Monthly Archives: September 2006

If you are in it only for the money you won’t get as much … money.

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When he’s not coming up with self serving pseudo communities like Squidoo, (am I too harsh? maybe…) , Seth Godin has lots of excellent marketing insights such as this one that suggests the big innovations come from passion about the topic and not from the quest for the holy big buck, which Seth suggests forces people to *stop innovating* too early.  He cites Apple Computer, Google, and others that really do support the hypothesis.

I don’t think this is the *main* story of success however.  I still prefer to view success as an evolution of ideas where 99.9% become “extinct” and .01%  survive due to forces outside of the control of the company – forces like global economics, weather, personalities, lucky timing, zeitgeists, etc, etc.

We tend to look only at “survivors” and forget that an analysis of corporate success would take a large number of company starts and follow them to their demise or success and then look at the factors that led to their fate.

Flickr  even suggests an evolutionary model both as idea and within the company.   Flickr started as a game maker rather than a photography sharing community.   Flickr’s evolution seemed to be a combination of luck, serendipity, brilliance, and (Caterina Fake might say most importantly) her realization of the potential of the “little idea” that became a huge online community.   Also important is that from Yahoo’s perspective Flickr probably needs to generate a LOT more cash before it’ll be considered worth the $20-30 million they paid for it.      Hmmm – I wonder if founders Caterina and Stewart are eyeing Yahoo’s possible 1 billion dollar offer for Facebook with any envy?

“Dear, we should have held out for a hundred million more!”

But as Seth suggested these innovators are not in it for the money so no worries there I’m sure…. hmmmmmm……

Cicarelli

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This is an blog search test to see how many click here for information about Cicarelli, the top search term at Technorati today. Cicarelli is Daniella Cicarelli, a Brazilian model featured on a rogue paparazzi Youtube video clip (no longer available) that featured Cicarelli and her boyfriend “fooling around”.

Wikipedia reports:

On September 18th, 2006 a paparazzi video showing Daniela on a beach in Spain in intimate positions with her boyfriend Renato “Tato” Malzoni leaked on the Internet and was uploaded at YouTube, but was deleted at same day. The episode echoed in both Brazilian and Spanish media.

Posts that contain Cicarelli per day for the last 30 days.
Technorati Chart
Get your own chart!

Blog readers are not blog writers.

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Check out the top Searches at Technorati for today:

 Top Searches

  1. Cicarelli
  2. Pinky
  3. Facebook
  4. Chavez
  5. Onewebday
  6. Hugo Chavez
  7. Bitacle
  8. Grey’s Anatomy
  9. Black
  10. Daniela Cicarel…
  11. Myspace
  12. Melinda Duckett
  13. Youtube
  14. Assparade
  15. Sophia

 Now look at the top Tags, which I would think are a reasonable proxy of what bloggers are writing about:

Top Tags

  1. Bush
  2. youtube
  3. Islam
  4. Microsoft
  5. Politica
  6. Pensieri
  7. Iran
  8. torture
  9. vlog
  10. chavez
  11. Riflessioni
  12. Terrorism
  13. Amore
  14. Segway
  15. Israel

They are totally different, which is very interesting for several reasons.   Readers are clearly a very different blog interest demographic from writers.  The two groups are not even close in the subjects that interest them.

 

It also suggests that bloggers are not after viewers as much as they are writing their own interests.  I predict this gap will narrow  as the barriers to entry approach zero and the advantages of blogging things of interest to the masses goes up (ie blogs are better monetized than now).   However I doubt it will ever close completely since the guy who just wants to surf for blog porn is unlikely to become much of a wordsmith.   It suggests that bloggers have a more ‘refined’ set of interests in the sense that “assparade” is lower brow than, say “Segway”, though I suppose some would indeed call a Segway convention an ass parade if they were trying to double entendre the scooter crowd.  Hmmm – maybe I’ve got this all ass backwards?

Millions die. Millions more wait to die. All due to our narrow and irrational focus. Man do we suck!

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Another one for the “narrow focus kills millions” department:

Wikipedia on Rotavirus Vaccines, which are improving and will save *millions* of people:

An earlier vaccine, Rotashield by Wyeth-Ayerst, had to be taken off the market in the late 1990s after it was discovered in rare cases to be linked to a severe complication called intussusception. This event was so rare that widespread adoption of Rotashield in developing countries would nevertheless have saved millions of lives, but use of a vaccine deemed unsafe in the U.S. was seen as unacceptable.
Also notable is the fact that the new vaccines are very expensive in USA but heavily subsidized in developing world.  However still it appears too expensive for widespread use.   I remain unclear on how the pharma industry fits into the big picture but it’s a topic I’d like to take on soon as personal research.

When I’ve looked into specifics it generally appears they actually are NOT profiteering from the poor (though certainly they milk the rich like crazy, manipulating people with TV advertising and doctors with freebies). However it seems to me that in developing countries the big pharmas often do the right thing and either give away or heavily discount life saving drugs.  But many activists argue they are the major part of the problem – I think due to big pharma’s opposition to widespread generics.

