

I was led to Patrick Smith's blog - courtesy Brad Feld. Patrick is an airline pilot who shares his view of the world and specifically the atrocity that is TSA + DHS + Airline industry. I would encourage people to read his blog to get a better all round perspective. Below for instance is a quote that Patrick used to address the misconception that pilots are overpaid, underworked and live lives of ease.

I think of my friend Chris, age 29, who flies for US Airways Express. He is away from home 21 days every month and earns $18,000 a year, with $100,000 in student loans and flight training debt hanging over him. And yet, each time he walks down the concourse, no doubt there are people who eye him with a sneer. Just another overpaid pilot putting in his 20 hours.

-amar

links from kottke day

• Swimming holes in central texas.
• Understanding the work behind mundane things (magazine layout).

The ability to change the world is not in your title

Blogs, blogs and more blogs

This page contains a list of official us government blogs. Interesting blogs include

• EPA's National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information – EPA's online discussion about identifying and sharing the best resources, tools, and ideas for improving access to EPA's environmental information.
• Health Marketing Musings – A blog about research, science, and practice in health marketing and communication, social marketing, information technology, public health partnerships, and more with Jay Bernhardt, Director of CDC's National Center for Health Marketing.
• NASA Goddard CIO Blog – NASA Goddard CIO, Linda Y. Cureton, blogs about technology, leadership, and being a Chief Information Officer.
• Pushing Back – Office of National Drug Control Policy blog to educate Americans about illegal drugs and the latest international, federal, state, and local efforts to reduce drug use (i like the name :-))
  

Gas saving tips

I am not big into 12 step programs. If I cannot remember it of the top of my head, I have trouble changing my behavior. So here are the 4 things I am doing differently to save gas by increasing the fuel economy of our vehicles. YMMV

• Keep your engine below 3000 rpms. This typically translates to drive on or below speed limit. I rarely exceed 65mph these days. It is yet to make me late to an appointment btw :-)
• Use cruise control as often as possible. Your vehicle is a lot more efficient at moderating gas usage than you ever will be so cruise control is your friend.
• Avoid braking hard. Anticipate stops and watch out for red lights and slow down proactively. Hard breaking burns a lot of fuel.
• Try to group your errands together. Cold starting your engine (been over 3hrs since you last drove the car) consumes twice as much fuel as if your engine was running recently. This might not be a big deal for us in Texas heat but nonetheless a good bit of advice to keep in mind.

Good luck :)

I have to make it official

I am a Celtics fan. I did think I was rooting for the Lakers in the finals but a couple of things made me realize who I am truly rooting for

1. Sports Guy for the Celtics. The Lakers don't have a Sports Guy, they have a bunch of gucci totting spectators (spectators not fans).
2. Curt Schilling's blog observations on Kobe's leadership.
3. Kobe's leadership. Seriously watch him - this man has one thing in mind - it is all about 24.
   
4. Celtics team play - way cool .... watch how they hung around Ray Allen till he started to take of in the last round, watch how Sam Cassell got the bench fired up for game 4 (he is stinking on everything else btw), watch how they make eye contact.

Statistics are not truths, they are pithy descriptions of the past. So the fact that no team has ever won after being down 1-3 in the finals does not mean it won't happen. It just means it is really really really hard for it to happen.

I want the Celtics to win. I was rooting for the Lakers because they beat the Spurs. I live in Texas and if anything I am a Suns fan (stupid me), i know complicated logic.

I just had to take a public stance for my own integrity. Kobe is way too self absorbed imo and i just don't see how I can root for his team. He might be the most talented player in the league right now (not PER, raw talent) but boy is he a d$%^&bag. Anyways :-) I hope the Celts make it.

p.s thanks Sports guy.

Obama announces his director of economic policy

• About him

Get to know him.

1. Slate article from April 4th
2. Debate on the stimulus package.
3. Other interactions on mankiw's blog.
   

What AA could have done better yesterday

Kim and I were flying out of Chicago yesterday. Kim was returning to Austin while I was going to Pittsburgh for a day and then to Austin on Monday (tonight). Here are the facts:

• Kim's Austin flight was cancelled and she was automatically booked on an 8am flight for Monday. I had to repeatedly hit '0' till I could talk to some one real. I was then able to book Kim on a 9:45pm flight out of Chicago (Sunday night). They had no answer to why this was not offered as an initial choice.
• My flight to Pittsburgh showed up as being on time.

This is what transpired through the evening:

• By the time I got to O'Hare (for my 4:15 departure), the crowd had grown. Flights had been cancelled initially due to weather and the domino effect was building up exponentially.
  
• I checked in my bag.
• My flight was rescheduled three times and was eventually canceled.
• My bag was going to Pittsburgh whether I was or not.
• I got in a line with ~200 people in front of me, called AA advantage desk and was put on hold for 15 mins (the line moved 3 people).
• Finally I got a person who explained to me that the earliest they could get me into Pittsburgh was Tuesday. My meeting was for Monday so I asked to be booked on the same flight as Kim which was now moved to 10:40PM. They were able to do that.
• Kim showed up at O'Hare. We got on the flight, which finally departed at 11:45 and we made it into Austin around 2:30AM.

This is what AA could have done better - remember O'Hare is AA's hub so if they have the most resources in any airport in the country, it is at O'Hare.

