Book Review to Dale Carnigie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

To view the pesentation/speaker notes click here.

 

My take away from Dale Carnegie's timeless classic "How to Win Friends and Influence People". This is one of the premier books to anyone interested in bettering themselves. Mr. Carnegie shares his business experience to demonstrate how to motivate and inspire people. This book is a treasure trove of simple yet often forgotten wisdom in how to relate to people.  

Video Response to This American Life's epidsode of "20 Acts in 60 Minutes"

To listen to the podcast I'm discussing you can download the mp3 here.

My thoughts on This American Life's podcast "20 Acts in 60 Minutes". I feel for those of you who go to West Point. It must be like pledging a fraternity everyday of college. What better way to say "I'm sorry" then to put it into a song? Be sure to get to know your colleagues names. Sometimes we don't know why we are successful. Sometimes, its just an Irving (fluke).

Video Response to Stuff You Should Know on "The Future of the Internet"

To listen to the podcast I'm discussing you can download the mp3 here.

Part 1                                                                                                 Part 2

 

My thoughts on Stuff You Should Know's podcast on The Future of the Internet. My predictions: faster wireless internet, the slow death of apps and emergence of "web apps" in their place, cloud computing is nothing new but it will become more common. But all this could end if Net neutrality isn't taken seriously. My solution: turn the infrastructure over to a public utility and require ISPs to share their networks. The internet can makes us dumb by adding another useless distraction leading us further towards a "Brave New World" or we can harness its potential and use it for sharing knowledge or wisdom. It all depends on how we use it. I'm trying to use it to try to capture my scattered temporal thoughts. In summary: why I do this. Had to break this one down into 2 parts due to time constraints. I tried using Windows Movie Maker to split the video but it messed up the audio.

Video Response to This American Life's epidsode of "Million Dollar Ideas"

To listen to the podcast I'm discussing you can download the mp3 here.

My thoughts on This American Life's podcast on Million Dollar Ideas. Why do all Asian food places seem the same? MIT entrepreneurs make their best elevator pitches to potential investors; Cheese is the new heroin; Phillip Morris knows cigarettes kill and that's good for society since your early death saves money; Michael Larson proves you can beat TV game shows (while possibly doing one of the only honest things in his life).

Video Response to TEDTalk by Bill Ford on "A Future Beyond Traffic Gridlock"

To listen to the podcast I'm discussing you can download the mp3 here.

My thoughts on Bill Ford's TEDTalk on a future beyond traffic gridlock. Flying cars are a pipe dream so smart cars are the next best thing. You think Atlanta traffic is bad and your 2 hour commute each day is bad? In China the average daily commute is 5 hours! It's only going to get worse unless we come up with some innovative solutions and Ford is certainly trying to do their part.

Video Response to Common Sense with Dan Carlin's "Looking for a Left Hook" podcast

To listen to the podcast I'm discussing you can download the mp3 here.

My thoughts on Dan Carlin's Common Sense podcast on bringing back jobs to the US. Why is it we allow American corporations to off shore labor under conditions we would never allow here in the US? Because we don't like "those" jobs and we like cheap stuff. Ending trade agreements would certainly bring back jobs but would "cheaper" jobs raise income in the middle class? Where have all the "good" jobs gone?

How does a non-tangible asset bubble burst?

The ERI Economic Research Institute, Inc. released this past years largest salary increases by profession. We all know that health care is expensive and is continuing to be more so but is it any wonder why when of the top 20 largest increases 70% of them (14) relate to the medical profession? Not so surprising 3 others relate to academics (fortunately 1 was a non-magement role). I can understand these increases in the medical field to a degree since they are concerned the new health care bill will eventually cap their salaries at some point (much like how insurance companies are franticlly trying to raise premiums). If the caps do hold (which they never do) then I guess it wouldn't be so bad but its unfortunate that we narrowly focus only on the money instead of the reasons why costs are so high. Sure doctors are highly educated and are worthy of their wages but many regulations exist that force up healthcare costs. Release the AMA and other governing bodies abality to control how many doctors are allowed into the field, end the war on drugs and drasticlly drop the price of drugs and peoples need to get a perscription are just two examples of how the government could restore freedom and lower costs and flip side is people will then have to be resposible of their new found freedom(s).

