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C is for Cookie
Or in this case Citigroup. CEO abruptly quit yesterday and I've never seen so much volume in trading in a long time. I was reviewing the historical prices for this stock. Lots of the news mixed about whether it was just board squabbles and issues regarding compensation and C selling it's retail brokerage business. I'm just not feeling the "like" or even "love" for the stock. It closed near it's high for the day and I'm probably going to watch.
For now, I'm sitting on what I have until before the elections. I'm not sure yet on where the market could go if either candidates elected/re-elected. Depending on reaction I'll probably go back in just before Thanksgiving. I'm rooting for Target since they are definitely on offensive/aggressive end of advertising Christmas deals before Halloween even hit.
PS: I'm back here on the blog if anything to gather my thoughts about the market and stocks. My goal is to get into the habit of writing about what I though of previous days trades. I'm not a day trader but more of an observer. I have some skin in the market but nothing that would really matter. I'm a stay at home mom using my available time to make some income without taking time away from the kids. I'm not planning to rebrand mywhine or spin out another blog. Just too much effort to have to wear multiple hats. I'll probably need to move all this MT backbones to something more like Wordpress.
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Some thoughts on current stocks/market
Wow. We were having such a great upward trend the past few weeks and then all the Middle East challenges appeared which then effected oil prices. It's such a whirlwind of excitement and devastation. When world affairs really shake things up you see it trickle down to the stocks. Some of the highest volume change and price% change decrease include EPB at 1.75% but almost 3000% volume change. That's crazy volume change. FN and FNSR come up behind with a little over 1000% change in volume. FN had a -24.39% price%change and FNSR was -38.54% change. This is pretty hot stocks involve in some really fascinating changes for the technology sphere but slammed hard by recent political/global events. WOW! One of my vows this year was to be better about watching the overall market and track a few stocks with my old method(CANSLIM) but hoping to do more research on new methods while just holding long for more traditional holdings. I hope for more free time after the escrow closes on the house and I can refocus and maybe do more training in my stock portfolio.
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2010 Project: Lifelong Learning of Investments
Even with a baby on the way, I think this is the year I will hone my skills and restructure my portfolio and start focusing my free time(what little I will have) on our long-term investments. Since B was born I sold out of the market, which was pretty good since that was when everything started to go downhill. Now I need to step back and really treat my investments like a business, more serious, think of real money goals/plans and read/analyze as much as I can.
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20% Up in a Down Market
Just finished my 1099 spreadsheet for my taxes tomorrow and discovered I was 20% in the green. Yes I wrote G-R-E-E-N. I actually made money without many trades. I was pleasantly surprised.
My biggest advice though if you are about to have a baby really soon, get out of the market. Heck you should have been out of the market already with how bad things are. I noticed I can't study and review my portfolio as often as before which was daily. However I'm completely out right now and just waiting and watching to see how things turn...if they do turn
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Living Productive Lives
Great links to many articles about simplifying your life.
30 aritlces that will help you simplify your life
I've linked it here to remind myself every so often to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We've been practicing many of these suggestions for many years now.
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529 Plans & what to do during this dowturn
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Coworking meets Coplaying
Cubes & Crayons featured in SFGate.com
Office plans, complete with crayons by Ilana DeBare
Yes I am the Lisa Chan quoted in the article. I highly recommend the space even if you don't have babies or toddlers. The caregivers are great and the office space environment is a good size. It's in the heart of dowtown Menlo Park so not too far from Peet's or Starbucks and around the corner from a good selection of restaurants. I really value the convenience of being able to do my client meetings knowing that B is in good hands.
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Strange Bedfellows
I'm currently reading two books both related to my professional and financial interests. In some way each chapter I read in either book is shaping my own understanding of information and economics/finance. However the challenge is although they represent my "leisure" reading for two of my interests there seems to be potential for overlap of ideas involving how we view information, how we digest it into our experiences, and how they shape our decision making process. I haven't digested all of it yet but I'm feeling there is something in between the lines that are really starting to get the mental/creative juices running around in my head.