• Red phone lines are good. AA set up red phones with direct access to AA help line. But 3 to 8 lines is a joke when you have 2000 stranded passengers. You are only going to create chaos, confusion and feed the rage.
• Buy free wifi for a day for the whole freaking airport. Chicago has boingo providing WiFi but you have to pay 7$ for a day pass. AA should have opened free wifi access so people can start connecting with the outside world quickly.
• I called the AA Advantage help line and got an automated voice recognition system. I kept repeating "Operator Assistance" and it kept telling me "I understand you would like to talk to someone, have you considered the automated options". Seriously ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? I am in line with a gentleman who is flying international and he has to hit 4 countries in 5 days and you have screwed his schedule royally, the least you can do is allow him to talk to someone. Especially since the automated options HAVE NO OPTION FOR CANCELLED FLIGHTS.
• Set up drink and snack stations. Not saying cater gourmet food but realize that O'Hare has not meaningful food/drink options unless you go through the security check. You have 1000's of people standing in line outside waiting to get re booked BECAUSE OF YOU (weather but from their pov - YOU!). At least have some quick healthy snacks and bottled water around to help people calm down.
• Learn from your mistakes. This is the fourth or fifth time this is happening on a massive scale this year. Why is there no improvement in how AA responds to these situations? Weather is going to be a #$%#$, get used to it. But you can at least work harder on your response plan.
• Prioritize - I would have gladly let the gentleman trying to make 4 countries in 5 days ahead of me but you should help him get there. There is no way he is going to verbally make his case to 250 people and get in the front of the line.
• Deal with emergencies - I saw no paramedics on post or people monitoring for emergency situations. What if someone went into labour, what if an elderly person got into serious distress. What if 4 of these scenarios happened simultaneously across the airport. There did not seem to be a plan in place...

This is just the top of my head. I am sure Weather is an unpredictable factor for any airline but there is only so much you can blame on weather.

Oh btw AA, nice knowing you. I am definitely jumping on the Herb Kelleher bandwagon. Adios.
(I still want my bag back btw).

A biker's nightmare

Stupid drunk drivers. Seriously, what a shame and what a waste of life. Click on the image for the story.

Product Management: Thought exercise

If you were to product manage this, what would you dream about?

Are you a product manager - do you have this trait?

Through a pretty winding (web) road I came upon this blog post. The title says it all - "Strong opinions, Weakly held". I think that is my personality by default. The strong may be replaced with passion in my case :-) Often times in the past I have encountered people who were annoyed with the fact that I changed my opinions. It took me a while to understand that this is not a common operating model for a lot of people.

I would hypothesize that this is a pretty key personality trait if you want to succeed as a product manager. If you do not have passion or strength behind your opinions then your endeavors will fail at the first speed bump you encounter. On the other hand if you do not have the humility and courage to hold on to them weakly, you will find yourself leading battles not because you are fighting for the right cause but instead you are fighting because you want to be right. A big difference :-).

p.s In a lot of instances, people were annoyed with me for the right reasons but i am getting better ;-)

Two sides to every coin

1. Walmart puts the squeeze on suppliers. Times are really hard if you are predominately a WalMart dependent supplier but the article ends with the note that if WalMart did not focus on driving prices down so efficiently, a lot of our population would find basic necessities too expensive.
   
2. One of my colleagues at work was complaining about the cost of filling up his truck and exploring alternatives. Few days later he was thinking of opening a trading account so he could profit from the fuel price madness. :-) (and yes he continues to complain about the fuel cost...)
   

Just a thought : in a global economy there are no simple answers and there are no one size fits all answers. Your pain is very context sensitive and hopefully your context is aligned with the interests of several others.

A brief history lesson

I was listening to NPR in the car and I heard this interview with Frank Buckles. Frank is the last known living American world war I veteran. I wonder what it must feel like to be him, 107 years old and being interviewed because he is the last American left, who was part of the 1st great war. We need a new word for this.

Gmail -- 4 years and counting

I went digging into my gmail account and realized that I got my original "welcome to gmail" email on May 18th 2004. It has been 4+ years and it went by FAST!! The only other email program I recall giving me as much joy for such an extended length of time was pine. That was when i went from never having an email account to my first encounter with the wonders of email. All the other programs I have encountered in-between and since including Notes, Outlook, Yahoo, Hotmail, Zimbra, Mail(mac)have not been memorable. Wonder why?

Here is to the next decade of gmail innovations! :)

Serving too many Gods

This is my second "inspired by Jeff Lash" post :-). Jeff recently blogged about -> "Deliver customer value, not product features" which I think should be gospel for a product manager. Incidentally making this simple statement ring true is the most rewarding as well as the most challenging part of product management.

In my personal experience, one of the challenges with living up to this goal is the desire to please too many masters. As a product manager, you are in the middle of a lot of information flow and will get G2/request/demand/threats/requirements/... from a lot of sources. Accept them with gratitude, treat them with respect, process them appropriately but remember that your allegiance and goal is to delight the customer while solving the customer's problem and not to put the other stakeholder's product needs ahead of the customer. Your company expects this of you.


I leave you with this hasty diagram :-)



Happy customer picture is the property of Dan Taylor and is being used here thanks to his Creative Commons license. Thanks Dan!

Don't peek into the kitchen of your favourite restaurant

I have always heard that said to indicate the fact that once you see first hand how things are made, you are most likely to lose your enjoyment of "the thing" going forward. This is true for your favourite restaurant dish as it is for your favourite magic trick.

Not that I enjoy the current state of the English curriculum adopted by the Texas public schools, but this sound bite does not install confidence in our public school system.

Can rational actions lead to irrational thinking

This is an actual headline from a London news web site.

European Court agrees to hear chimp's plea for human rights

This is just plain crazy at so many levels. It indicates a substantial break down of our world view when we agree to entertain the debate that animals are humans. This is absurd but intriguing since this is the natural conclusion of a world view that accepts macro and micro evolution as tautologies even though only micro evolution can be scientifically proven.

