I am a huge Steeler fan, but after last week, I am concerned.
Tonight they face another strong defense with plenty of threats to sack the quarterback.
I am also concerned about Mendenhall starting in place of an injured “Fast” Willie Parker.
If Mendenhall keeps his hands on the ball, the Steelers keep sacks to a minimum, then the crowd will do the rest during a big Monday Night Football game in Pittsburgh.
…wish I was going, but the new TV does the trick.
Deadpool
There is an interesting meme opening up, which seems to be started by Jason Calacanis. I have glanced over some of these articles and they all seem to be of the same thinking: 2/3 of all web startups will die because of the credit crunch.
Really? Couldn’t it also be that 2/3 of all services aren’t providing something truly valuable? They cannot overcome a rough period with loyal, loud, and evangelizing users/customers? Couldn’t it be that they are too dependent on OPM (Other people’s money)?
Honestly, I find that most startups today, especially in the webspace, are nothing more than doodads. In a good economy, people might buy them/use them, but in a struggling economy they are the first to go.
I find this much ado about nothing and more about stating the obvious and naval gazing. The bottom line is create value everyday and you won’t have to worry about a struggling economy. You will survive the downturn and emerge when the economy does turn around.
Thats right. 1 in 3 US adults already suffer from some form of hearing loss.
I am one of them. Mine has gotten worse over time and escalated quite a bit when I was hit by a roadside bomb blast in Iraq.
I have been diagnosed with high frequency hearing loss and now wear hearing aids. They are weird to get used to, but certainly help. We have an alarm at my office that I never heard until I first used my hearing aids. Some oven alarms and microwave alarms I never heard before, raised some serious safety issues. Then in my workplace the difficulty would come if I was at a mixer or networking event with loud music or a bar. Sometimes it was tremendously difficult to carry on a conversation.
The point of this post is to show the significant opportunity entrepreneurs have to help this large group of people. Sure, there are hearing aids and some surgical solutions available, but what about a high frequency setting or a programmed low frequency setting in car stereos or televisions. Even computers could have small softwares developed to aid the hearing impaired. I am sure there are smarter people who could think of more.
Lend us a hand ear!
Well, I have been sitting on this news for almost a week now. Intense Debate has been acquired by Automattic.
I am extremely excited for the users, the team (Jon, Isaac, Tom, Michael, Austin, etc), but more importantly the idea. I could not imagine a better suitor for ID and all the possibilities it brings.
Now, as all proud Dads would do, here are some baby pictures from ID before anyone knew about it.
Baby ID
Before Techstars,Intense Debate was a real time debate engine. The idea was to connect two people to debate much in the same way Speeddate.com connects people for dating today.
Think real-time debating with a competition similar to fantasy football and that is what we were. When we expressed the idea to our mentors at Techstars they couldn’t quite wrap themselves around it.
They heard us talking about making conversation better on the internet and tying it into blogs. I am really not sure when the “a-ha moment” happened, but within days the entire debate idea had been scrapped for a much larger challenge: Reshaping the way people comment.
More Baby ID
From the beginning ID focused on the publisher. We challenged ourselves to find ways for keeping people on the publisher’s site longer and making commenting more friendly. When we publicly launched, we were the only system with OpenID compatibility, export via xml, regular comment exporting, and comment importing.
Our interface saw many changes from where it currently stands. We met with countless mentors, friends, and associates honing the look, and feel. Long hours were spent helping any and all users, no matter how small their problem happened to be, or how small our team was.
With the acquisition, ID will expand. You will see it in more places and some of our early visions will come to fruition. I could not be more excited to see ID be used by more people in different places, all knowing that we helped to shape how people comment on the internet. There is no way to quantify the fulfillment I will get from knowing we made a such large impact.
I have been doing a lot of research into the business behind the natural stone industry. The general business aspects are quite intriguing as it is amazing how quarried stone makes its way to the United States. There are so many touchpoints as stone is quarried, transported, fabricated, sold, and installed in your home. It is definitely a material with a story behind it.
I have finally found my favorite and it just happens to have my name in it, “Black Morgan.” What do you think?
Black Morgan
I love Lou Holtz. I met him when I was younger because I happened to attend the same elementary school he did when he was younger.
He is a magician when it comes to inspiring people. His words are genuine. People identify with him.
He has a segment on once a week during ESPN’s football coverage and there are a few things I wanted to share that I think apply to everyone, not just football players.
“Tradition is always under construction.” Every week there is a chance to build and there is a chance to crumble. You are either growing or you are dying. Don’t mistake “maintaining” as is it another way of “dying.”