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When Children Learn Financial Responsibility
In Debt-Plauged US, Summer Camps Teach Kids Thift by Virginie Montet
I wish I could have gone to this type of summer camp when I was kid. It's taken me years to get myself really on track with this type of thinking and I could have saved alot more growing up. I guess when you don't have role models you just have to live and learn. Hopefully I'll be able to instill in our kids the value of saving.
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Big Cars for Now
So after 2 accidents with the Volvo wagon J plunked down some cash for a midnight blue 1996 LS 400. The car is so much nicer than the wagon, with a really nice previous owner who took care of it. The interior is light beige and it feels like my old Camry which was a 1994 XLE. I have to admit I like the leather but I'm not sure I care too much for how big the car is. I haven't even attempted to drive it since it feels like a boat, (i.e. Lisa is too short to drive the boat). It's a super bummer that J has had some bad experiences with the wagon, and since he commutes ALOT up and down the peninsula, I gave in to him getting another big car. I think since we've been married we've pretty much bought a car every year. I guess we buy cars more often than he buys shoes. I couldn't really say we...since I actually buy shoes quite often which I hate to admit.
Let's see what have we had in our stable?...Toyota Camry, Honda Civic, Porsche 911, BMW 3, Yellow Mazda Miata, Black Mazda Miata, Volvo wagon, now a Lexus LS.
Now that things are taken care of with the insurance he has decided to sell the wagon. If anything he really wants to sell it for parts. He's encouraged folks to buy it only for parts. So now we're selling the banged up wagon. I'm not even considering a new car unless we really need one. I'm hoping for a prius but with the civic getting good mileage(manual) and it's already rated as a very low emissions vehicle, I don't think we'll need a new used car anytime soon. I'm hoping that we can even reach 100K on it.
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Mommy Inventions + sales = $$$$
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Yahoo SVP Hates Peanut Butter
This story first hit the newstands by WSJ with the actual leaked memo. Internal Memo Rips Yahoo (SFGate.com) But I think the real fallout from this story is the decrease in sales of peanut butter. Be sure to support your favorite brand and buy some peanut butter today!
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Mega-church Member New Demographic
Interesting article at Knowledge@Wharton on product placement and marketing of non-relgious products within mega-church communities.
Product Placement in the Pews? Microtargeting Meets Megachurches
"Advertising has begun to seep into churches, and the phenomenon shows no signs of slowing down, say academic, religious and marketing experts. Among the wave of early adopters: the Republican Party, which successfully sold its platform to church-goers in the 2000 and 2004 elections; Hollywood, which discovered the economic power of faith when Mel Gibson's church-marketed film "The Passion of the Christ" became a blockbuster; and publishing, with Rick Warren's best-selling The Purpose-Driven Life, heavily marketed by a Christian publishing house."
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Tax Season Will Be Here Soon
Yes I know we haven't even hit Thanksgiving yet. But I tell you before you even start to think about what to buy when going Christmas shopping, consider your financial outlook for this year and start planning. You never know when those receipts will be important or that junk mail turned out to be your 1099 statements. You just never know how crazy life will be when the holiday season takes over.
I just go the Captio TaxCase
It looks like a great way to manage all the paperwork during the year and centralizes much of the information you need anyway before you even start your taxes. While we use a professional tax accountant, it's still a useful binder to make sure you have tracked all your important financial details. The organizer/control freak in me is actually excited again about our finance management. Yes I'm definitely endorsing mywhine associates link to Amazon but as many of you know me I'm a financial planning walking buildboard.
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Work at SBUX = Gain Weight
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Exciting News about J's Company
I guess it's public now. American Healthways & Lifemasters have merged.