Does this mean that I can claim social security for a chimp that is my pet?

Should I be very afraid?

Below is the full post from Greg Mankiw's blog.

Monday, May 19, 2008

The Coming Tax Hike

CBO writes to Congressman Paul Ryan:

Under current law, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to rise substantially as a share of the economy....In response to your letter of May 15, 2008, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has prepared the attached analysis of the potential economic effects of...using higher income tax rates alone to finance the increases in spending....

With no economic feedbacks taken into account and under an assumption that raising marginal tax rates was the only mechanism used to balance the budget, tax rates would have to more than double. The tax rate for the lowest tax bracket would have to be increased from 10 percent to 25 percent; the tax rate on incomes in the current 25 percent bracket would have to be increased to 63 percent; and the tax rate of the highest bracket would have to be raised from 35 percent to 88 percent. The top corporate income tax rate would also increase from 35 percent to 88 percent.

Such tax rates would significantly reduce economic activity and would create serious problems with tax avoidance and tax evasion.

Book recommendation

"The Protean Corporation" by Michael S Malone to be published by Random House. I found out about this when I read an opinion piece on the WSJ today. It was a good read :)

Ideas can sometimes resemble an itch that you want to scratch but cannot locate. That is, until an author comes along and pins it for you and you go Ah hah! that is exactly what I am thinking about. This opinion piece did that for me. Below is a excerpt and the link.

This higher level of anarchy will be exciting, but it will also sometimes be very painful. Entire industries will die almost overnight, laying off thousands, while others will just as suddenly appear, hungry for employees. Continuity and predictability will become the rarest of commodities. And if the entrepreneurial personality honors smart failures, by the same token it has little pity for weakness. That fraction of Americans – 10%, 20% – who still dream of the gold watch or the 30-year pin will suffer the most . . . and unless their needs are somehow met as well, they will remain a perpetually open wound in our society.

Scary, exciting, liberating, frustrating, infinitely ambitious and thoroughly amnesic. If you live in a high-tech community like Silicon Valley or Redmond or Austin, you already live in this world. It's hard to imagine more exciting places to be.

I live in Austin and though it is not quite the valley it is a fast changing landscape :) not necessarily for the faint of heart. Link to WSJ article.

Freak weather in Austin

Temperatures were unusually high over the past few days. Today we had a true to God thunderstorm in the middle of the day along with unusually large hail (my wife says this is the largest she has seen). Here are some pics courtesy my wife :-)

Product Management: Art + Science + Intuition.

Jeff Lash's recent post caught my attention :-) [Stop gathering requirements:link]. I guess the title is meant to be provocative and attention grabbing (it worked :) . I agree with most of what Jeff says - I would like to clarify it further.

I would amend the title to say "Do not stop with gathering requirements". Gathering requirements is just the first step, the science part. The subsequent steps are where the art and the intuition factor in. The job of the product manager is to collaborate with the other teams (engineering, services, support, docs, etc.) and try to flush out the true customer market need that is buried within those requirements. Sometimes it means extrapolating (customer is not seeing their own problem), and other times it means pruning (customer is treating multiple symptoms instead of one cause).

To me it translates to the following guidelines:

1. Always listen to the customer but the customer is not always right: Do not ever make stuff up. A product manager has accountability across the organization so the sooner you get into the habit of not making stuff up the better.


2. Look for clusters and patterns: This is the art and intuition part. Your job is grok the market. You do that by meeting with customers one at a time but you do not solve an individual customer's problem, you solve the markets problems. Look for patterns, this is where intuition plays a big role. Learn to listen to your own intuition and trust it.
   


3. Collaborate and Communicate: Take the time to earn the respect and trust of your peers and the market, do not assume it comes with the title. The quickest way to get there is to listen and ask others who might know better. For instance you think your product needs better user profile management. A good way to validate this is to ask your support team how many of their customer interactions are around password management and address book management.


4. Do not be afraid of failure: A good product manager focuses on making sure the product being developed is a best-fit for the market needs. This will automatically ensure your individual success but the corollary is not always true.

This is my current mantra and what I call "Evidence based product management".

Caveats:
1. Assumes you are not a brand new start up. If you are one with no customers, then your only guideline is "market research - build - release". Keep doing this till you have enough customers and can extend the hyphen between the three stages.

If you don't think this is beautiful there is something wrong with you

Time she keeps on ticking...

So here is what is going on.

1. Pretty psyched about this development - We are having our first ProductCamp event in Austin. It is going to be at the St. Edwards campus mid June. Follow this link for details. Seriously recommend this if you are into product management, product marketing or interested in these areas. This is the first of its kind in Austin so you have the opportunity to influence and be involved no matter what your experience level. Show up! and make it happen :-)
2. Yesterday was RSS awareness day. I think it is worth a shout.
   
3. Sometimes all that is required for big observable change is a lot of thinking and researching, not a lot of doing. (Something that all product managers would benefit from remembering)
   
1. Proof - 37signals blog post.
2. Anti-proof - Joel Spolsky blog post.
4. My broken collar bone is healing well. I started hitting the stationary bike at the gym this week. I cannot sprint standing up yet but just getting back on the bike has been rewarding.
   

What have I been upto?

This --> And occupying our time this week...

First near opera experience

My wife and I got to enjoy Kathleen Battle perform last night at the newly constructed Long center for the performing arts . Wow! This is my first such show and the closest I have been to an Opera in my life.

Kathleen Battle was amazing! she moved with incredible ease from English to German to French to Spanish and finished with English again.

