May 2013
3 posts
Why You Should Drink Boxed Wine Guilt-Free
“Because it’s hard for people to gauge quality by flavor, they tend to gauge it by price. That’s a mistake. [Industry consultant Sue] Langstaff has evaluated wine professionally for twenty years. In her opinion, the difference between a $500 bottle of wine and one that costs $30 is largely hype. ‘Wineries that sell their wines for $500 a bottle have the same problems as...
I'm Happy
I just want to take a moment and express gratitude for the positive life and career changes I’ve been able to make over the last few months. Each day brings a new confirmation that I have finally been making the right decisions for myself and my future, and I couldn’t be happier.
April 2013
2 posts
4 tags
Are You Guarding Your Code?
As part of my curation duties for Atlanta’s weekly Startup Digest email, I wrote this article and originally published it in the digest on Monday, April 29th, 2013. Enjoy!
David Moeller, CEO of Atlanta-based startup CodeGuard, has lived all over the world: from Tennessee to Germany, from Los Angeles to New York, and many places in between, which may make you wonder whether his regular need to...
5 tags
Being Hands On Helps You Hire
I wrote this article for Atlanta’s weekly Startup Digest email, which I curate. It was originally published in the digest on Monday, April 8th, 2013.
“I love to build things,” says Corey Towe, co-founder of Atlanta-area startup Hands On Test. “I love to build things that have sustainable value and make life easier or a job more effective.”
With Hands on Test, he...
March 2013
2 posts
How Stephen King Feels About Adverbs
“The other piece of advice I want to give you before moving on to the next level of the toolbox in this: The adverb is not your friend. “Adverbs, you will remember … are words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They’re the ones that usually end in -ly. Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind. … With...
5 tags
For success, don't compliment yourself: question...
I recently completed the audio version of Daniel Pink’s new book, “To Sell is Human.” In it, Pink explains many ideas and theories related to relationship-based sales and non-sales selling.
I was struck by the similarity between one of his sales strategies another idea I’ve read recently in the book “Nutureshock” by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman.
Bronson...
2 tags
My new favorite mushy love song…
February 2013
8 posts
There's a lot to do in Atlanta.
I recently relocated to Atlanta for my work with Appsolute Genius. Since moving I’ve made new friends, reconnected with old ones, and have even experienced Atlanta’s traffic at its finest standstill, deadlocked state. I feel like I’m truly getting to know the place.
The way I’ve made so much progress plugging into such a large community in such a short time is simple:...
2 tags
This is amazing.
2 tags
“May as well just be me!”
2 tags
Do the Harlem Shake, everybody!
Failed Evidence
“In 2010, and for the previous nine years running, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation ranked among the most popular shows on television in the United States. … Watching these programs, the viewer knows that policing has changed. For every member of the CSI team using a gun, more wield test tubes, DNA sampling equipment, and all manner of futuristic gizmos designed to track down witnesses...
Google's Eric Schmidt Unloads on China in New Book →
hina, Schmidt and Cohen write, is “the world’s most active and enthusiastic filterer of information” as well as “the most sophisticated and prolific” hacker of foreign companies. In a world that is becoming increasingly digital, the willingness of China’s government and state companies to use cyber crime gives the country an economic and political edge, they say.
“The disparity between American...
"The relic of a past that was still intact a few...
I try to use Facebook and other social media channels to share information and articles that I happen to find interesting, with the belief that others might also find them interesting and appreciate reading them.
This particular tidbit of information is an interesting - and horrifying - description of the destructive powers of nature and war. I almost couldn’t finish reading it. I...
January 2013
7 posts
Souls of toys
“I would like to say a few words about the customs and manners of children in relation to their toys, and about the notions of parents on this stirring question. — There are some parents who try never to give toys. These are solemn, excessively solemn individuals, who have made no study of nature, and who generally make everyone around them miserable. I do not know why I think of them...
To Sell is Human
“It all began in 1903, when an eighteen-year-old Nova Scotia farm boy named Alfred Fuller arrived in Boston to begin his career. He was, by his own admission, ‘a country bumpkin, overgrown and awkward, unsophisticated and virtually unschooled’ — and he was promptly fired from his first three jobs. But one of his brothers landed him a sales position at the Somerville Brush...
3 tags
Don't Buy from Bad Guys
Upon finding myself running low on the fresh fruits and veggies that constitute my New Year’s resolution diet, I decided to restock my pantry today. I drove to Sam’s Club and filled my cart with copious amounts of peppers, tomatoes, apples, bananas, and more. Then, for several different reasons, I removed them from my cart and left the store empty-handed.
My decision to...
2 tags
This song should be in some groovy urban hipster...
2 tags
Confetti canons!
2 tags
This song will make you type emails faster. In...
2 tags
Amazing song. If you haven’t heard it, you...
December 2012
4 posts
2 tags
Reverse Engineering the Mind
“There is now a grand project under way involving many thousands of scientists and engineers working to understand the best example we have of an intelligent process: the human brain. It is arguably the most important effort in the history of the human-machine civilization. … Reverse-engineering the human brain may be regarded as the most important project in the universe....