Next he told the story of how a football coach once told him when he was a younger coach that he “shouldn’t worry about making friends or making enemies. Just worry about winning. Because if you are winning your enemies can’t hurt you and if you are losing your friends can’t save you.”
For more Lou, check the video.
Some call customer service a form of marketing. In my mind customer service is probably the single most important thing any company should invest in, after product. It is pretty simple, customers won’t come back if they are unhappy and they certainly won’t say anything nice if they were to share the experience.
The people behind Get Satisfaction have an interesting idea. Having lots of companies carry out their customer service on the same site is interesting and surely valuable. Intense Debate has used it well, as have others.
After stepping out into the real world it is quite easy to distinguish who has customer service down and who doesn’t.
Chick Fil A Truck In McD's Drive Thru
For instance, today I visited the drive-thru at KFC (I crave the potato wedges). After placing my order I was guided into a single lane behind five cars. I couldn’t get out if I wanted to. I waited approximately 20 minutes before I made it to the window. At that point I just wanted to grab my food and go, but no. I waited some more. Then, after I paid and received my food, the server came to the window with my drink. She said, “Our ice machine is broke, is that okay?” (While holding my drink). I didn’t respond with what I should have said. Instead, I rolled up my window and lived to fight another day. Still, the thought lingers–”Why take my drink order knowing that it will be warm soda?” I wanted to ask her if she liked warm Mountain Dew on hot days, but I bit my tongue.
Why promise something you know you can’t deliver? Are you hoping I will just pay and move on? Is your company delivering? Whatever happened to underpromise and outperform?
With all the tools at people’s disposal (camera phones, digital cameras, social media), reputation management is essential. My hope is that someone with an interest in KFC sees this post and sends out a mass email having all managers make sure their ice machines are working. Companies have to capitalize on the speed at which information travels, for good and bad. They will definitely be held accountable for things like customer service.
By the way, I recommend Filtrbox, a fellow TechStar company for anyone’s reputation management. It is like Google Alerts, but way better and well worth a small subscription fee to reward a good service. If KFC used it they might know about their ice machine problem.
The iPhone 1.0 Was Good Enough
The question that will last the ages.
In certain applications it is a tougher question due to the impact on safety, and other issues.
Certainly one would like to always have the perfect product, but that isn’t always proper or possible.
Take the iPhone, launched with no 3g, or exchange support. If Apple would have waited until they had such features, they would have lost out on tens of millions of dollars. Instead, they smartly released a solid product that was still leaps and bounds better for certain applications than what was available. They also made a bazillion dollars on a less than perfect product.
Now, with the release of the updated 3g model, Apple looks like heroes, they get to make a bazillion more dollars, and they give the appearance of constantly innovating.
Golf's Solution To Getting Back On Track
When the train of your life derails for one reason or another, one can be void of any solutions to get back to where they were.
In golf, many of the best players will video tape their swings when they are at their best, not just when they are playing poorly. The reason is to have a point of reference for when their swing isn’t so good.
If you are in business and things aren’t going well, stop what you are doing. Recall when things were going well. Place yourself back into that mind frame. What thoughts were you having? Were you exercising regularly? Eating better? Accomplishing more?
The answer is there; I promise.
So, next time the wife asks why you spend so much time playing golf, just enlighten her on the life skills you are gaining. She won’t mind then 
I hate to even mention politics on this blog. This country is polarized enough.
For disclosure reasons, I normally vote Republican… but I don’t consider myself one. Spending like drunken sailors, expanding government, and protectionism doesn’t sit well with me. They do piss me off sometimes.
However, I have noticed some remarks made on both sides of the aisle that are borderline ridiculous, especially since Governor Palin became McCain’s Vice Presidential nominee.
First, I think it was ridiculous for the McCain camp to try to openly appeal to Hilary voters. It just made the campaign look stupid. Then, later, the left wing bloggers went into a tizzy after Andrew Sullivan proclaimed Palin had not brought Trig into the world, but it was in fact Bristol’s baby. Within 24 hours there were cries demanding DNA tests done to see the true mother. Obviously, this has proven to be very false and another case of wanting something to be true so badly, it magically is (in their head).
Then today, Gov. Paterson of New York stated the RNC, in the constant use of the words “Community Organizer” at their convention was another way of making saying “Black.” I am sorry, but this is getting ridiculous. The whole campaign sickens me. Injecting racism and sexism is awful no matter what color your skin is or what chromosome you were allotted.
As if it weren’t enough that we had 27 primary debates and are slated for several presidential debates and vice presidential debates. It seems like we are locked into this endless campaign. When one election ends, the next one begins. When do we worry about governing?
/political_season_frustration