Now that was a Diva worth watching and listening :) nay feasting on. I seriously encourage you guys to check out upcoming shows at the Long center. It looks like Austin is going to be enjoying some great performances. We are excited about Yo-Yo Ma performing here in September.

Thanks to Yobany and Denise for giving us this very special evening.

Btw, if you want to know more about the acoustical design at the Long center, check out this link.

Austin to Bastrop and back

I upped my PR this past Saturday. I managed to finish a 95 mile ride on Saturday, thanks to Nathan, Drew and Andy :-) No I am serious, this is not an Oscar thank you list, this is a biker thank you list.

I hope to finish strong on my MS150 ride next weekend.


(photo credit: flickr + creative common license)

Austin and commuter rails

Even though I really have nobody to visit in Leander, I see myself going there multiple times through 2008 just to ride these guys :-). They look very cool! let us see what the ride is like.

Multiple Sclerosis - Will you help me fight for the cure?

What is it?
Multiple sclerosis (or MS) is a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system (CNS), which is made up of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves

Who does it affect?
2-3x more women than men. (More info. below).

What is the prevalence?
400,000 in the US. Increasing at the rate of 28/day (just in the US). 2.5 million world wide.

Can I help?
I am glad you asked :-). You can help by supporting me in my attempt to bike from Houston to Austin on the 12th of April 2008. My goal is to raise 500$ to donate to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

Why are you doing this?
It started out as a desire to get healthy and find a way to stay healthy. One conversation led to another and soon I had registered to ride the MS150 along with a few other friends. I am new to biking (my first ride on a ride bike was in late 2007) but I am enjoying the learning process and the adventure of attempting... something this ambitious for a beginner like me.
It is a privilege that through all my muddled attempts at riding I have the opportunity to raise support for fight against multiple sclerosis. So to answer the question, I am doing this because I have the opportunity to help and because it is a good thing to do.

Great, what next?
If you are interested and would like to help me meet my goal please follow the instructions below.

1. Remember all donations are tax deductible.
2. No amount is too little or too much, I am grateful for your support so please give as you please.
3. You can either pay directly by clicking here. (I recommend this approach)
   
4. or you can send me a cheque (leave me a comment and I will send you the address details).

I want to know more about MS?
Here are some good places to start

• The National Multiple Sclerosis society site.
• The MS Wikipedia page.
• The MS150 Houston to Austin ride site.
• Squidoo's highest ranked lens on MS
  

Random tidbits

• The ride is a total of 175 miles, 100 miles on day 1 and 75 miles on day 2.
• I will be riding with 4-6 other close friends. some of them are veteran bikers and I am the noob, we will see how long I can hang with the pack :-)
• I began biking very recently (couple months back), so my goal is to ride well enough to finish the ride. Anything better than that the beer is on me ;-).

Finally, thank you for the taking the time to read this blog post. MS is but one of several chronic and debilitating diseases that affect individuals and their families. I appreciate your time and intention is understanding more about this problem.

Sincerely,
amar

UT establishes the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism

BB&T donated to UT, 2million and solidified the research of objectivism for the next 10 years.

Objectivism is the term coined by Ayn Rand for her philosophy and the following is a summary in her own words.
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

It does sound great and you cannot help but root for John Galt or Howard Roark. But in reality living with "his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life" as the moral principle is a exercise in futility (based on my limited attempt of it). Let us see what UT concludes after 10 years of researching this and 2+ million dollars.

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck would chuck wood?

How many jobs can a job search company generate if a job search company could generate jobs?

I have friends and acquaintances who are in job search mode. As I try to help them I cannot have any reaction but confusion when I see the choices out there,

1. jobster.com -- Find your dream job.
2. indeed.com -- one search, all jobs.
3. linkedin.com -- Discover job & business opportunities
4. bluechipexpert.com -- the premier talent source.
5. theladders - the most 100K+ jobs
   
6. monster.com -- make your move
7. careerbuilder.com -- [.nothing.]
8. simplyhired.com -- job search made simple.
9. (update) Doostang.com -- where talent lives
   

I think the only thing that stands out from the others here is theladders. I also like indeed since it is the best aggregator out there but seriously....

So what again? Some of these have pyramid schemes of reward ala amway some think you can do everything from cook in France to manage the books for lulu. Is there any differentiation here?

Should management styles be based on best practices?

This title from wired says it all - "How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong"

It's hard to see how any of this would have happened had Jobs hewed to the standard touchy-feely philosophies of Silicon Valley. Apple creates must-have products the old-fashioned way: by locking the doors and sweating and bleeding until something emerges perfectly formed. It's hard to see the Mac OS and the iPhone coming out of the same design-by-committee process that produced Microsoft Vista or Dell's Pocket DJ music player. Likewise, had Apple opened its iTunes-iPod juggernaut to outside developers, the company would have risked turning its uniquely integrated service into a hodgepodge of independent applications — kind of like the rest of the Internet, come to think of it.

(Emphasis mine) This paragraph reminded me of an earlier post of mine.

This is a very light read but talks about an interesting situation in the valley. Apple's success in the market implies that while there might be a high correlation between egalitarian management, operating styles and success it not the only or guaranteed route to success.

Job openings

My company is looking for a unix systems administrator and two web developers. All of the readers of this blog know what I think about my company - it is obviously not perfect (btw no company is) but overall it is really good in terms of culture, acting with integrity and placing focus on the right areas. If you know of any one interested do let me know :-)

Job descriptions:
Web Developer
Unix SysAd

Bait and Switch?

