Are you apathetic, or ravenous?

I was 16 years old when I was filling out my college applications. I ended up getting into a college and doing OK, but looking back at that time results in a lot of "I wish I knew then what I know now" types of feelings. But obviously I didn't know then what I know now; life is a learning experience, and 16 year olds (as well as 50 year olds) have a lot of learning to do.

But I can see how college applications could be intimidating. Take this essay question from the University of Pennsylvania:

A Penn education provides a liberal arts and sciences foundation across multiple disciplines with a practical emphasis in one of four undergraduate schools: the College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Nursing, or the Wharton School. Given the undergraduate school to which you are applying, please discuss how you will engage academically at Penn.

(Please answer in 300 words or less.)

OK, pretend that you're 16 years old. How well would you do at answering that question?

This question appeared in a University of Pennsylvania blog entry, along with some tips on how to answer it. The tips were written by Patrick Bredehoft, former Penn Admissions Officer and current Director of the Penn Alumni Interview Program. (Guess who was performing vanity searches one day.)

Bredehoft advised prospective students on how to answer that question, and as part of his advice he stated the following:

This is also the space where you should explain your projected academic interests. Why did you choose Electrical Engineering, Fine Arts, or Biological Basis of Behavior, a Penn-specific discipline, as your major?

Bredehoft then continued:

Checking the undecided box is also an appropriate answer. However, please note the difference between being ‘apathetically undecided’ and ‘ravenously undecided.’ If you are an undecided applicant, tell us about the depth of your different interests and the ways that you would like to become intellectually involved on campus across majors.

This distinction between various types of undecideds can also be found in politics. Take this example from a 1979 election:

The undecided voters are not indifferent. They are aggressively undecided, and working hard at following the campaigns so they can make up their minds.

There was a different feeling among undecideds in a 1986 election:

"I haven`t decided yet, and I may not even vote," said Thelma Leffridge while transferring buses in the Loop late last week. ``When you need them(politicians), they`re never at your service, but when they need you they really run you down."

This distinction between being "apathetic" and "ravenous" (or aggressive) is a valuable one regardless of age. Sometimes we don't know what we want to do, but it's better to be hampered in our decision by the wide variety of compelling choices, rather than to be hampered in our decision because we really don't care what happens.

Some non-fiction about Braeburn Capital

My May 1 fiction story about Braeburn Capital has been getting a lot of traffic lately. Not because of any merits of its own, but because of some REAL news about Braeburn Capital, courtesy Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge. Durden starts by making the point about the lack of knowledge about Braeburn Capital:

The world's largest hedge fund is not located in the top floor of some shiny, floor-to-ceiling glass clad skyscraper in New York, London, Hong Kong or Shanghai. It isn't in some sprawling mansion in Greenwich or Stamford which houses a state of the art trading desk behind a crocodile-filled moat. Instead it can be found in tiny, nondescript office in Suite 225 located on 730 Sandhill Road in Reno, Nevada.

I'm not familiar with the ups and downs of the hedge fund business, but Durden reports that Apple's Braeburn Capital has overtaken Bridgewater to become the largest hedge fund, with over $117.2 billion (yes, billion) in assets as of June 30.

And it's growing at $15 billion per quarter.

Durden concludes with this thought:

[W]ith the topic of finding effective tax loopholes which are perfectly legal, yet which apparently are unfair, serving as the basis of the entire presidential race to date, what Apple can be absolutely certain of is that once the farce culminating on November 6 is over, the government's eye will finally turn to minimizing "externalities" among such companies which have been able to pass through corporate tax savings to end consumers by abiding within the legal system....

Because while AAPL may have built the iPhone, very soon it will be only fair that it share its profits acquired over the years, and thus its cash balance, which at last check was double that of the US Treasury, with the general public.

At that point Braeburn will almost certainly be a household name.

And yes, the Gene and Michael that I included in my fiction piece are real people, although the conversations were completely made up.

As to whether the premise of my story - that Braeburn Capital would invest in Google - is real or fictional, we just don't know.

Hijacking #oow - the problem with hashtag success

I have talked before about the issues involved in setting up an event hashtag, most recently when I noted that the official hashtag for Oracle OpenWorld 2012 is #oow rather than #oow12.

But during this morning's keynotes, @oracleopenworld issued a request that people use #oow12 instead, and apologized for "the hashtag issues."

Since I had just started to check the Twitter stream for #oow, I didn't know what @oracleopenworld was talking about, but I figured that perhaps people were latching on to the #oow stream for other purposes. And no, it wasn't Marc Benioff - at least that would be relevant.

It didn't take me long to find this interesting tweet:

Talk about hitting every popular hashtag at once! Not only did they include #oow (which frankly probably isn't a trending topic to much of the Twitterverse), but also included both #obama2012 and #tcot, throwing in #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth for good measure.

Ordinarily this would not be much of an issue - Twitter spam is all over the place - except for one little itty bitty detail.

