Latest musings

I've just finished writing a case study on my old blog, the MBA Experience. I think it's a good example of what weblog marketing can achieve for an institution like a business school - a useful part of a larger effort.

Lovely Day

I'm sitting out on the balcony, doing some work and watching the swans who've built a nest in the canal outside the house.

Remind me why I want a job again?

Don't run, walk

I'm older today, and one of the benefits of being older is new possessions. This year my better two thirds got me a heart rate monitor for exercising. I've wanted one of these for ages, but had of course completely forgotten this right up to the moment I unwrapped it.

Now, my 90 day fitness plan calls for me to exercise for 25 mins three times a week, for three weeks to improve my cardiovascular fitness. I should do this exercise at 70% of my maximum heart rate, or about 143 bpm.

Trying this out brought some interesting results. My dead stopped, doing absolutely nothing and having forgotten about the monitor heart rate is between 64 and 66. Not great, but not bad. My wandering round the house doing next to nothing heart rate is more like 80 - I've no idea if that's bad or not.

My heart rate at what I've usually considered a 'light jogging' kind of pace (9 minute miles) is over 160. Much experimentation revealed that jogging at 70% of my maximum heart rate is pretty much impossible. The moment I so much as lift my feet off the ground my heart rate hits about 153 and stays there.

Think it's time I kept this fitness thing up for more than a week in a row.

How to become famous (in the blogosphere)

This just about covers any answers to the 'how to build blog traffic' questions. Should I ever have another blog I want people to read I'll be starting here.

This of course is a blog I occasionally want to write, which is rather different.

E-ink on high street shelves

When I first read the E-ink case study for business school I assumed it was fictional, so cool was the technology described. However it wasn't, it was real and now you can buy the world's first electronic book using E-ink technology. The resolutions still a little less than great, the price a little high, but that's not the point. Once Moore's law kicks in these things will become standard.

School textbooks on subscription would be a great market for these. For a one time purchase of a display (insured) and a lifetime subscription you can access all the textbooks you need for fourteen years of your life - with an extend to university option.

Shame on me!

For not realising that the John Kerry featured in this Doonesbury strip from the 1970's was the same one running for the Presidency right now.

A little late in the day...

Howard Dean is now blogging on his own blog. It's not much, but it'd be nice to hear more of his voice during the election. Which we might get to, depending on how clever the new grassroots idea is that he plans to announce on the 18th.