I was intrigued when I read on kottke about a TED talk by neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor. The talk looked promising when Dr Taylor used a real human brain as prop to explain left and right hemisphere functions. But soon the talk devolved into phrases like "my spirit felt like a genie liberated from the bottle", "great white whale swimming in the silent ocean...", "nirvana, if I can attain it, everybody can".

Yeah, not what I had in mind when I heard one of the leading neuroanatomists from Harvard was going to explain brain function to me. She got a standing ovation from the crowd and is widely considered as one of the best talks at TED. I applaud her courage and strength in coming back from a stroke but I am not sure her talk was meaningful or useful. I expected to hear more science and facts instead I got perceptions and almost a new age religion pitch.

Non linear improvements can look very different at first glance :-)

Cool project being tested in India. Key phrase for me is,

Question Boxes leap over illiteracy, computer illiteracy, lack of networks, and language barriers.

check it out.

Do we need to market the value of education?

Below is a link that takes you to a blog post with 7 different videos shot using cell phones. All of these are videos shot by high school students mostly without their teachers knowledge. It left me numb. The utter callousness, disrespect and lack of value for education these kids display is very frightening.

I don't know what the panacea is, I do know it is not simple and I do believe it begins at home :).

-> Link
Hat Tip: Seth Godin

Cool visualization software

hat tip -> ReadWriteWeb

Is your job related to retail?

Then you need to add this blog to your rss reader : link
This is a blog authored by multiple buyers who all work for Walmart.

Thanks to Corbett

I biked 50 miles yesterday :) Woo Hoo! my longest ride to date. Corbett helped me finish! Thanks man.

Publications I am currently reading...

1. Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman
   
2. Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
3. The Bible (NASB) by :-)
   
4. Six Days of War by Michael B.Oren
5. The New Yorker
   
6. The National Geographic.

Just Finished

1. With the Old Breed by E.B.Sledge
2. The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
3. The Jewish War by Josephus

Quotable - Warren Buffet

Complete interview here

Austin:

Have there been instances in your career where you have been tempted to deviate from your strategy and if so, how did you handle that?

Buffett:

I’m not that type. I’m not disciplined. I just naturally want to do things that make sense. In my personal life too, I don’t care what other rich people are doing. I don’t want a 405 foot boat just because someone else has a 400 foot boat. Some of my friends have big boats where 55 people are serving 14. Of those 55, some will be stealing from you, some will be sleeping with each other, and I just don’t want to deal with that. My friends have the boats, so I’m the ultimate freeloader. I don’t need multiple houses. If I wanted to do something wild & crazy I could do it, but Anna Nicole Smith is gone. Reminds me of the story of the 60 year old man that got a 25 year old to marry him. When his friends asked how he did it, he replied, “I told her I was 90.”

Emory:

At the Wesco annual meeting last year, Charlie said, "The best way to get success is to deserve success". Do you recall anything from your experience which best demonstrates how you were able to position yourself to deserve success, and do you have any advice for students on how they can position themselves to deserve success as well?

Buffett:

Behaving decent is a large part of it. Out of school I offered to work for Graham for free and he said I was overpriced. I tried to be useful and visible to him. I gave him stock tips and kept up with him. Almost always good things come from good behavior. Don’t keep score in life. Tom Murphy does not keep score. He keeps doing 20 things for me and I can only hope to return the favor. Keeping score is terrible in marriage and terrible in business. I put myself in the seller’s shoes. With most humans there is a great desire to reciprocate. If you do something for them, they will do 2X for you. How rare is it to work during lunch hours and be the first one there in the morning. You’ll get noticed if you do something extra. It’s good to have a willingness to pitch in when you aren’t going to get credit for it. Charlie and I partnered up in 1959. We always both think we’re right. We disagree but we’ve never fought. And we’ve never held past mistakes over each other’s heads. I recommend reading “Poor Charlie’s Almanack”. It’s amazing, has sold 50,000 copies and it’s still sold independently.

Emory:

What do you think of aggregate infrastructure investment to stimulate the economy?

Buffett:

I think the best way to stimulate the economy is to give money to the poor. They will spend it. Don’t give it to guys like me. Infrastructure investment makes sense, but we haven’t done it in a while and it won’t do anything for the next 6-12 months. Infrastructure is not big relative to GDP. We are a consumer-driven society, spending 106% of production.

Pushing the limites of packaging - Bizzare

Hat tips: article source, picture source

Product Management and Product Design

This is something I have been mulling over for a little while now.
My company's product management is organized in a classic pragmatic marketing model. This is great! I am serious, i continue to hear horror stories from friends about companies where product management is either in sales, engineering or marketing and thus is subverted for that functional need instead of operating strategically. So I do deeply appreciate my situation.

The only flaw imo in the pragmatic model is that it does not seem to highlight the amount of messiness and collaboration required to design and deliver a good product.

You have vertically focused product managers, technical product managers, product marketing managers, product architects and usability engineers(designers?). These are typical roles that you see in most software companies. The challenge is that none of these roles are responsible for product design. Architects lay out the architecture (duh!), marketing managers lay out the buying process and competitive info, technical product managers drive requirements to engineering and vertical product managers identify market problems and prioritize them. Out of all this information arises a "product" once, twice or 8 times a year... The problem is, a collection of these requirements does not a product design make!

That is like saying an elephant was designed from the need to
a. create a mammal
b. that is a herbivore
c. weighs xx tons
d. has a life span of zz years
e. will occupy a volume of ccc cubic inches and
f. have unique features that permit it to use suction to draw water and dig through roots.

blah blah blah you get it. These requirements above do not capture the zeitgeist of an elephant. So for now I am hoping to design a product intentionally instead of as a side effect. I will let you know how it turns out.