I wasn't watching the YouTube stream from Oracle OpenWorld this morning, but I was watching it last night, and between presentations, the huge screens inside Moscone Center Hall D would occasionally display tweets with the #oow or #oracle hashtags. And because people like me were watching the proceedings online, not only were these tweets displayed to the thousands of people in Hall D, but were also displayed to the even larger numbers of people watching remotely.

The whole thing plays on ego. The organizers of an event want to immerse people in the event, so they display all the mentions of an event's hashtags. The attendees at the event want to be displayed, so they pump content on to the display. Then the spammers step in, hijack the hashtag, and sell "Obama phones," whatever they are.

Actually, it turns out that the spammer above is a Tea Party conservative. And this Tea Party conservative just got Larry Ellison mad at him. How mad? Ellison may issue his second tweet on his Twitter account. And the non-Tea Party Republicans are dreading what that tweet will be. If they're lucky, Larry will just try to upstage Benioff.

P.S. Perhaps there's another explanation. Maybe the people saw the #oow hashtag and had no idea what it was, but just realized that it was popular. This is a credible explanation:

Don’t use a hashtag that has other meanings or is likely to be used for something else – this is especially likely for acronyms.

And as has already been noted, "oow" is awfully similar to "oww." Speaking of Benioff...

Viruses in Google Cars? What about viruses in existing cars?

For those who haven't seen it, Loren Feldman has posted a video in Google+ where he shares his opinions on the new Google driverless car. (This was recorded following a Google+ discussion of the topic.)



To put it mildly, he's not enthused with the idea.

I happen to disagree with him on certain points, such as his concern about disabled people driving when they are physically unable to override the car's controls. In my view (something that I should probably explore in my tymshft blog), cars have already incorporated a ton of assistive technology long before driverless cars came along.

In the video, Feldman states the following:

And what about viruses? You don't think that people are going to be trying to just plant viruses in the car software?

This is a valid point. There are people who are going to try to hack the Google car, and considering the things that the software will be able to control, a successful hack can do a lot of damage.

But guess what? This is already a problem today. The non-Google cars, with drivers, already contain a lot of computer technology that can control major functions within the car. And how protected are the computers in your cars? Reuters discussed the issue:

Security experts say that automakers have so far failed to adequately protect these systems, leaving them vulnerable to hacks by attackers looking to steal cars, eavesdrop on conversations, or even harm passengers by causing vehicles to crash.

"You can definitely kill people," said John Bumgarner, chief technology officer of the U.S. Cyber Consequences Unit, a non-profit organization that helps companies analyze the potential for targeted computer attacks on their networks and products.

Read the rest of the Reuters article here, including the multitude of "no comments" from car manufacturers and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. As the article notes, many of today's cars are populated with "dozens" of electronic control unit computers, some of which can be accessed via Bluetooth and other wireless technologies.

While possibility does not equal probability, there is certainly the possibility that a modern automobile could be hacked. And even if it's not technically a "driverless" car that's hacked, there's nothing that the driver can do about it.

Other than making sure that the antivirus package for your automobile is up to date.

Why I was wrong about Oracle and mobile #oow

I love to look at predictions that turn out to be incorrect. Not because I want to laugh at the person who made the incorrect prediction, but because I want to examine the reasons why the person made the incorrect prediction.

So that's what I will do today. And the person who made the bad prediction was - me.

Back in November 2007, when I was attending that year's Oracle OpenWorld, I wrote a post that began as follows:

This really isn't an Oracle OpenWorld 2007 post, so I won't label it as such.

Well, perhaps it's an Oracle OpenWorld 2010 post. (Might as well get started early.)

The NEXT generation of the Oracle Database product will probably be called Oracle Database 12m, where the "m" stands for "mobile."

Mobile is/will be that big. It's already big in my vertical market, it's obviously big in all this Tweeter/Flickr/etc. stuff I talked about earlier, so I suspect it may eventually affect the plumbing.

In this case, I'm not talking about my prediction that the 12th version of the Oracle Database product would have come out two years ago. Instead, I'm talking about what the version would be called.

During my time attending Oracle OpenWorld, the letters "i" (for Internet) and "g" (for grid) were appended to the Oracle releases. I figured that as people accessed the data from everywhere, the mobile element would become more and more important to Oracle's marketing.

As you will see below, I can claim that I was half right.

Before Oracle OpenWorld begins, Oracle provides a special briefing to its Oracle ACE Directors. These are people who are not employed by Oracle, but who have made significant contributions to the Oracle community. Eddie Awad is an Oracle ACE Director, and was in attendance at these meetings. Although the attendees are under non-disclosure, they do end up sharing certain obvious information publicly. Awad collected these public statements from the ACE Directors and shared them in two posts, including this one.

If you look at this collection, you will see a tweet from Dimitri Gielis that read as follows:

some nice features in Oracle DB 12c that will speed up development #orclapex

When I saw that tweet, I said to myself, "Of course!" After all of the talk that Larry has talked over the last few years, the use of the "c" designation makes sense. I claim that I am half correct because the "c" designation implies access from everywhere, including mobile devices. Of course, this designation concentrates on how the data itself is managed - and from a database perspective, that's what you really care about.

In case you don't know what "c" stands for, Computerworld UK spelled it out several months ago, when Ellison stated that version 12 was coming soon.

