Attention Parents of College Age Kids

Hear ye, hear ye... this is good writing and something you and your children should read.

From Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users

"Mom, your degree was exercise physiology. You spent your first five years out of college as a glorified aerobic instructor. Then you taught yourself programming, took a few night classes at UCLA, and made a huge career switch into computers, and found you loved it. You have your own computer book series. Yet you told me you had just a single computer class in college, and you hated it. So... tell me again why college was so great for you?"

Read the full article here.
Have your college kids read the article.

Then think about it.
And have a good healthy family discussion about it.

Quotes & Links - Wednesday

From Steve Griffiths at ?IC@TomorrowToday.biz

To me, the issue here is one of perception. We have known for a long time about the UK Pension Gap. We have known that Gen X is not investing in Pension Funds. We have known that the retirement age is likely to increase. However, the media image is of a generation that doesn’t care enough to think beyond Today. It would seem that the exact opposite is true. Maybe Gen X is the most sacrificial and caring Generation of them all…

From Elana Cantor at FunnyBusiness

The article then quotes Gordon Wainwright, author of "Teach Yourself Body Language." who says the way to compensate for a lack of good looks is to "maintain eye contact, act upbeat, dress well and listen well."

Let me get this right.You're earning less money because you're not attractive, but you've got to spend more money on clothing to compensate. That cheers me up.

But my favorite part of this article is the medicine that's recommending for all of us who are not fortunate to be "lookers". Here's what Wainwright says will make everything all better:

"Stand up straight, tuck in your stomach and smile at people."

From D at Under the Palms

New York legend and patron saint of the intellectual, Allen has unwittingly become the hope for every socially-awkward, male Mensa candidate everywhere. All knit-picking neuroses aside, the idea that an ugly little man can transcend life's usual limitations to obtain a tall, beautiful woman by shear wit and intellect--well, it just seems like what it actually is: fiction.

I have heard several female friends describe their experiences with this prototype: the vertically-challenged, chronic complainer who attempts to glorify his miserable existence with mildly insightful, yet ultimately depressing quotes from Proust and Nietzsche. As anyone who's experienced this phenomenon can attest to, if there's anything worse than an ugly little man, it's a whiny, boring, ugly little man.

Enjoy!

Quotes & Links - Tuesday

Tom Asacker has an interesting "flog" over at A Clear Eye. Check it out!

This is a test. This is only a test.

You know and I know that, as a medium, the Internet is still in its infancy. Podcasting is certainly not the endpoint of innovation.

So in the spirit of trying something new, I thought I'd try my very first "flog." Check it out by clicking this link. And please let me know your thoughts (good, bad or indifferent).

Ronni Bennett at A Sense of Place discusses Auto Inconvenience

From Kathy Sierra at Creating Passionate Users

I need to remember this. Every user is new and different. Every reader is new and different. And as long as the user is new, then the experience of their interaction with the product, service, book... is new and different. Every new user breathes new life into what we create and deliver.

Enjoy!

Links & Quotes - Monday

From Lorraine Berry at Culture Kitchen we find this excerpt:

What is it for a man to surrender to a woman? Is it to imagine what it is to be the glove, rather than the hand. To be the sheath. That is what vagina means, you know. Sheath. From the Latin. I find it fascinating that a part of the female body, the canal through which women bring forth new life, the first journey we experience as human beings—sliding through a fleshy tunnel into the light and cold—that the name for that conduit is not related to its function in birth, but rather, bears the name of a holder of a weapon. A scabbard—the covering in which you insert your sword.

I urge you to read the whole thing.

From Graeme Codrington at ?IC@TomorrowToday.biz

In the “Connection Economy”, we argue that one of the most important features will be a focus on creating experiences for clients. No longer can you differentiate your products from your competitors’ simply by relying on functionality, price, quality or anything intrinsic in the product/service/offering itself. You and your competitors are selling similar stuff, at the same quality, to the same customers, at similar prices, distributing through the same channels, advertising in the same media using similar techniques, and you even swap staff every few years. To differentiate yourself from your competitors you need to provide an experience linked to the purchasing moment as well as the product/service/offering itself.

Enjoy!

Vacation Time

I am heading into central PA for some quality time with my wife and some close family friends.

There will be no internet connection so I might be able to finish a couple of those books that have been started but not completed, and for those that I have completed, I might even be able to get a book review drafted.

We'll see how much time is available for this.

If the weather is good, it may be better spent hiking in the woods.

Catch you later!