Product Management and market problems

Lunch conversation excerpt:
me: woah.... that is un-freaking believable.
A: You think as a product manager you have an idea of what a product/market problem looks like and then you hear about something like this.
C: Yup it is absolutely true. The chair manufacturers are dealing with this specific problem in casinos.

(C used to be a product manager for a company whose target market is casinos)

So what is the problem -> It turns out that "customers" tend to get so into the games they are playing that they often refuse to get up to use the restrooms. Thus casinos are constantly finding themselves with soiled chairs at the end of the day.

Hrmm I wonder if these customers are wondering if they have a teeny-weeny addiction problem.

The problems of the future - Youtube's board discusses Pakistani politics.

Youtube recently had a global site outage. According to Youtube this is because of an ISP based in Pakistan. Politics aside, what happened here is that the government wanted the ISP to block access to Youtube and it sounds like the ISP took a sledgehammer to tap in a nail.

Here is another way to look at it, if the Pakistani government wanted to block access to Victoria's Secret catalogs to its mass population, it is easy to do. Locate all points of entry and destroy the printed material. Unfortunately restricting access to Youtube is a bit trickier, routing protocols are smarter than the 20 words used to describe them in Wired.
My point being, I think we are going to see a lot more of this in the future. The good news is that clumsy attempts on information restriction will now be globally noticed, the bad news is that in many cases (like this one) the effects will also be globally felt.

Btw, I heard on NPR this morning that Taliban has given cell phone companies three days to turn of their cell towers at night (to prevent US troops from tracking them through their cell phone usage) . After three days they plan on blowing up cell phone towers that operate through the night.

Welcome to the era where the CEO and technology companies have to discuss terrorist demands in their board meetings. This was inevitable as technology kept moving towards becoming an indispensable commodity like energy. Well it is here now... enjoy

Health Care - Perceptions - Contd...

More health care news from California. Health Net, Inc was ordered by a judge to pay 9 million dollars to the defendant. It turns out that she had lied to them about prior conditions and her weight but their timing was beyond pathetic. They apparently rescinded the woman's policy when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Seriously! are you people Nuts!

Either health care companies do not have PR folks or their PR people lack common sense.

Paging Trading Spaces

Move over Amy Devers, my wife has you in her scope :-). Ladies and gentlemen this is my wife's latest pursuit of her passion and it is freaking good! if I may say so myself. We got some serious talent in the house people and it is not me.

Great job babe!

p.s "paging" trading spaces... get it?

To our Mc Friends

This is a honest to goodness patent approved by the uspto. It is titled " Method of exercising a cat". I think you guys should patent the method of exercising a dog using fairies before some one else does.

Link spam

A vc pitch for a company that makes undershirts targeted at VC's.

Love free market trends!!

The Next President: Update

from Greg Mankiw's Blog by Greg Mankiw

From the market at Intrade, here are the probabilities as of this morning:
P(Obama) = 0.54
P(McCain) = 0.35
P(Clinton) = 0.11

Go here for more on Intrade.

Improvements to the world must be highly contextualized

I saw a wonderful video (TED talks) presented by Dr Hans Rosling. Dr Rosling is well known for his unique approach to data visualization. I highly recommend this video.
While it certainly is educational in its core area of poverty, what was truly inspiring to me was how it made me question my assumptions.

At one point in the video Dr Rosling says the challenge he was facing with his students was not "ignorance" but rather "prejudice". This truth applies irrespective of what you do in your life.

Watch this video, it is worth your time :-)

My family just got a little closer

Welcome back Aswin :-) You went from point A to point B faster than I could comprehend. Glad you are back here.

Thought

I see the upcoming Android roadmap as a reality test between two product development/design philosophies.



a. It is important to NOT design by committee and have firm and clear control over the product's form, function and usability. Listen to the market but deliver via a vision. More crudely stated = "Always Listen to the customer but the customer is not always right"







b. Open source philosophies can translate to product design as well as development. I see Android as an example of both form and function going through consensus as opposed to a single point of control/vision. More crudely stated = "Let the market define, design and develop what they want".


I am eager to see where this goes.

Taking Risks

I was having lunch with Rick; one of our development managers (real name used so as to give credit where credit is due). He mentioned that one of his values is to encourage his team to embrace risks.

It was then I realized that I actually was in an organization which was not hypocritical. I had gotten used to working for people/companies which liked the buzz word of "smart risks" but did not quite understand what taking a risk means. In my past experience I was encouraged to take risks as long as we did not lose money, lose a sale or have a bad launch. ummmm hello :-) ...

Anyway, thanks Rick and woot! me that I work in an otufit which so far is rocking hard. I am looking forward to creating products which change lives and delight our market. Anything less is not good enough.

Ouch! perception is reality?

The title of this article indicates strong emotions -> "Doctors Outraged at Blue Cross Request". Even accounting for the fact that ABC.com might have a bias this is a disaster from the perspective of BCBS of California. What were they thinking?
My standing assumption is that managed health care started as an attempt to provide better health care to the majority of the population while bringing the transparency of an open market system to the process. It looks like the somewhere along way the way the second became more important than the first.
If this is not the case, then BCBS of Cali. better start doing some damage control or explain their intentions since this does not look good. I am not saying that their patients (or customers?) should get away with lying but the seemed to have dropped the ball in their search for a solution to the problem.

I am willing to give BCBS the benefit of the doubt, I am hoping that their initiative is to encourage their patients not to lie with them so they can do a better job of providing good care while keeping costs down. In either case they better clarify their motive before people start clarifying it for them.