So this was one of J's company major competitor. I had a feeling they were planning to get acquired or IPO this year since there was rumbling that auditors were looking at the books and LM was hiring like crazy. I remember when J started about 5 years ago and there were only a hundred or so people. In the past year they are more than double that number. It reminded me of AV many years ago hiring like crazy just before they were planning to go IPO until the bubble burst.
Right now we're not sure what happens to J's department however it looks like headquarters is in Nashville, TN. I guess my cousin VO would be excited if we are offered a job move. Who know's? Right now we sit tight with business as usual.
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How I Spend Some of My Day
Coming soon to a blog near you!!!! I'm putting together a website to document my stock research and analysis. No membership required for now but maybe in the future. And no I have no aspirations to become Tokyo Joe. As a hobby I conduct stock research as a challenging and intellectually stimulating activity.
Disclaimer: I am not in the financial industry or have any formal degrees in investments or finance. This research is by no means an endorsement to purchase the stock
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When It's All About Self-Control
Well I think this is more like Personal Finance and thought it was interesting.
Out of the retail rat race (SF Gate)
J and I finished a budget/finance class last month and have actually been able to reduce alot of our expenses by 20% first and foremost just by shopping at certain stores. The other thing is that we've always looked first at Craigslist to shop for 2nd hand goods. In most cases alot of the goods were hardly even used so we end up with a really good deal on something almost new. Even when we redecorated the house we found things on Craigslist to supplement things we bought retail...but if I were to do it all over again I think I'd probably be more diligent with Craigslist and buy pieces over time rather than hit up the retail shop for new.
So when I stumbled upon this article I was really excited to hear that there are alot more folks out there are more aware of their spending and want to make a difference. Our friends who took the finance class with us tells us about the fun treasure hunts of thrift store shopping. Like finding an Armani suit for a few dollars. I used to go into those shops once in a while in college to hunt for just a set of shirts but in my bigger days couldn't really enjoy the stores...however I have a new buddy who knows all the great finds and I'm more than half my size from those days.
But I've noticed these days I'm not really much of a shopper. The money I'm saving is actually making a difference in maintaining a one wage-earner house...and the biggest thing is I am not hung up on what people think and I'm not going into debt to buy new things.
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Friends and Their Secret Projects
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Did Ya Know...
I was bored waiting for my non-fat chai the other day at Starbucks(SBUX). So I was staring at the wall and found a brochure of the "nutritional" facts for each drink combination they serve there. I wish they had one for the food. However, I was totally amazed to see the calorie and fat content for the drinks.
Online Nutritional Information for Drinks | Food
So here are the top 5 unhealthy drinks at SBUX:
1. Vanilla Creme, with whipped cream, Venti, Breve: 890 cal, 70 g fat
2. Hot Chocolate, with whipped cream, Venti, Breve: 870 cal, 64g fat
3. Caffe Latte, Venti, Breve: 710 cal, 62g fat
4. Vanilla Creme, without whipped cream, Venti, Breve: 790 cal, 61g fat
5. White Chocolate Mocha, with whipped cream, Venti, Breve: 900 cal, 61g fat
My tall nonfat chai is 170 cal, 0g fat. I was really surprised with #5. That's like all your fat for a day and half of your calories for the day...all in just one drink. That's like 2 hours on a treadmill going 4mph or you can take a jumprope class for an hour which burns about 1000 calories an hour. I think I'll stick to tea which has 0 cal and 0 fat...or my nonfat chai here and there!
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Modern Design for Sustainability
Re:Modern
My friend has just opened up her ecommerce furniture website. I just browsed and enjoyed many of the designs from emerging designers with sustainability and earth friendliness in mind. Re:Modern also does design consultation in the SF Bay Area.
Congratulations Mona!
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Cell phones and the office
I just saw this article on Yahoo. It talks about how Ford Motor is planning to get rid of desktop phones and use cell phones exclusively. I still have weird feelings about using cell phones all the time. Could we see an increase in head related cancers over the next generation? Potential occupational hazard, I think, along with repetitive stress injuries, air pollution, and sick buildings(etc.). I wonder if anyone is studying it?