The next edition may be called 12c, with the c referring to "cloud." Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c, which was released in October, used that naming convention.

Oracle has placed a strong emphasis on its cloud computing strategy of late.

More official news about the new Oracle Database release may be shared at Oracle OpenWorld - perhaps tomorrow (Sunday) evening.

Today, skateboarding IS a crime (CARMAGEDDON II STORMWATCH update)

From NBC:

Other than having to chase some motorists, skateboarders, and walkers off the closed San Diego Freeway, few problems were reported in the early hours of "Carmageddon II," officials said on Saturday.

Danged whippersnapper skateboarders. Get off my freeway.

Work has progressed since yesterday evening (screen capture from My Fox LA as of 9:35 this morning).

Still no sign of OJ or Amanda or Perez or Harvey.

Where to find live CARMAGEDDON 2 STORMWATCH coverage

The local Fox station in Los Angeles is providing a webcam all weekend showing live CARMAGEDDON 2 STORMWATCH coverage.

This is what the scene looked like at approximately 9:50 pm Friday evening, or about two hours before the 405 freeway is shut down entirely.

After midnight, they'll start tearing down the bridge that is pictured.

Despite my previous warnings, neither Amanda Bynes nor OJ Simpson have been sighted in the area.

Starbucks' Verismo - landscape changer, or me-too item?

What should you do if you have a successful business, and you've developed a new product that will undercut your existing one?

In my view, you should introduce the new product. If you don't cannibalize your own sales, your competitors will.

Which brings us to Starbucks. Over the past few years, Starbucks brick and mortar establishments have had to deal with competition from high-end "make your own coffee/espresso at home" machines. Bunn, Flavia, Nespresso, Keurig - there are a number of machines that you can install in your home or office that could keep you out of a Starbucks store.

Starbucks' first volley was to introduce its line of instant coffees. Now they're coming out with their own machines - the Verismo line.

The name is not new. The in-store Starbucks machines have been called Verismo for years. However, until now you haven't been able to buy a Starbucks-branded single-serving coffeemaker for use at home (although you could buy Starbucks coffee and put it in your Keurig machine).

Initial reaction to the Verismo is similar to the reaction of an Apple fanboi to the latest insanely great phone. There are reports that the first batch of Verismo machines is selling out.

This may not be the death knell for Green Mountain (the Keurig people) or Nestle (the Nespresso people) or the other players. These high-end coffee/espresso machines are - well, they're high end. If you're plonking down $200 rather than $20 for a coffeemaker, you're going to be a little picky about what you acquire your device. So while Starbucks will undoubtedly be a player, I don't think Nestle or Green Mountain are going to close their doors any time soon.

Or at least not because of Starbucks. Nestle is always going to have its opponents, and the Nespresso technology has been relaunched for something that Nestle opponents love to hate - BabyNes single serving baby formula delivery system. At first I thought this was an Onion story, but this is actually a press release on Nestle's website.

Starbucks would never do that. They're, like, preserving the rainforest and stuff.

Sequestration on the campaign trail

While people like me concentrate on issues such as how to deal with a celebrity fender bender during CARMAGEDDON II STORMWATCH , others concentrate on things that may be more important.

Governments do a lot of wonky things that most citizens don't give a hoot about. But certain isolated segments of the population really really care about it.

If your company does business with the Federal Government, then the word "sequestration" has probably been uttered by you a lot over the past few months - maybe a million times or so. If you're not familiar with the term, it became relevant last year as part of the August debt ceiling deal between the Republicans and Democrats. The deal established a "super committee" to craft a long-term budget deal, with the following caveat:

The law passed last August imposed an across-the-board $1.2 trillion cut – so-called sequestration – if the Super Committee [failed] to come up with an alternative plan by Thanksgiving. Those cuts will hit defense and domestic programs equally.

Well, no agreement was reached by the deadline, and no agreement is going to be reached in an election year, so the cuts are set to take effect in a few months.

While procurement officials and government contractors are talking about sequestration non-stop, the term really hasn't penetrated the rest of the country yet.

That may change:

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney criticized President Obama on Thursday for signing the budget sequestration plan, saying it is a threat to Virginia’s economy and national security.

Speaking before veterans at an American Legion hall in Springfield, Va., Romney said sequestration would lead to 136,000 lost jobs in the state. He also said the cuts would leave the United States vulnerable at a perilous moment in international affairs.


(For the moment, ignore the fact that the Republicans in the House strongly supported the August 2011 bill. This is a business blog, not a political blog.)

As I write this, I don't know if Obama has responded, or what Romney will say on other stops on the campaign trail. But even if neither candidate says much more about sequestration before the election, the winning candidate will have to deal with sequestration after the election. Either some last-minute deal or workaround will be struck that avoids the cuts, or the cuts will take effect on schedule. Because any last-minute deal would be, by definition, last-minute, there will be a lot of business uncertainty over the next few months.

If you're thinking of starting a new government contracting business, now is not the time.