Unfortunately much of that debate is mired in socialist economic diatribes which often suggest that anything corporate is evil, and therefore not reasonably considered part of a solution, rather than looking for the optimal solution point.

Spinach economy losing $1 million per day. A microcosm of global concern overreaction and stupidity.

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Who’d have thunk that spinach was a pretty big biz. This article suggests that the spinach scare is losing a million per day for California farmers, some of whom are plowing it all under and laying off workers.

Of course if people are spending this million on *other* healthful veggies than the positive affects may wash out the negative, but it seems more likely they are buying something less healthful. If true the scare may have a (small) but net negative affect on health.

I think the overreaction to such small things offers great insight into how defectively we process the big stuff like global health and welfare, and lesser but still significant things like automobile and gun dangers and heart risks. Part of this is simple mental accessibility – “news” outlets report things that people can latch on to easily and we like “easy to digest” news sound bytes. But that’s no excuse. The news attention deficit syndrome is a perilous approach in these troubled times.

As with the ridiculous overreaction to Mad Cow non-disease, the spinach “cure” – basically nobody eating spinach for weeks or even months – combined with economic problems from the loss of milions of pounds of the crop, layoffs, and hardships in the agriculture sector, is likely going to have a more negative health impact than the problem itself.

When you expand this defective type of analysis to the overreaction to Global Warming and the underreaction to AIDs, Malaria, and Rotaviral diseases in underdeveloped world that kill millions per year the future looks … ummm….. green and leafy?

Clinton Global Initiative

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The Clinton Global Initiative is tackling the world’s major problems. It’s a great effort with the backing of one of the world’s most effective superpower schmoozers, Bill Clinton. Although I’d suggest that the Copenhagen Consensus is a more rational way to prioritize spending, Clinton’s group is far more likely to bring big money and big corporations and Government interests to the table.

Today’s announcement is that Richard Branson will donate 3 billion towards reduction of Global Warming via the Clinton Global Initiative. Although I’d much rather see the group put more towards current catastrophes at least this donation is consistent with the notion that big providers of greenhouse gasses like Branson’s many transportation interests should do the most to alleviate the effects of those gasses on the environment.

Perhaps my friend Linda was right to suggest that some people will support Global Warming initiatives in ways they won’t get behind those confronting global poverty. If we can do it all that’s great and for the first time in my life I do think there is a great, driving force on the part of most people, policy makers, and even Governments to initiate “Global Improvements”. Let’s do it!

Maple Syrup Memories. Sappy, but very sweet.

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TourPro got me thinking about New York’s Adirondack Mountain country where I grew up. His site is an excellent guide to that region. Then my old pal Tom, who really should write more often in his blog because he’s a great wordsmith, reminds me that Maple collection is in the spring, not fall. Funny because I’d blended the memories together, maybe simply under the category of “maple tree stuff”?

I actually remember (at least I *think* I remember) picture perfect scenes like this from the woods a short drive out of Plattsburgh, NY. Image is from Dale’s Ponies Gallery:Sap horse

The more newfangled approach lacks the romance, but probably pulls a lot more sap out of the trees.Maple trees with the bucket system seem to use the difference between the pressure in and out of the tree via the tree’s transpiration system.  Hey, DOW makes the filters for this gadget. Why don’t the put THAT fact in their ad campaign with a few horses and maple sap buckets and sugar shacks and I wouldn’t be reminding people of their sordid chemical past.

Sap Extractor

Dow’s Advertising … creepy or cool?

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The DOW Chemical TV and internet ad campaign about “The Human Element” always strikes me as odd, though I think in some ways fits with my Dad’s excellent notion that advertising often talks about a company’s weaknesses as if they were strengths. Using people and faces in an attempt to get across the point that DOW is about people, not chemicals and technology, backfires for me and gets me wondering “what are they trying to hide here?”.

Maybe it’s a generational thing as I always make the Vietnam era “Dow = napalm” reference which in turn leads to the world famous photo of a Vietnamese girl burned by napalm.

DOW can hardly lay much claim to moral, people focused “high ground” but I also don’t buy into the narrow vision of corporations as heartless. Somewhat like people, a corporation is a curious blend of innovation, competition, selfishness, profiteering, good will and more. I believe corporations are as much a reflection of the forces that built that particular company (the “corporate culture”) than subject to standard rule sets. This suggests that DOW may be a bit off with their version of the old Coca Cola campaign about the world singing together.   In fact it kinds of creeps me out like the people in invasion of the body snatchers – is anybody even SMILING in those commercials?

Spinach vs Alternatives

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Generally, spinach is a great food choice.   So far I think 2 have died and about 140 become sick from the e-coli bagged spinach.   Based on news coverage you’d think it had killed 2000 people.   Assuming that the exaggeration of the spinach risk leads to less consumption and a health *cost* associate with that, I bet the spinach scare will kill more people than tainted spinach when you factor in the (very slight) increase in illness associated with eating less vegetables.

What’s for dinner?