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Credit Card Society
Hong Kong is very much a cash society. Even with the many credit cards available, many are still lining up at ATMs to get cash. Everywhere I go here in CWB I notice people pay cash.
Today in NY Times, there was an interesting article on the need for credit companies to increase minimum paments and interest rates of consumer credit. The report mentions that consumer debt is pretty high in the US and from a credit risk prevention standpoint, many of the companies are protecting their business because of the high consumer bankruptcies of the 90s.
More on article: Soaring Interest Compounds Credit Card Pain for Millions. (NY Times, Free Reg Required)
I guess consumer credit is not such a big deal in the US when the government is really into deficit spending as well. It's all good for the US economy in some way. However this type of value of spending what you don't have is still not a common thing elsewhere. It's probably a type of American imperialism...let's force our value of consumer debt so that credit businesses can make more money...
I remember even Martin Yan mentioned how as a Chinese-American he prefers cash rather than credit in his financial well-being.
Credit cards or going into debt is not part of the culture here. Everyone works hard and lives pretty much within in their means. One tactic for the credit card company to encourage consumer credit is to offer discounts at restaurants or retailers. You can get anywhere between 15-20% off your meal in many places.
Ten years ago I worked at Robinson-May credit card office, setting up new credit applications, increasing credit limits, and in most cases declining credit purcahses or credit limit increases. I learned how to read credit bureaus and understand credit risk in relation to credit history. It was quite a frustrating experience since we would look at credit history of a client but also use a recent credit bureau report to back up our decision. In lots of cases folks still wanted more credit even after filing bankruptcy, loosing a car or home, or defaulting on other cards. These days if you have no credit history, it's quite difficult to get a good rate for a car or home loan. It's like our society perpetuates the need to have credit to show your worth...
Oh well, recently I've started to appreciate this cash society. If anything I use my credit card as a backup payment option. Even with the rewards systems that many of these cards have, I like not having to see a statement chronically all my purcahses and reminding me to settle my bill. I also like the Octopus card as a great substitute for cards. It's basically a cash card that you can use to pay for parking spaces, public transportation and small purchases at the grocery store and 7-11. Hopfully in the future it can be used for taxis as well.
I'll probably write more about this topic from a cultural standpoint. There's still so much to learn here.
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EMC buys Documentum
Is this a trend, bigger companies buying out content management companies. I found this news at CNET, "EMC busy Documentum for $1.7billion."
It seems to appear that over time more of the bigger comanies will start swallowing up some of the small and medium sized companies.
I'm taking an econ class this quarter and it was interesting that our teacher would suggest that some industries are heading towards a more oligopoly or monopoly model for business structures. This is definitely one of those examples. Also many companies are starting to market that fact that they offer so much with the value that you know everything will work together.
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OCLC vs. Library Hotel
Didn't even know that there was a Library Hotel in NYC...however the theme might fade away since the Hotel used the Dewey Decimal System to classify their rooms and setup themed rooms that reflect the classification systems organizing principles. It turns out that OCLC has sued the hotel for trademark infringement. I didn't know Dewey was trademarked...I think it's a waste of time and money. Perhaps when I venture to NYC I'll make an effort to stay at this hotel if it survives the lawsuit.
More info at NY Times. (free registration required)
More info about the Library Hotel.
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VCs & Social Networking Applications
The MIT/Stanford Venture Lab (VLAB) Presents:
Social Networking: Is there Really a Business Model?
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
Bishop Auditorium, Stanford Business School
Speaker:
Reid Hoffman CEO and Chairman LinkedIn, Ltd
Panelists:
Jonathan Abrams Founder & CEO Friendster, Inc.