Giving Promo Blocks credit, and preparing for #oow 2012

I had a very busy month in October 2009. While I spent time researching things in my former proposal world, I fulfilled my product management duties by attending Oracle OpenWorld 2009 and my company's User Conference, before publicly announcing that my interest in proposals was more than academic.

Although I have left the product management world behind, I have retained one item from those days - the building blocks that I acquired at Oracle OpenWorld 2009. The blocks, of course, were meant to illustrate that Oracle is able to provide all of the building blocks that you need to create a business solution. I, however, have used the blocks as toys during tense proposal periods.

I've had those blocks for nearly three years, but never took a close look at them until this week, when I noticed the following words etched into the blocks:

PROMO BLOCKS
I knew that the blocks were not Lego blocks, but I never researched to see who actually made them for Oracle. Enter Imagery Group:

Custom Full Color Building Promo Blocks

Take your ideas, concepts or program features to the next level with eye-popping Full Color Promo Blocks. Our Full Color Promo Blocks come on white blocks and include one full color digital decal on one side and are individually poly-bagged. A second digital label or screen printing is available on the second side at an additional cost.

Production time: 10 working days up to 500 sets

You'll notice that the standard product comes on white blocks. The blocks that I obtained at Oracle OpenWorld 2009 were red. Oracle OpenWorld 2012 starts next week, and if this is your first time attending Oracle OpenWorld, let me clue you in on something that you will soon discover: Oracle kinda sorta likes the color red.

I don't know if Oracle Technology Network still hands out building blocks in the post-Kestelyn era, but I'm sure that they'll have something good for you if you go by their tent.

And if you're technically inclined, see what the AppsLab has planned for the week.

P.S. Yes, the hashtag is #oow, not #oow12 or #oow2012. Perhaps this is meant to appease four digit year fans like myself, or perhaps it's an attempt to make #oow a permanent part of your existence. Get the red sunglasses.

P.P.S. "Get the red sunglasses" actually refers to something completely different, but it's not appropriate for me to share it yet. Expect me to share it later. And no, it doesn't have anything to do with another job change.

How to deal with a celebrity fender bender during CARMAGEDDON II STORMWATCH

Normally my predictions are way off, but I recently made a prediction that was spot on. On Wednesday afternoon, I predicted that the National Football League referee labor dispute would be settled, primarily due to pressure from inconvenienced degenerate gamblers. Within a few hours, a settlement had been reached, and I'm convinced that it was because of gambler pressure.

Well, it's good that's out of the way, allowing those of us in southern California to turn our attention to the catastraophic events that will occur this weekend.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, you should be aware that for the second time in two years, a critical stretch of Interstate 405 will be closed this weekend. At the same time, there is a slight chance of rain.

And you know what that means.

CARMAGEDDON II STORMWATCH
This, as anyone who watches local news in Los Angeles will tell you, pretty much means non-stop, crazed coverage. There will be reporters in Westwood and other locations, standing next to major traffic routes, reporting LIVE on everything that is going on or not going on at their locations. And if it rains, they will be wet and will show LIVE pictures of puddles of water. Riveting.

Yes, I know that the original Carmageddon turned out to be a dud. And I know that I personally live fifty miles away from Interstate 405, and theoretically shouldn't be affected by the stuff that goes on in El-Lay.

But I'm still worried.

Why? Because CARMAGEDDON II STORMWATCH will take place in Los Angeles, and frankly we were lucky the last time. When a freeway closure and rain occur at the same time, any other event, albeit small, may be enough to throw Los Angeles - and all of the southwestern United States - into cataclysmic apocalyptic chaos.

And if something big happens, the devastation could be severe.

If you don't believe me, consider this scenario:

• Imagine that O.J. Simpson is released from a Nevada prison on Friday.
• Simpson, who would presumably be unaware of CARMAGEDDON II STORMWATCH due to his extended "stay" outside of the state of California, arrives in Los Angeles just in time for the weekend.
• Now imagine that, at the same time that Simpson is driving his late-model Ford vehicle in the neighborhood of Sunset and Sepulveda, noted erratic driver Amanda Bynes happens to be at the same location.
• If this happens, the two cars are bound to connect because of celebrity attraction.

View Larger Map

You can imagine the devastation that would ensue. But by preparing for this occurrence now, we will be able to deal with it.

First, remain calm. Try to refrain from tweeting in ALL CAPS - unless, of course, you are tweeting the words CARMAGEDDON II STORMWATCH.

Second, in this instance leave the reporting to the professionals. I know that most celebrity events benefit immensely from the presence of "citizen journalists." However, because of the danger of multi-state gridlock, this is the one time when you want to leave the reporting to Perez Hilton and Harvey "I Do Not Fear Death" Levin. Remember that even if Perez and Harvey get into a fight themselves, they are professionals and will be able to continue reporting everything that goes on.

Third, try not to take sides between the two celebrities. Yes, I know that Bynes is (relatively) young and still cute (at least until the meth damage sets in). However, do not forget that O.J. was NOT criminally charged with murder, so don't let that enter your thought processes. And really, would you want to anger the fan base of either of the celebrities? Just keep your mouth shut and observe.