The Economic Collapse in Easy to Understand Language

Jon Stewart explains the reason for the economic collapse and what Sen. Dodd is trying to do to prevent it in the future (good luck with that).

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The Story of Stuff

There is a movie that is making headlines on the interwebs on a topic that is becoming more popular. If you haven't seen it yet it's called "The Story of Stuff." Here it is in case you are interested:

In my opinion the author makes a good presentation on a very important topic but the video would be more effective if not politicized and was backed by sources. While although it never references a political ideology specifically the resulting conclusion is capitalism via corporatism is evil and socialism by means of equitable distribution of resources (including labor) is the answer.

I fully agree though that we must develop a sustainable framework but we must do so while limiting infringement on personal liberties. What would such a framework look like? The author suggests community farming, zero waste initiatives, and overall environmentalism and consumer reduction but this neglects a glaring problem, our need for jobs. The real question is what can we do to replace the jobs?  That is where you will find that we already live under a socialized society. You need only look to our monetary system to see it. My question then is "was this planned and if so why does it suck so bad?". My answer I'm willing to bet is through conflict of interests and greed by political leaders and wealthy individuals we got a half baked system that is unsustainable and unchangeable. 

Corporation's Ignorance of Their Consumer Base is Astounding

You would think my title would be something out of an Onion article but sadly it isn’t. I’m dumbfounded at how corporations don’t
understand their consumers. Take for example Business Week’s recent article on Ford. Ford comes up with a vehicle that gets 65mpg (that’s 17mpg more than the Prius) but say they won’t sell in the U.S. because A.) It uses diesel B.) It costs too much to import.

To point out the absurdities in those arguments seems too simple but apparently I need to because Ford thinks their valid. Ok, so diesel costs more than regular gas but the fact it gets that much better gas mileage makes up for it. Ford also believes consumers think diesel is too nasty for Americans. Are you kidding me? The majority of Americans buy a Prius because
their fuel efficient. They don’t care about “going green”, that’s just an added perk, not the other way around.

Lastly (and this one really gets me) they can’t IMPORT it because the engine is made in Britain and costs too much. Uh, why can’t an American company make its own engines by American laborers for American consumers? Maybe it’s the US pension plans they can’t afford… or maybe the U.S. is just living too much off of borrowed time and money all because we make such terrible mistakes.

[Update 9/8] Yea for Chevy for actually listening to their customers. Let's just hope they build a big enough gas tank to ensure motorists don't get stranded between stations.

Screw Innovation, Just Dig Deeper

If you haven't heard, ISPs are blaming bandwidth hogs for your slow internet and their solutions aren't in your best interest. Heaven forbid companies actually try to create solutions that customers actually want rather than find ways to "dig deeper into their pockets". What I don't get is why they don't just run more fiber if bandwidth is the issue. Amazingly one of the telecoms that likes to screw their customers as much as possible realizes this and is at least trying to do something but even this won't satisfy our bandwidth needs in the near future (e.g. streaming HD video & phone). I guess the other option is we just never see these "scifi" technologies. The sad thing is we continue to fall behind the rest of the world and yet we continue to take on the rest of the world like Leeroy Jenkins in thinking we've got it all together.

[Update 9/12] Perfect example. Case and point.

It's Offical, America is no longer American

Today Anheuser-Bush sold out to Belgian brewer InBev taking the last American beer giant down. It's just a matter of time before the smaller ones get picked off. The day Samuel Adams sales out will be the day the antichrist returns.

Did You Know? (DYK): Miller is owned by SABMiller based out of South Africa. Coors is owned by Molson Coors Brewing Company based out of Canada.

Wachovia better not sell out

Rumors are Wachovia the 4th largest bank and my bank of choice is looking to sell out. If true, then the housing market has hit even this great giant. I really hope this doesn't come true because AmSouth and Regions was a good example that banks shouldn't merge. I left Regions shortly after their merger and I'm so glad I did. It was like they had chimps managing their IT departments and do you want chimps playing with your money? I didn't think so. Maybe they wouldn't have had so many problems if they hired my company? :-)

UPDATE (7/22): It just keeps getting worse for Wachovia. Looks like the rumors might soon become realty. I'm still hoping they can hold on as I really don't want to change banks again.

UPDATE (9/29): Oh well. I'm just glad they didn't go belly up. Hopefully the integration won't be too painful.