1 tag
My Favorite Podcasts: The Master List
Step 1. Use Stitcher to listen to these.
Step 2. Profit.
Start the day off with news (that you probably missed yesterday):
Tech News Today
APM: Marketplace
APM: Marketplace Morning
Wall Street Journal This Morning
Get Your Money in Order:
NPR: Planet Money Podcast
Motley Fool Money
Freakonomics Radio
More News You can Use:
Science Friday Audio Podcast
WBUR-FM: Here & Now...
2 tags
Mega Cities
“[Since 2008], for the first time ever, we have more people living in cities than out on the land. For the first time, most of us have no substantive ability to feed or water ourselves. We have become reliant upon technology, trade, and commerce to carry out these most primitive of functions. Sometime in 2008, the human species crossed the threshold toward becoming a different animal: an...
November 2012
10 posts
2 tags
Why Pitching Your Idea Properly Is Critical to...
“Business history is dotted with stories of opportunities lost because people within companies were unsuccessful in pitching their ideas. And those neglected opportunities were consequential. Competitors seized market share that could have been kept and increased if the good idea had been adopted. Take the minivan. Who came up with that idea — Chrysler? No. Ford engineers came up with...
Thanksgiving in Alabama
“A lively day, that Thanksgiving. Lively with on-and-off showers and abrupt sky clearings accompanied by thrusts of raw sun and sudden bandit winds snatching autumn’s leftover leaves.
“The noises of the house were lovely, too: pots and pans and Uncle B.’s unused and rusty voice as he stood in the hall in his creaking Sunday suit, greeting our guests as they arrived. A few...
2 tags
Scurvy
“A polar winter can be a dreary, morale-sapping season even for those who are psychologically and physically prepared … The months of cold and darkness groaned on throughout 1898. Many of the Belgica’s crew were convinced of their imminent death. They became lethargic, depressed and anti-social, drifting away into near-catatonic isolation even while crammed together on the ship....
1 tag
“In our world of big names, curiously, our true heroes tend to be anonymous. In...”
– Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)
Christianity in the Middle Ages
“In monasteries and convents driven by the belief that redemption would only come through abasement, it is not surprising that forms of corporal punishment — virgarum verbera (hitting with rods), corporale supplicium (bodily punishment), ictus (blows), vapulatio (cudgeling), disciplina (whipping), and flagellatio — were routinely inflicted on community members who broke the...
5 tags
2 tags
Abraham Lincoln
“He was the luckiest man to run for president: He won with only 39.8 percent of the popular votes cast — the smallest percentage ever recorded. He had no help from his running mate: he only met his vice president Hannibal Hamlin on Election Day. How did Abraham Lincoln manage to win?
“The remaining 60.2 percent was split among three other candidates: Stephen A. Douglas (29...
“Be humble for you are made of Earth. Be noble for you are made of stars.”
– Serbian proverb
2 tags
Let’s go home.
October 2012
13 posts
“Relationships are all there is. Everything in the universe only exists because...”
– Margaret Wheatley
5 tags
Flies, Elephants, Cities, and Ideas
“Scientists and animal lovers had long observed that as life gets bigger, it slows down. Flies live for hours or days; elephants live for half-centuries. The hearts of birds and small mammals pump blood much faster than those of giraffes and blue whales. But the relationship between size and speed didn’t seem to be a linear one. A horse might be five hundred times heavier than a...
2 tags
Contemporary vs. Ancient Christianity: "Focus on...
“In his life of preaching, as recorded in the Gospels, Christ preached to men and women, rich and poor. This sentiment is echoed in St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians, which discussed an open approach to welcoming converts: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ Although...
4 tags
Read Why CEO's Don't Really Matter That Much
“CEOs do influence performance, but the effects are much smaller than a reading of the business press suggests. Researchers measure the strength of relationships by a correlation coefficient, which varies between 0 and 1. The coefficient was defined earlier (in relation to regression to the mean) by the extent to which two measures are determined by shared factors. A very generous estimate...
6 tags
Sony's Walkman vs. Apple's iPod
“In early 2003, Howard Stringer, head of U.S. operations for Japanese electronics giant Sony, was plotting to respond to Apple’s amazing success with the iPod, a recently introduced small portable music player. Sony did not want to let Apple take over the market. It was, after all, a market Sony should own. It had invented the idea of carrying music around on people’s heads with...
2 tags
Death of the Dinosaurs
“The diversity of dinosaurs and the flourishing of Mesozoic plants reached their zenith during the Cretaceous period, when huge birds flew in vast forests and flowering plants spread across the world. It was warmer even than it is today; polar and mountaintop ice were long gone and dinosaur species roamed from Alaska to Antarctica. Small mammals managed to survive in special niches, but the...
2 tags
Pull me back to earth!
2 tags
You love, love, love.
2 tags
“I think they’re gonna come and carry...
September 2012
44 posts
2 tags
“I thought you were my boyfriend!!!”