Andrew Anker Partner August Capital
Ross Mayfield Founder & CEO Socialtext
Moderator:
Tony Perkins Creator and Editor-In-Chief AlwaysOn
Sponsored by:
MIT/Stanford Venture Laboratory
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Resident Sociologist at MS - Social Networks
Paul Festa interviews Marc Smith, resident sociologist at Microsoft Research. "Microsoft's in-house sociologist." It's a good interview of insights in the use of Usenet Newsgroups to analyze social networks and hopfully improve information retrieval(search). Lots of the typical questions regarding spam, and value of short lists to answer questions, however the reason why this was worth blogging, was the fact that there really is a trend converging on the use of IR & social networks to not only help people find information, but also to help people find each other. Yes this is almost like knowledge management, but it definitely is about community. We aren't limited to our physical community, and tools such as Verity K2 or this new MS Aura project I can see a stronger pull towards better IR tools. All the better for us who are trying to find answers to questions.
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Amazon to provide full text search of books
Just read in NYTimes, "Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books"(free registration required).
This is really fascinating news. Just imagine if they are successful in negotiating access to the actual content of all the books they already have in their catalog. There are definitely issues, like having to secure the access to the full text content, a business model(like subscriptions) for allowing portions of the text to be accessible online. I can see publishers benefiting from this as well with perhaps some micropayments, greater access for their potential readers.
One of the shortcomings of our basic library catalogs, is that there is a definite separation of physical and online. What Amazon plans to do will probably effect how people do their research for homework, evaluate for purchasing a book online, and who knows whatever else.
I wonder what search technology they are planning to use. We already know that a parametric search technology(with good metadata) defintiely differs from full-text searching of unstructured information.
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Just when I thought I was out of User Experience stuff
I have to be honest with myself, I am NOT so much part of that User Experience stuff anymore...unless you count developing search products and management metadata standards...but the more I want to get out of the scene(because of navel-gazing), there's always something pulling me back in...
MORE...
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Software Programmers Innovate
I wish I was at the Emerging Technology Conference(ETCON)...it's only about 20 minutes from where I live. Hundreds of people from the around the world coming to Santa Clara to look at technology and innovative wares of the future...Keynote speaker Howard Rheinhold was featured recently in Wired News, "Futurist Fears End of Innovation." The piece was on his keynote address regarding the government's control over the sharing of new technologies. Although I wasn't there, I agree that we have a responsibility to share and constantly challenge ourselves to push our thinking about the use and usefulness of technology.
In the IA community there is always a need to find standards and to find best practices, are we doing our share to innovate the landscape of information access, architecture, management, retrieval, and user experience? Who are the folks? What are they saying now?
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EVA
No, I'm not talking about eva, a new movie out this past month. I'm talking about EVA, economic value add or another buzz acronyms running around that essentially is a variation of ROI or return on investment.
Basically I had to do some research before the buzzword took over my senses. I found the Stern Steweart & Company website had a really good explanation. By no means am I endorsing them, it was a matter of searching Google for some help on the acronym.
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Urband Legends: Ideas that Stick
Attended a seminar that was presented by a Stanford GSB faculty, Chip Heath. His presentation was on how to make ideas stick. He uses a formula that makes urband legends so popular. He presented several hints for structuring how that message should be crafted so that people remember. I'm not sure if I can really spell it all out but check out his research, he's got some really interesting ideas for selling your idea.
One of the holes in his thoughts is that in order for the idea to really stick. The audience of your message must have some kind of homogenous background of experiences or common cultural or social exposure to symbols or icons that could be potentially used in a formula for crafting the message.
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Porsche & Cayenne
The New York Times did an article describing Porsche enthusiasts reaction to Porsche deploying SUVs.* I found it very interesting both from a business standpoint as well as from a Porsche owner's perspective.
