Cowboys in Manhattan

Impossible is not the same as never been done before

1. This is great marketing for NorthFace. This is NorthFace doing to running and life/motivating/fitness/inspiration what DeBeers did to Diamonds and Engagement/Marriage/Romance
   
2. But it is still very much real and very powerful in its message. Is every man a Dean? No!, But is it good for the country if people watch less TV and do more running, you bet it is.
3. What do you do if meet your goal of a 50x50x50. Running 50 marathons in 50 states in 50 days, you run a marathon backward, then what? You decide to run from NYC to SF. This is the story of Dean Karnazes.
   

Blog link here.

Kia Austin commercial - 2

What is going on with Capitol Kia in Austin. It has that commercial featuring Bill Dickason. I blogged about it earlier here. Last night, Kim and I saw their ad again and this time the kitten was replaced with a shot of a cow chewing cud contentedly. I am not sure how a contented cow is relevant to me buying Kia but it sure is making the dealership look pretty darn amateurish.

If anybody can point me to a video link of the Kia commercial that would be great :)

Shopping made easy

Riya launched like.com today. Blog post here
This is a really cool technology driven innovation from a company I admire a lot. I have no affliation and do not know anybody at Riya but have thoroughly enjoyed reading Munjal's blog.

Check it out.

If you are a woman who does not like sharing your bathroom with men who claim they are women....

then you probably want to stay away from NYC. From an article in the NY Times (might not be available for viewing without membership by the time you click),

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority also agreed last month to let people define their own gender when deciding whether to use the men's or women's bathrooms.

Apparently NYC has taken it upon itself to re decide gender. Some more "thought provoking quotes" from the article.

Joann Prinzivalli, 52, a lawyer for the New York Transgender Rights Organization, a man who has lived as a woman since 2000, without surgery, said the changes amount to progress, a move away from American culture's misguided fixation on genitals as the basis for one's gender identity.

“Its based on an arbitrary distinction that says there are two and only two sexes,” she said. “In reality the diversity of nature is such that there are more than just two, and people who seem to belong to one of the designated sexes may really belong to the other.”

....................

But some psychiatrists said that eliminating identification difficulties for some transgender people also opened the door to unwelcome advances from imposters.

“I’ve already heard of a ‘transgendered’ man who claimed at work to be ‘a woman in a man’s body but a lesbian’ and who had to be expelled from the ladies’ restroom because he was propositioning women there,” Dr. Paul McHugh, a member of the President’s Council of Bioethics and chairman of the psychiatry department at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in an e-mail message on the subject. “He saw this as a great injustice in that his behavior was justified in his mind by the idea that the categories he claimed for himself were all ‘official’ and had legal rights attached to them.”

...................

So don't assume that she is a she or he is a he just based on their prominent anatomical features. Especially if you are in NYC ;-)

Capitol Kia advertisement is broken

Umm.. am I the only one who sees the kitten hissing between the fence posts in the middle of a Kia commercial (saw it on Bravo/Time Warner cable/Austin) . I saw this last night and pointed this out to my wife and she just saw it again now (almost 24hrs later). Hello.. I know you are selling Kia's but that is no reason to let your ad run screwed up :)!

Life is too short not to appreciate talent like this

Is this what Detroit should do?

well, they cannot since they never built the prestige to begin with. But here is what got me thinking about this.

First some initial thoughts, from this BW article written in 2000 (bubble days).

Car sales may be sluggish in Europe overall, but German carmakers are gearing up for high times in the ultrapremium niche. Even Volkswagen now wants a piece of the action. The profit margin can be as dreamy as the new models: 30%, six times the industry average.

The article goes on to say

Even with the high margins, the market is so small that the contribution to a carmaker's bottom line is negligible. Analysts estimate that the Maybach, for example, will generate minimal profits for DaimlerChrysler.

So here we are in 2006 and my blog reading today lead me to this,

The star car is their $450,000 SLR McLaren which was beast on the race track (0-60 in about 3.5 secs)...photo of yours truly in the drivers seat. I asked how many they were making of the "limited" release. Given the price tag, I would have assumed a couple hundred cars. They are making 7,000. That's right. They are planning on selling 7,000 $450,000 cars. G

Do the math.... Yup you read it right. If there was no typo in the original blog post, then Mercedes plans on making 3.15 Billion $ from the sale of the SLR Mc Laren. Granted I don't know if this is a 5 year/10 year plan on what... But this translates to 1 Billion $ in profits for Mercedes, conservatively speaking. Heh... so is there a Detroit manufacturer that can ride the Bubble like this? and more importantly what have we learnt from our 2000 experiences?...

Of course we need the gratuitous picture ;)

Thank you Hugh

The above art originated from the following post.
Original art work by Hugh Macleod. Art work released by Hugh under the Creative Common License.

You read the darnest thing on blogs these days

This is an excerpt from the blog of Guy Kawasaki (a very original blog btw).