Fourth, and most importantly - if Fred Goldman (yes, he's still around) shows up on the scene, give up all hope of the survival of our civilization. In that case, we're done for.

Some things just shouldn't be transparent (my response to Jonathan Webb)

Before I launch into this subject, a few caveats are in order.

First, the piece that I'm about to reference appeared at the Procurement Leaders website. Procurement equals buying. For the last 15+ years, my job has involved some aspect of selling.

Second, procurement officials buy a lot of things, from toilet paper to automated fingerprint identification systems. Barring any evidence to the contrary, I assume that the author is talking more about toilet paper and less about automated fingerprint identification systems. In my opinion, entirely different factors apply when you are buying something that is not a commodity. (I could say more about this, but I won't.)

With those out of the way, let's look at what Jonathan Webb recently said. He introduces the topic by stating something that even I, Mister "Nothing New Under The Sun," agree with:

Will social media change the way we buy? Twitter, Facebook and blogs have changed the way many live their lives. A new class of smartphone junkies has appeared, their faces lit up with the soft glare of screens which document their existence on photos that are shared to the world.

And let's face it - I probably share more with people today than I would have shared fifty years ago. Can you imagine me running around in 1962, posting these paragraphs on laundromat bulletin boards?

Webb then notes that Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs) are not necessarily following this trend. Maybe they're using LinkedIn, but procurement officers aren't always (using the term in vogue these days) "transparent."

Webb asks, "why not?"

It would be fascinating to see negotiations or tenders conducting online. Perhaps the hashtag #thisismyfinaloffer may have more credence if the speaker is accountable to the general public.

Again, I'm assuming that Webb is talking about commodity procurements here. But even here, I see a basic problem with Webb's suggestion of more transparency in procurement.

The main issue is that the Chief Procurement Officer is not the only party in the transaction. And there are valid reasons why the other party won't agree to transparency.

Let's say, for example, that a city is buying laptop computers. And let's assume that Dell and HP are the two finalists in this particular procurement. In Webb's transparent world, the negotiations would be public. Imagine a scenario like this:

CityOfOntario: $500 is the maximum we will pay.

DellInlandEmpire: @CityOfOntario that is fine if it doesn't include warranty

HPSanBernardino: @CityOfOntario we will offer 3 month warranty

But now remember that if transparency existed now, then it also existed in the past.

DellInlandEmpire: @CityOfOntario when HP offered 3 month warranty in @CityOfCompton they charged $600

CityOfCompton: So @HPSanBernardino we're invoking clause 3.22. Please offer retroactive refund of $100 per computer

To tell the truth, I can't really argue with this particular scenario. Contracts often have clauses that state that the buyer must get the lowest price, but there's not a good way to enforce it. Who can argue with transparency here?

But here's where I begin to have a problem.

HPSanBernardino: @CityOfCompton I can't speak for @HPLosAngeles because I don't know that territory's cost structure

CityOfCompton: @HPSanBernardino @HPLosAngeles please provide profit loss statements on a territory basis

HPCorporate: @SEC we need to talk

Why would the Securities and Exchange Commission get involved in this scenario? Simple - HP (and Dell) are publicly traded companies, and there are strict controls on what they can say, and what they cannot say. Usually a publicly traded company will report its earnings for the entire company, or perhaps for certain large divisions, but the profit/loss statement of small individual units is usually not public information. Any territory manager who provided such information would be guilty of leaking trade secrets.

In short, there are legal limits on transparency.

So it's ludicrous to talk about transparency for a purchaser, when the seller is legally prevented from being equally transparent.

Your thoughts?

Money talks - this NFL referee strike will now get settled

If you've looked at organizational dynamics, you realize that conflicts are not easily resolved.

Take the current dispute between the National Football League and its referees.

Some will argue that if the referees want $x and the NFL only wants to give $y, they should just split the difference. Life doesn't work that way.

Some will argue that blown calls by the replacement referees will force the NFL to settle this. Why? At least in the short term, viewership may even increase. I can see the promotions:

Tune into Sunday Night Football, where you can not only watch the game, but can also try to predict how the replacement referees will score it? Can you predict what will happen? What outrageous stunt will the refs pull next? Tune in to NBC and be the first to find out!

From the NFL's perspective, providing pensions to the (part-time) referees may set a precedent toward benefits to provide to other NFL and team employees, and may even result in a push by the players to get better benefits for themselves.

But something has just happened that may push the NFL to settle:

A Las Vegas casino took an unusual step Wednesday and offered refunds to gamblers who lost money when the Seattle Seahawks beat the Green Bay Packers on a controversial touchdown at the end of Monday night's game.

Derek Stevens, owner The D Las Vegas, seized on the attention being paid to the much-derided decision by replacement officials handling the NFL game and became the only casino in Las Vegas to offer refunds.

Now the replacement refs are costing someone real money. Lots of it.

And even if the mob is out of Las Vegas, there are a number of (using Tony Bruno's phrase) "degenerate gamblers" whose winnings or losses were affected by the replacement referees. And don't kid yourself - gambling matters to the NFL. Why else would the NFL require teams to publicize the injury status of their players, despite the fact that this provides competitive intelligence to the opponents of the teams?