1. Porsche needs to continue as a business
2. Porsche is jeopardizing their brand.
I have to agree that in order for Porsche to survive, they need to expand their offerings and sell SUVs(Cayenne). But at the same time, Porsche may be missing the segmentation opportunities by starting with SUVs. Deep down, I'm a bit disappointed, but Porsche has to do what they have to do in order to stay in business. I'm definitely not one of the ones first in line to get the Caynne since I'm really not a fan of SUVs. Hopfully it does become successful so that Porsche can put their concentration on winning more races.
* free registration required
A more heated discussion is happening at Rennlist (a very active Porsche enthusiast newsgroup)
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Wanted: Wait Staff with PDA Experience
Just came back from breakfast at Stacks in Menlo Park. Just your typical Monday morning breakfast with my husband. With coffee in hand and menu in the other hand, our waitress approached us with PDA in hand to take our order. This isn't just your ordinary PDA, it was a PDA with wireless connection. Just moments earlier I had noticed hubs around the restaurant with blinking lights. From my experience they did not look like a security system. So when the waitress took our order, it made sense and I immediately saw the PDA/wireless hub connection.
So as she was taking our order, it looked a little cumbersome to see her go through the menu screens. The hostess said it was definitely faster since in most cases many restaurants only had 2 terminals to enter order with several wait staff members. I could see how this could save time; For instance a typical scenario is a wait staff taking your order on a paper and then heading over to the order entry terminal where there could be 2 folks ahead of you. By taking your order once, and having it sent directly to the kitchen it could save time.
This is my first exposure to a new venue for PDA use to improve efficiency. It was kind of weird seeing our wait staff trying to fill our order one person at a time. If we were a party of 6 or 8, it may have taken longer. How much time is really saved? Yes the restaurant is innovative and possibly the first to implement this type of system, but what about the customer experience? I'm very patient, but to see the wait staff just stare really(concentrate) hard at the PDA screen, I wasn't sure if she was really listening to me.
Here are some interesting potential challenges:
a) software is still new, lots of bugs
b) the battery dies
c) the pda freaks out, the cursor doesn't go where it should
d) someone wants something that isn't on the menu
e) you spill food/drink on the pda
f) parties of more than 6, could take longer than expected. Backup system should be used.
g) the internal network goes down, does your staff(wait & kitchen) know how to take orders the old fashion way?
Thoughts?
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MBA or Bust
An interesting controversial journal article was published recently by a Stanford GSB professor on the value of an MBA. Somehow the business press really had a field day with this article especially with its timely print during all the CEOs being indicted for one thing or another.
Busines 2.0 Article on the topic: What's an MBA Really Worth?
By Andy Raskin
Citation to Pfeffer & Fong Article:
Pfeffer & Fong, "The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye," Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2002, Vol. 1, No.1, 78-95.
Some of the issues includes the following:
Practitioner vs. research, bar-crawls, networks, direct application of textbook learning, does an MBA actually equate to success..
For me, I think I'm going to hold off on pursuing that "dream" of an MBA. I'm beginning to learn that experience really gets you far, and any piece of paper to tell me that I'm special won't really help. Also based on my previous GMAT, I have no chance for those top tier schools...he he he. Maybe someday I will, just not right now.
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JJG & Book Launch
Remember seeing that really cool diagram in the IA's cubicle the other day, you know the one that looks like this? Well the brains behind that diagram, just published a book describing the various components and why it's good for your business.
Jesse James Garrett
The Elements of User Experience(2002), New Riders Publishing
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Kevin Roberts & Lovemarks
Just saw Kevin Roberts speak at the Stanford GSB. Here are some tidbits from the Saatchi & Saatchi website of that talk.
He was definitely an inspirational and funny speaker. I wonder how far I can take "Lovemarks" in the IA Community. I will have to learn more from the LoveMarks website.
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Work Technology Organization
Just stumbled on this group at Stanford: Center for Work, Technology and Organization. I'll be curious to attend some of their talks here on campus. I was reviewing some of the folks on their board...pretty impressive mix of folks in the Valley.
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Research as Product
Attended Brenda Laurel's presentation on her new book, Utopian Entrepreneur.