The first step is to recognize who is an asshole. Sutton’s blog cites one method. It’s called the Starbucks Test It goes like this: If you hear someone at Starbucks order a “decaf grande half-soy, half-low fat, iced vanilla, double-shot, gingerbread cappuccino, extra dry, light ice, with one Sweet-n’-Low and one NutraSweet,” you’re in the presence of an asshole. It’s unlikely that this petty combination is necessarythe person ordering is trying to flex her power because she’s an asshole.

Dang, I love that test. I know it makes me sound like an anti-starbucks elitist. But whatever, these days everybody has an opinion, everybody publishes their opinion and anybody with an opinion is an elitist of some sort.

In other words :) Go read the post here. Thanks Mr Kawasaki.

Business plans need compassion too

I like the idea behind greendimes. They work (constantly they claim) on taking you out of the junk mail life cycle. In addition they plant a tree, for every month you continue to be their customer. Will this make you carbon nuetral, heh I don't think so :) but it does seem like an interesting business model.

Is this a eco-friendly marketing plan?

What if

All the shoe companies decide to fight Zappos at their own game. Why not have retail shoe outlets whose only purpose is to help you (the customer) find your size and check out the look in front of those fabulous full length mirrors. Have you located your shoe of choice? Great here is what you do now.

Next to every shoe rack is a kiosk/browsing station that lets you order the shoe from their online warehouse and at prices that are cheaper or competitive with Zappos. So why not? Yes you do lose customers who desire to walk out of the store with the smell of new leather or suede or whatever composite nasa inspired material in their bag. But do they really want that over the savings they would get if you dropped the rates and deliver the shoes in a couple days.
Can you crunch the numbers and see if the increase in sales (assuming there is an increase in sales) would justify free shipping or two day shipping, etc? Strike a partnership with UPS (almost everybody does these days)
You have increased floor space, more creative ways to use your store so it becomes less of a shoe store and more of a "shoe bar". Give your users an experience.... and let them place their orders whenever they want.

So why not? What do the shoe stores have to lose by trying it out?

Disclaimer: My favourites are Kenneth Cole and Cole Haan. I tried a bunch of others but these fit me the best and I love their style.

Image link from shoeblogs.com (if I am violating any copyright please let me know and I will remove the image).

We saw "Chalk" last night and it was good!

Go see it.
It is a very funny movie that has 5 real actors in its entire cast. I know because I was at the QandA last night after the movie. The rest are either people with little acting experience or not actors. It has real teachers, real students and employs heavy improvisation. All in all well done. It is humorous but also a revealing documentary on the state of our public school educational system and its effects on the lives of all involved.

Other related bits,

• Movie details here. This movie website is hosted by Bside which was started by Chris Hyams and also employs a bunch of other smart and cool folks I used to work with. They are doing really good work with their product. Check it out here :).
  
• The movie was directed by Mike Akel and I found that one of my friends (Rod Henegar) edited the first movie Mike made. Mike is also close friends with some other friends of mine. Basically Austin is kind of small and you eventually find connections with people :)
• I am currently with a startup and our goal is to help us (the USA) move away from the school we saw in the movie. One school at a time of course ;-). Nothing like a big goal eh. We are just starting.....
  

What if the world was reduced to 100 people

Thanks to presentation zen for the link.

Is this an example of a vertical search engine

I am not sure what is going on here. I am talking about the Ms Dewey search engine. Umm.. maybe they should let the user choose the "librarian" and include a Mr Smith to give Ms Dewey company so both men and women can use this search engine.

Is being different all that matters

I checked out the Chipotle website today. It was the topic du jour on wallstrip today. It was an interesting browsing experience. The website is dense but clean and almost sparse. It involves the users in unique ways. I think the live feed of guac being prepared or chicken marinating is very cool :-). I love the amount of interior and exterior design examples on the website. For a Chipotle groupie, I am sure there is plenty to devour on this website.

But is it trying to be too cutting edge and sacrificing some simple usability in the process? Why is there no search feature (esp. given the density of the website). Why is there no site map. I understand that the whole website was built in flash but still... I was curious about who built this website and there was nothing available. I was curious about latest stock performance related news and again bupkis.

To:
Whoever is in charge of these things over at Chipotle,

The website is very cool and unique but make sure it is usable also :).

cheers,
me

There are times when Hugh says it best

This is one of those times. Thanks Hugh :)

(image belongs to Hugh and gapingvoid as the (c) clearly states).

I am happier than a wooden spoon at a spelling bee

Apparently we say stuff like where I live :). Props to Scott Adams for today's Dilbert.

Grilled Chicken causes cancer

A US doctors' group has sued seven leading fast-food chains including McDonald's and Burger King over their use of a "dangerous carcinogenic" in grilled chicken.
Aside from McDonald's and Burger King, the chains named in the lawsuit were Chick-fil-A, Chili's, Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse and TGI Friday's.

I love the lack of information apart from the sensational headlines. I am sure the "US doctor's" group sued the fast food chain. Looks like doctors realized that it is easier to file class action law suits to make money rather than pay insanely high insurance and practice the craft of curing people of ailments.

Don't you love good informative educative journalism. Link to the article here (thanks to my brother for the link).

Missing the forest for the trees

O'Reilly released a history of programming languages poster that is worth a glance. Jeff Atwood has some interesting ruminations based on this poster. Fun read, recommended.