Money talks. And if the replacement refs continue to affect the degenerate gamblers, there will be huge pressure to settle this dispute.

From #apmp to Sunday school - what should be on our presentation slides?

In a previous post, I tangentially referred to a session that Professor Michael Alley gave to the Southern California chapter of the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) earlier this year. Although that post didn't explicitly talk about Alley's presentation, it did link to one of his web pages. The following statement can be found on Professor Alley's page:

Recently, much criticism has been levied at PowerPoint's default structure of a topic-phrase headline supported by a bullet list of subtopics. This web page advocates an assertion-evidence structure, in which a sentence headline states the main assertion of the slide. That headline assertion is then supported not by a bullet list, but by visual evidence: photos, drawings, diagrams, graphs, films, or equations.

Whether you are a disciple of Professor Alley or an advocate of the traditional approach to PowerPoint (load every word you're going to say onto the presentation itself), everyone agrees that the reason that you show slides is because you want people to remember what is on the slides.

But how do you make your slides memorable?

Lessons can be learned from your local Lutheran Church.

Now if you haven't set foot in a church recently, it should be noted that services have significantly changed in many churches over the past thirty years - even in relatively traditional groups such as the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Thirty years ago, a sermon was something that was given by a pastor, standing in a pulpit. The congregation could watch the pastor speak, or could look at the stained glass in the sanctuary. Today, the pastor is still behind the pulpit, but the congregation may be looking at a screen. PowerPoint slides are displaying on that screen, perhaps showing a verse from the Bible, or perhaps showing a picture of a boy holding a fish, or perhaps showing a video from a skater saying some really rad stuff. (Or perhaps not.)

When you have those PowerPoint slides whirling by, you have to figure out what to put on them. And in this case, the pastor's question is the same as the salesman, the process champion, or any business person - what do I put on the slides so that my audience will retain my message?

According to Pastor Matt Richard, someone at Concordia Seminary, Pastor Joseph Meyer, set out to study just that. Pastor Meyer began his study with certain assumptions:

In his study he set out to prove that the use of pictures on a PowerPoint during a sermon would actually increase retention and comprehension. He set forth to argue that we have become a visual culture and that the use of pictures within a sermon would increase retention because it would evoke the sense of the eyes and emotions of the listener.

But guess what? Pastor Meyer was wrong.

Sermons with ‘pictures only’ in the PowerPoint were least effective.

Sermons with ‘pictures and words’ were better than ‘pictures only’ but not as good as ‘words only.’

Sermons with ‘words only’ in the PowerPoint were the most effective.

Meyer himself subsequently stated:

Since I let the slides speak for themselves, instead of assisting the message, the projected images may have actually distracted from the message. Needless to say, this was a big wake-up call for me since I realized that the visual cues I’ve been using during sermons previous to this study may not have been all that helpful to the hearers; it may have been more of an annoying distraction. Some of the participants in the focus groups told me that the slides became a problem. One person even wrote, ‘I thought it was more beneficial to listen rather than look.’

There's an important lesson here, whether you're "selling" Jesus or you're selling an automated fingerprint identification system. If someone is going to be speaking, the speaker should be the focus, not the slides. The slides should complement the speaker's message, not distract from it.

If I may take the liberty of adapting Pastor Meyer's suggestions for a secular audience, here's how I'd do it:

1. Use very few slides.
2. If you are going to use images, keep the images very simple.
3. Make sure the images tie into the business case.
4. Project business materials that are being quoted.
5. Use familiar recognizable images.
6. Acknowledge the slide/Make the connection with the business case.

Freshness and pricing

Various things are bought and sold for a price. My employer sells automated fingerprint identification systems, and government agencies buy them at particular prices. United Airlines sells seats (and food, and baggage transportation, and other things), and passengers buy them at particular prices. Apple sells phones, and people buy them at particular prices.

One pricing strategy does not fit all.

Think of the concept of a "reverse auction" in which, rather than prices going upward until someone can buy something, prices go downward until someone can sell something. Reverse auctions work better in some instances than in other instances.

Peter Evans-Greenwood:

An airline seat or hotel room has zero value if is not occupied, so there's an urgency on behalf of both the retailer and customer to cut a deal. The customer wants to occupy the room (or seat) on a specific date (or, at least, within a narrow date range). The merchant wants to sell the room (or seat) as a potential profit will be quickly transformed into a cost if it's not filled.

Retail today is a little different though....

The problem with any differentiated pricing strategy (such as dynamic pricing) where there is no compelling reason to buy is that you've just provided the smart customers with an opportunity to sit back and cherry pick the products they want at the lowest prices.

The ramifications? Not good.

I'm sure that management consultants have 3 or 5 or 7 or 99 different variables that enter into a pricing strategy, but "freshness" of the product clearly has to be one of them. Vegetables and desktop computers have different shelf lives.

Just one click - LinkedIn Endorsements

Yes, we're becoming more impatient. Yes, this is powerful.