Abstract: Stanford's HCI Seminar February 1, 2002.
Presentation: Video Source Just click on the Video Source button.
Some Thoughts:
First it was nice to attend this presentation with my former AltaVista colleague, Lee Cline. She was a former employee of Purple Moon and she gave me some insights on her experiences there. She also introduced me to Dr. Laurel. I thought the presentation at first was going to be more like a computer/techie type talk but it turned out to focus on how "we" can be better designers of products to make life better and make a difference. Alot of her commentary revolved around her experiences with Purple Moon from the business perspective. I really enjoyed this and what would have been really nice is if there were any MBA students in this class. I think they would have benefitted from Laurel's insights on running a business and some practical transitions of research and theory's application in the new economy.
I was also fascinated with Laurel's new work at the the Art Design Institute that brings together design and business models. I would be really excited to take that class. I guess at some level I have the benefit of being exposed to user research, design, usability and hopfully in the future be a better leader by those experiences and develop useful products that make a difference to the Earth and humanity.
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Designing & Managing an Experience
Sat in an interesting internal management workshop the other day at work. Something came up as part of our this workshop that left a profound thought on my mind. If we are all so concentrated on designing the experience online how are the offline experiences managed. Everyone in the IA/UE community seem to be so focused on developing or designing and online experience and I rarely hear any coordination with folks who have been designing and managing the offline experiences that follow a product. I know marketing does some of that but there are such things as customer support, project manager, partner relationship managers, distribution managers, and public relations. Do these things really have one central brain or vision that makes sure all of the stuff we do online is really streamlined with all the other channels?
The key to making sure everyone gets a good impression of the product is not just the product but every single touchpoint that involves some interaction with the customer or buyer. Each of these touchpoints are possibly experiences that the customer may experience.
I wonder if anyone out there cares?
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What do Fish & Cheese have in common?
I spent alot of time reflecting on changes in my life. I guess many saw it happening as well and for this past holiday season I received two copies of the cheese book. Two weeks after finishing the cheese book I stumbled on the Fish book. Can I just say that the authors of the The One Minute Manager are amazing. They each took something like "change" and produced a really nice story on self-reflection and action. They are both a quick read and a great way to help motivate yourself and others.
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Depth of Perception
I'm finally done with my Essential of Marketing class. Pretty interesting class. I think I have a better grasp of marketing functions of many different types of companies. I'm totally ready and able to take a marketing project...well maybe under the guidance of some amazing guru.
I hope I got an "A" in the class. I feel really good about the final. I'm not sure about the final presentation on Saturn. I'm sort of too embarrassed to publish the ppt.
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Fellow GSLIS Alum in Print
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Economist.com: Peter Drucker Speaks When
Economist.com: Peter Drucker Speaks
When Peter Drucker speaks in "The Next Society." People tend to listen. Ck out this article on how this management guru thinks things will be coming soon.
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"Life is a marathon and not a horse race..."
Not everyone running in a marathon worry to beat others, they run to beat their personal time...Time to market is the mantra in business and it is a shame because alot of great ideas exists, but if they let time dictate how it launches, then they miss out on producing the great "thing". Sometimes I feel bad for all these great ideas that fade into the background because it didn't get executed properly. What happens, somebody sneaks up behind you and takes the bigger market share...
Recommended Reading:
Guy Kawaksaki on how to be an entrepeuner from a speech at Netpreneur http://www.netpreneur.org/angels/transcript.html
Christina Wodtke reflects on today's blog as well on the topic at http://www.eleganthack.com/blog/archives/00000241.html.
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HBR September 2001
HBR September 2001
I'm still trying to catch up on my readings. Came across "The Weird Rules of Creativity" in HBS Sept 2001 issue. Robert Sutton offers some interesting advice that to many would be contrary to practice...he definitely promotes diversity. I guess the article could be a nice companion to Gordon MacKenzie's Orbiting the Giant Hairball.