Simple solutions that change the world

Came across this courtesy of Guy Kawasaki's blog. Beautiful :-) I am thinking of donating money to playpumps.

My alignment with the presidential hopefuls

My wife sent me this link to a poll that estimates how much my views align with a given presidential candidates. Thanks kim :-)

84% John McCain
81% Mitt Romney
74% Mike Huckabee
72% Rudy Giuliani
69% Fred Thompson
68% Tom Tancredo
58% Hillary Clinton
56% Ron Paul
56% Barack Obama
54% Bill Richardson
53% Chris Dodd
52% John Edwards
49% Joe Biden
30% Mike Gravel
29% Dennis Kucinich

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Quotable - CK Prahalad

Entrepreneurs should use Price - Profit = Design as their guiding principle rather than the shortage economy paradigm of Cost + Profit = Price. "Challenge and change the price performance equations. If we can satisfy 500 million (poor) customers in India by producing world-class quality, then that can become the biggest export opportunity in the world," Prahalad said.

N. Gopalaswami, India's chief election commissioner, spoke about entrepreneurship in government. "The biggest enterprise in India is maintaining democracy. Our elections, involving 700 million voters, are the single largest event management exercise in the world,"

From the article ->C.K. Prahalad: 'The Poor Deserve World-Class Products and Services'

Know your buyer's dream not just the need

It is important for a company to not just think of its customers as people who get what they paid for but instead as people who get "the story" they paid for. This story (via kim) is a great example of that.

From consumerist.com:

Ritzy Fifth Avenue jeweler Tiffany & Co. failed to ship Chris' grandfather a bracelet for his wife in time for Christmas. We expect a certain level of service from high-end stores, but Tiffany's extravagant amends caught us by surprise.

My grandfather ordered an engraved Tiffany silver bracelet as a surprise Christmas gift for my grandmother. He had custom engraving put on the bracelet, and had arranged for the bracelet to be delivered to my house about 2 weeks before Christmas. Two weeks after the order (when we should've received the bracelet), there was no bracelet. We gave it another week, and the my grandfather emailed Tiffany customer support. He received an automated response stating that because of the overwhelming Christmas rush, he needed to contact customer support via their 800 number. Of course, the 800 number was impossible to get through to also.

My grandfather, being the laid back man that he is, wasn't really angry, but he wanted to know what was going on with the bracelet. Tiffany customer service ended up calling him on the Friday before Christmas. As luck would have it, he was out fishing, and my grandmother talked to them, thus ruining the surprise. When he returned home, he was able to actually get through to the rep who called him earlier. She informed him that because of a Christmas rush they were not expecting, the bracelet would not be arriving before Christmas. To make up for the fact that they had ruined the surprise and would not be getting the bracelet to my grandfather before Christmas, they would be giving him the order FREE. He asked to clarify, asking if they just meant the shipping or the engraving free, but no, the ENTIRE COST of the order was FREE. Of course, he was blown away (after all, this is a $255 bracelet, plus the cost of engraving and shipping).

Tiffany ended up shipping the bracelet on Saturday, overnighting it to my house where I received it on Monday. There was no invoice or such in the box, so we were still wondering IF the bracelet was actually going to be free (with the final call coming from the credit card bill). Sure enough, when the credit card bill came that would've contained the charge, there was absolutely no charges from Tiffany.

So, it's nice to know that there are indeed some companies who want to keep their reputation that treat their customers well.

Sometimes you get the service you intended to pay for. For Tiffany, which stocks $210,000 bracelets, $255 isn't much to keep the customer happy and willing to consider larger purchases.

Good job Tiffany's.

History lessons from the family

My wife recently got a set of boxes containing stuff that belonged to her mom. As she was going through the contents she uncovered a couple of porcelain dolls of British soldiers. At the bottom they had the words "made in occupied Japan" printed on them. So I turned to the highly trusted Wikipedia as usual and found this ->

At the end of the Second World War, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers, led by the United States with contributions from Australia, India, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. This was the first time since the unification of Japan that the island nation had been occupied by a foreign power. The San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed on September 8, 1951, marked the end of the Allied occupation, and when it went into effect on April 28, 1952, Japan was once again an independent state.

I am fascinated by this. It was less than an average human life span ago (55 years ago) that Japan was considered an "occupied nation". India contributed towards the occupation of Japan. I never knew that there was a window between India's slavery and freedom where it helped with the occupation of another country. There is more thought provoking material here.

What struck me most was the fact that living in a time of accelerated rate-of-change makes us give disproportionate importance to our local history over the past. Reminds me of the quote that talks about "people who don't know history are doomed to repeat it".

I think there is a lot to be gained from slowing down, and looking back to where we came from and drawing deep breaths. Slow down grasshopper slow down.

note: picture above is not of the actual doll we own but similar.

First looks can be deceptive

On first glance this post reads like a damning indictment. On second thoughts it may be a second (most like 999999th) chance for the outlook team. The fact that this user,

1. Continues to use outlook in spite of 67 "known" issues :)
2. Takes the time and energy to document and detail the known issues.

tells me that he gets enough value out of outlook not to walk away in apathy (or might be the company standard, blah blah. I get it I cannot positively conclude that outlook is adding value from this).

My point is simply just that Outlook has done a good job of solving the base problem. It is time for it to catch up with the myriad of usability and interaction issues defined here.

In other words the original user persona defined for Outlook has changed over time and it is the product's responsibility to keep up.

From the you have got to be kidding me department

"I don't want people to get the wrong idea. It's not that we're starting a swinger club in mid-air or something like that," he added. "We're a perfectly normal holiday company."