Eddie Awad linked to this announcement from LinkedIn:

On LinkedIn, you have many smart, talented, and skilled professional connections. Starting today, we are introducing Endorsements, a new feature that makes it easier to recognize them for their skills and expertise.

With just one click, you can now endorse your connections for a skill they’ve listed on their profile or recommend one they haven’t added yet.

For example, if I wanted to endorse Awad for blogging, I could do so even if he hadn't listed blogging as one of his skills.

In my view, LinkedIn differs from most social networks. While Facebook and FriendFeed and Google+ and Twitter can really be used for any purpose, LinkedIn is really tailored more toward business use. Theoretically, I could use LinkedIn to talk about non-business stuff, but the community would pretty much frown on that. Because of this, I see business endorsements on LinkedIn as being more powerful than business endorsements on Klout.

Still waiting to see Jason Alba's take on this.

Examining watermelon and ethanol (but not watermelon ethanol)

I've seen a recent spike in traffic on a 2009 post that described how watermelon can be used to make ethanol. So I thought I'd see if there had been any further progress in this area.

That's when I ran across this press release that happened to mention both watermelon and ethanol, but not watermelon ethanol.

MOORESVILLE, NC – September 12, 2012 – NASCAR Camping World Truck Series rookie Ross Chastain returns to the Iowa Speedway for American Ethanol 200 presented by Hy-Vee on Saturday evening. The NCWTS last raced at the track just east of Des Moines, Iowa back in June and Ross and the SS Green Light Racing team finished sixteenth; he and the entire team are looking for a better run in the Watermelon.org / Magnuson Hotels Toyota when the trucks hit the pavement in Iowa on Saturday night.

For those who don't follow racing closely, it should be noted that both the races and the racers often receive sponsorships. In this case, the race itself is named the "American Ethanol 200" (although I'm not sure how Hy-Vee is connected to this), and one of the racers is partially sponsored by watermelon.org.

I visited watermelon.org to see if the site talked about ethanol, but the fuel was only mentioned on the site once, when the site sponsor (the National Watermelon Promotion Board) took the time to explain the difference between itself and another organization, the National Watermelon Association (not to be confused with the Compton, California hip-hop band):

The NWA supports the industry's research needs through scientific grants to numerous universities and other organizations each year with a keen focus on the highest research priorities. Disease research (i.e. vine decline, phytophthora, gummy stem blight, etc.), farming improvement research (i.e. plant grafting), and value-added research (i.e. ethanol) are examples of the NWA's investments that will provide answers and support to the industry's needs.

But throughout all this, I was unable to answer one basic question.

What fuel did Ross Chastain use in his truck?

(By the way, Chastain placed 11th.)

(And yes, the title of this post is intentionally derivative of that famous statement that young boys sometimes say on the playground: "She's a girl, and she's a friend, but she's not a girlfriend.")

My interactions with Verizon Wireless on the Samsung Stratosphere update issue

Perhaps you saw my post from yesterday evening - Dear @VZWSupport - there are better ways to cure Android FF1 update USB problems than a factory reset . The post described the problems - and the temporary workaround - that I encountered after updating to the latest version of Android for my Samsung Stratosphere smartphone. After the update, many people have encountered problems with USB transfers to the phone. I have implemented a temporary solution to this, namely putting the USB connection in debugging mode temporarily when I want to transfer data. I have not performed the permanent solution, however, which involves performing a factory reset to my phone.

Links to my blog posts are automatically sent to Twitter (via NetworkedBlogs), and the text of my post titles appears as the text of the tweet. Therefore @VZWSupport was aware of my post, and a representative replied.

@empoprises Thanks for the info! I'm glad you were able to resolve your issue. ^MSF

Obviously Verizon Wireless has people who are monitoring mentions of their brand, and these people actually take time to respond. However, I didn't believe that my issue was resolved, so I replied back.

@VZWSupport Not resolved. Not good to go into debug mode on a Stratosphere to transfer files, or to do a factory reset after an OS upgrade.

Another Verizon Wireless employee offered this comment:

@empoprises I understand your discontent! The reset is suggested by the manufacture after completing a software update.^AB

This is also a good tweet from Verizon Wireless - well, other than the misspelling of "manufacturer." Note that AB begins by acknowledging that the customer is unhappy, then explains why the factory reset is recommended. (In the first post, I noted that another Verizon rep had recommended a factory reset.)

Now I haven't researched to see if Samsung truly recommends a factory reset after a software update. I couldn't find any such statement at http://support.verizonwireless.com/pdf/system_update/statosphere_instructions.pdf, and the Samsung Stratosphere support page doesn't even list the latest update; the only item available for download is a USB driver from March of this year.

Unfortunately, this has the potential for massive finger pointing between the service provider (Verizon Wireless), the phone provider (Samsung), and the operating system provider (Google, or maybe it's Samsung, or maybe it's Verizon Wireless - hard to tell in these cases).

I will continue to update if circumstances warrant.

If phishers acquire smarts, we're really in trouble

Phishing is a lucrative business. If it weren't so lucrative, people wouldn't take the time to perform it. While phishing doesn't take a lot of effort, it does take some effort, and the phisher needs to get a positive return on investment. Often, he/she does.