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Still Reflections
Starting my paper on my self-assessment behavior & motivations in business and here's a summary of what I've discovered...
ENFP : Extravert, Intuitive, Feeling, Perceiving
Flexible - Cohering : a mix or rainbow of the assertive, analytic, nurturing
the Artist : bold, daring, exciting, vlatile, intuitive, enterpreneurial, inspiring, imaginative, unpredictable, funny (i'm not too sure about this one but I definitely know I'm not a crafsman(woman) or technocrat.
I hope this helps someone out there know how to interact with me more effectively...he he he.
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Three Cultures of Management: the key to Organizational Learning
Full citation: Edgar H. Schein, Sloan Management Review, MIT, Fall 1996.
I was thinking about Venn diagrams again today. I stumbled on this article in my O&M course. Although the article is focused on organizational learning, I felt there are a few things I know I learned from the article that can be directly applied to the IA/UX community.
It's kind of dated but I think the IA community can read more into the application of understanding these three cultures of management:
the culture of engineering, the culture of CEOs, and the culture of operators
1) engineers could be mapped to the IA/UX: wanting to create a change for the operator(user)
2) executive cultures map to all the managers/supervisors/executives in an organization(the budget and product devevlopment process)
3) operators map to the users of a system or product(product users or a website vistor)
Bottomline...why can't we all just get along? Currently we can't because we don't know each other's language for "stuff." I think someone in the past on the SIGIA list or one of the IA Summits described that IAs should learn the language of marketing folks and business. This was conveyed in a digram more recently at Lou's Bloug with Jess McMullen on "IA Areas of Practice" and the emphsis on having a "minor" in areas of users(user research, contextual inquiry), content(metadata, taxonomy, writing), or context(business, ROI).
If you're an "innie" what culture that your organization prescribe to? If you're an "outie" how can you relate to each culture from the different settings you've been exposed to?
Refer to the IA/UX Sept 2002 Cocktail Hour for deails on "innies" and "outies."
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Rediscovering Dilbert
I've been rereading The Dilbert Principle and I can't believe that I see some of the exact stories in the book happening in various settings that I am in or was in. I totally recommend anyone remotely interested in management to take a second look at the book and the comic strip.
Official Dilbert Website: http://www.dilbert.com/
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Discovering Your Own Interaction/Personality Style
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MBAs and Meyer Briggs Test
I decided to take a class on organization and management through a local university's extension program. I was really fascinated on learning this framework for understanding management styles. The MB test we took was administered and analyzed. We were also engaged in discussion of other frameworks for understanding organization behavior/management.
In addition we reviewed each other's personality in relation to team building exercises. The instructor's point of view on management education was pretty interesting and he quoted an interesting article on the meaning of education, "Learning is experience understood in tranquility." - Handy, Charles, "A Proper Education." CHANGE (September/October 1998) p 13-19. I highly recommend a perusal of this paper.
This perspective definitely reinforces my thoughts that getting an MBA degree is to foster an environment for active networking and intense textbook/case study learning. While taking a course here and there, I am exposed to active problem solving on every day problems everyone is having at that time. Perhaps this perspective will change if I decide to try again for business school.
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Where MBAs and IA mix...
So I didn't get into business school this fall. I don't feel down on it when you know there were over 5000 application and only 300 spaces. People I probably competed with were probably my age and had already crashed and burned millions of dollars for a startup.
What was I thinking about when I started the application process?
I guess I thought I could position myself strategically in an organization that would be more sympathetic to the user experience design and development process. I envisioned better products developed by user research and not just market research. I saw the future of better designed services and products. I thought by getting myself into a b-school I could do more by directing corporations into more user-oriented development. Was I dreaming? I don't think so. I'm not alone thinking about that. But business strategy is still an important componant to being an IA.
IAs can really be anywhere in the org chart. It's a matter of who hears them.
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