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Gawker's 123 Reasons to Love New York Right Now

Gawker lists its "123 Reasons to Love New York Right Now" - a take-off on the New York Magazine cover article of the same name. There are many great (and very true ones), including "14. Because you can live in the same place for 10 years and never have to see or meet your neighbors" and "20. Because there’s always a secret room behind the VIP room" and "36. Because 'road trip' just means Ikea."

The Web's Father Blogs

In time for the 15th anniversary of the World Wide Web, its founder (Tim Berners-Lee) has launched a blog (which unfortunately will focus on very geeky issues). In his first post, I am reminded of how visionary this man was/is. He writes: "In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute. ... Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space."

Broadband over Power Lines

A check today of the Google News results for "Broadband over Power Lines" (aka BPL) indicated that a concept that I've been tracking for some time is becoming closer to reality. Two Texas companies have announced a plan to offer high-speed Internet service over the power grid (read more on c|net). This could be huge for making Internet access more widely available and affordable, as written about by the AP back in 2003. At the same time, some (such as David Coursey of ZDNet) have argued that this is a bad idea - mostly because of the negative influence on radio communication due to interference. I'm hoping that this pans out.

NY MTA Strike

I am very glad that I am not in NYC today for the start of the transit stike, but I am worried about how I'm going to get home from the airport this evening. In the meantime, you can watch coverage at WNBC or NY1. It is an interesting issue, because it is illegal to strike. I support the workers demands (a 3% raise is crazy), but I don't support the workers breaking the law. However, I don't think that the law is legal. Good luck to all my fellow NYers in getting around.

Poker Applied to Business

Mike Ma has a great post on his blog applying poker logic to thinking about ROI in a business situation. Some great thoughts that came to him during a negative travel experience yesterday.

kasina Foundation Web Site Launches

We have launched a Web site for our non-profit Foundation. The Foundation is is dedicated to innovating and improving the education of our children. In the next ten years, we hope to:

• Help 10,000 disadvantaged children fall in love with learning
  
• Engage 1,000 corporate volunteers to get involved with education beyond fundraising

The Forbes Fictional 15

Forbes named the fifteen richest fictional characters (including Scrooge McDuck, C. Montgomery Burns, and more). Fairly amusing.

Media Age Business Tips From U2

The New York Times writes about how U2 has been able to, 25 years in, attract four million people to 130 sold-out shows this year and gross over $300 million next year. The author says that in order to understand that, "you have to look at U2 less as a band than as a multimillion-dollar, multinational media company." I would definitely agree with the author that they have been "one of the smarter [companies] around." U2 has never been among my top 10 bands (or probably even my top 20), but they are Melinda's favorite, so I have seen them twice in the past two months (including the show mentioned at the beginning of the article) and I have noticed that they are doing a lot of things right as their fans are die-hard loyal. The Times article does a good job of hiting on many of the reasons why.

AA's Return to Profitability

The Christian Science Monitor featured an interesting article about how American Airlines (my preferred airline) returned to profitability after five years in the red. Interesting examples include:

"Two American Airlines mechanics didn't like having to toss out $200 drill bits once they got dull. So they rigged up some old machine parts - a vacuum-cleaner belt and a motor from a science project - and built "Thumping Ralph." It's essentially a drill-bit sharpener that allows them to get more use out of each bit. The savings, according to the company: as much as $300,000 a year."

"And it was a group of pilots who realized that they could taxi just as safely with one engine as with two. That was instituted as policy has helped cut American's fuel consumption even as prices have continued to rise to record levels."

Amazing where you can find better ways to do things when you empower your people to innovate.

Letting Data Speak to Data

The science journal Nature today contains an editorial calling for scientists to "embrace a culture of sharing and rethink their vision of databases." Leveraging the shift to "Web services," Nature calls for scientists to make their research available to other scientists. I've been talking with clients for years about the concept of "content syndication" which is just recently coming to fruition across many industries with Web services, RSS feeds, wikis, and other technology (and still remains a ways off in the asset management world). This idea of sharing content is very exciting (for the future of science, the asset management world, and communication in general).

Salvation Army's $100 Strategy

Waiting to meet a friend at the Knicks game this past weekend, I spent a few minutes watching the most successful Salvation Army fundraiser I had ever seen. Their strategy was to set a goal of $100. "Come on folks, only $14 to go to reach our goal." Amazing how willing people were to give $1 or even $5 when they felt that they were helping reach a goal whose end was in sight. Once they reached $100, they started over again with a goal of the next $100. Brilliant! Not quite as brilliant as the guy who started The Million Dollar Homepage, but brilliant nonetheless.

Pandora

I had heard about Pandora.com a while back and read about it recently on Seth Godin's blog, but it wasn't until I read Mike Ma's post today that I really spent time on the site. Very cool - worth checking out.