One morning, I received an email from a former co-worker's private email account. For some inexplicable reason, my employer's mail filters directed this email to my junk mail folder, instead of my inbox. I can't understand why, though, since my former co-worker wanted to share some wonderful information with me. The email included a link, preceded by this text.

wow this is pretty awesome you should give it a look

"Odd," I thought. "My former co-worker is a very intelligent person, and usually she writes in complete sentences. Maybe she's sick or distracted and isn't able to write to her usual standards."

My eagerness to click on the link that she provided was overridden by my concern for my former co-worker's health. I went to her Facebook account to see if she was ill...and discovered a message from her saying that her email had been hacked. Imagine that! Who would have guessed?

Seriously, the one thing that is disappointing about phishing attempts is that so many of them are written so poorly. Samuel Kofi Atta Mills sends faxes in ALL CAPS. My former co-worker has apparently forgotten to use ANY caps (or periods).

Yet in some cases these phishing attempts work extremely well. Take a step back and pretend that you had never seen one of these things before, and weren't aware of the dangers. Now be honest - if a good friend of yours sent you a link and said that it was awesome...wouldn't you click on it?

Many people do.

But imagine how many people would click on these links if the phishers just took the time to write their messages in proper English.

But there's an even greater danger.

In the case of my former co-worker, the phisher gained access to her personal email account. What if, before sending out the phishing message, the phisher had taken a couple of minutes to analyze the contents of that account? Find out some information about the holder of the account, phrases the person likes to use, etc. In that case, I might have received a message like this - and fallen for it:

Hey, John, how are things? I'm loving Southern California even though I'm still a Badgers fan. You have to check out this link. Woo hoo! http://wewillstealallyourmoney.cn/

This is possible, and it may even be possible to automate it.

Then we're really in trouble.

Dear @VZWSupport - there are better ways to cure Android FF1 update USB problems than a factory reset

Yesterday at lunch when I was getting ready to play NTN Buzztime trivia, I got a message on my Samsung Stratosphere phone saying that an Android update was available. Once I confirmed that the message was a legitimate OS upgrade, I went ahead and started the procedure.

I subsequently found out that this upgrade was announced in August and has slowly been rolling out to Stratosphere users.

After the upgrade, I noticed occasional error messages on my phone that said

Sorry…Process com.android.settings stopped unexpectedly. Try again

but thought nothing of them...until the time came to transfer my recently purchased MP3 file ("Once in a Lifetime" by Wolfsheim) to my phone. When I got the error message again, I belatedly realized what that process was.

Among other things, it was the process that enabled the USB connection between my netbook and my phone.

Ouch.

I tried manually going through the Settings menu to the USB item...and got the same message.

Then I began wondering if other Samsung Stratosphere users on Verizon Wireless were encountering the same problem.

It turns out that they were.

Stratosphere FF1 update
This question is Not Answered.

cdepalma Sep 2, 2012 3:54 PM
Was prompted by my phone Friday that there an update for my phone. So I let it run. Since then I have lost my USB connection capability. When I plug-in my cord or connect through the settings, I get:

“Sorry…Process com.android.setting stopped unexpectedly. Try again”

The only way I can download/upload between is to remove my SD card and load it directly to my computer. If anybody has the same or any other problems, please post.

Hey VZW... how about a solution!!!???

1557 Views

And that was just the first post in the thread. Other people were encountering the same problem - enough to make one wonder if Verizon Wireless had totally tested this update before sending it out.

So far, this particular thread has only had one comment from a Verizon Wireless cmployee. The employee was positive and helpful, but I'm not all that enthused about the suggested solution.

ChaunceyM_VZW Sep 6, 2012 7:41 AM (in response to Scoobdad)
Hello community members! What an interesting situation you all have going on after the update. Often times after a software update is completed a factory reset becomes necessary. I know completing this step can be a bit painful, but it resolves so many minor problems that pop up after the update. Please select the link for instructions: http://tinyurl.com/cnw949x
Let me know if this resolves your USB problems. Have a great day.

ChaunceyM_VZWSupport

Follow us on twitter @VZWSupport

Of course, Verizon Wireless itself provides this comment about factory resets:

Performing a hard reset will remove ALL data including the Google account, system data, application data, application settings, and downloaded applications. Only perform this reset if absolutely necessary.

Frankly, if I have to execute a factory reset after updating my device...I'm not going to update my device. And others in the thread agreed.

Luckily, there were less nuclear options in the thread, and one of them worked for me. Basically, what I had to do was to make sure that my phone was not plugged in, go into my Settings, go to Applications, go to Development, and then temporarily enable USB Debugging. After that I plugged my phone into the USB cable, turned USB debugging off, waited a bit...and then was able to mount the phone on my computer as a USB storage device. As I write this I have no idea whether I'll still get these messages in the future, but at least I have a workaround.

If you'd like to see a step-by-step process on enabling USB debugging, see IT Jungles.

Now I can listen to Wolfsheim on my phone...and I'm wondering whether Verizon Wireless is going to release a new update, or just tell people to perform a factory reset.