Clearly they seem to have redefined what "perfectly normal " means. The entire article -> "Fly naked on Germany's first nudist holiday flight".

Slow boil kills the frog

Both of these are headlines from yesterday's news

A computer tape containing personal data of 650,000 customers of about 230 retailers including J.C. Penney Co is missing, credit card issuer GE Money said on Friday.

and

A laptop containing the personal details of 600,000 new and prospective military recruits has been stolen, the Ministry of Defense said Friday, the latest in a series of government blunders over data.

230 retailers... what does that mean? Should I switch over to cash only. WT$%$ ! I assume yesterday was a normal news day. Should I just assume that these kind of gaffe's are the norm in the modern world or should i be worried?

I admit, I do not get my credit report from Equifax/Experian/Transunion every 4 months. I guess I will have to start doing that. The worrying part here is that as the financial industry works its darnest to make every person use their birth right to credit card, it continues to exacerbate the worst case scenario. The credit card user who does not pay his/her monthly bills in full is most likely also the user who has no idea of the risks he is being exposed to.

Anyways rants aside. Any suggestion for practical solutions to this problem, should I be looking into something like "lifelock" or is one of those long term attitude adjustment problems?

--Update--
I came across this recommendation to apply for a credit freeze with the three major credit bureaus. I am looking into this and if it is not a major hassle, I might go ahead and do this. I urge you to do the same :-) and keep me posted on anything you might find as well.

How not to title your article

I saw this title pop up on google news reader recently,

Crash Landing Pilot John Coward Is a Hero

:-) it is hard to imagine that this was not intentional.

America's most wired cities

Forbes published their list of America's top 25 most wired cities. I kind of lost interest when their definition of measurement metric started to go past 75 words. All I wanted to say was that here is another example of my instincts failing me, I was surprised to see Austin did not crack this list.
Forbes most wired cities.

Quotable - Yossi Vardi

“We have become two countries: a high-tech one with few children and very high incomes, and a poor one with lots of kids,”

“Three major viral products emerged from this part of the world: the Bible 2,700 years ago, Jesus 2,000 years ago and ICQ ten years ago,” he jokes. Search for ICQ using Google and there are 675m matches, he points out, compared with 160m for the Bible and 178m for Jesus."

Context - At the age of 27 he was appointed director-general of Israel's development ministry and then held a similar job at the energy ministry. Later he led or helped to found some 60 companies such as Israel Chemicals, the Israel Oil Company and ITL Optronics. Then, in 1996, he invested in his first internet start-up, Mirabilis, the company behind ICQ.

“PowerPoint presentations damage your brain—if you look at too many, you become immoral,”

“Happiness is relative, the more successful the high-tech sector, the more frustrated and unhappy the rest of society could become.”

The whole article runs the length of page and is available at the economist web site. It is worth a read, to me it is a good reminder that success is a healthy dose of luck combined with backing your strength and individuality. IOW, the fact that his profile is so different from your typical "US Entrepreneur" profile gives me lot of hope.

Product Management lessons from watching Season III of Food Networks "Next Big Star"

I just finished watching the marathon new years special by Food Network. They aired the entire season of Food Networks "Next Big Star". I surprisingly got into it. Let me clarify, I am not a fan of reality shows, they seem phony, pretentious, and if anything "un"real to me. They seem as far removed from real life as can be except for the oxymoron categorization. The only reality show I have watched is Project Runway (thanks to my lovely wife) and the season finale of "The Biggest Loser" both Bravo shows. I think I got into "Next Big Star" because it was surprisingly real, and it is to date the most unpretentious and honest reality show that I have watched. I was trying capture the elements that gave it credibility and I think there is a good lesson in product management here.

• Be very clear on your product's core competency - Food Network's product is NOT recipes, NOT travel, NOT anything else. It is television and the way to measure that is audience size and ratings. Their integrity to their product was very compelling to me. This reality show was a clear means to an end -> the end being identify the next personality who will contribute to Food Networks ratings and differentiations vs other TV stations involving food. The contest itself helped with a temporary ratings boost I am sure but the contest was not the end. This is an important distinction to make, with "The Apprentice" for instance the contest is the end and that reeks of make-believe crap. This is why this reality TV is so much better than "Top Chef"(Top Chef of what!?! - this is like getting the "world's greatest dad" mug from your kid and there is no context.)
  

• Make-believe is insulting to end-users. Don't "make" something believable if you can deliver the real thing. I was impressed that the judges for the show were Food TV's Senior VP of Programming and Production and its VP of marketing. These are people whose job it is to grow the product. This made it "real" because in the real world it is exactly these people who would be making these decisions. They did not bring random celebrities to judge the competition or random celebrities to pretend like they understand the product.
  

• You (yes you reading this) are not your product's typical end user: I understand that it is impossible to be a product manager unless you can abstract to some extent but there always will be differences in opinion amongst your user base on all aspects of the product. Accept it, learn from it, and most importantly grow your product through it. This point was struck home for me when I found myself thinking how unbelievably stupid the judges were being in eliminating Amy and retaining Jag and Rory. I was pissed! but thinking on why I was getting so pissed was what led to this point.
  

• Be prepared to be flexible: The judges thought they had picked the best two contestants for the finale (Jag and Rory). Jag was eliminated since he had fabricated history and so it was Rory vs Amy and Amy won. *knock knock* - man these guys are lucky. Americans picked the contestant they had previously eliminated (further confirming my instincts *grin*). Of course hindsight is 50/50 but my point here is that they responded to Jag's revelations admirably and ended up doing a better job than if there had been no bump in the road.
  

Any ways :-) I enjoyed this a lot. Happy 2008 to you and all your loved ones.