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.

Living the good life

My other half's family have an annual tradition. To celebrate the birthday of the family matriarch (my other half's grandma) the entire clan decamps to a bungalow camp in the south of Holland for a weekend of games, sports and relaxation. This has been going on for some twenty years and when it began the participants numbered about ten.

This year there were nineteen, assorted children, boyfriends and fiances having since joined the ranks. The prospect of two whole days with your girlfriend's family is the kind of stuff that's supposed to make the blood run cold, and Maria did her best to up the tension by briefing me exhaustively in advance on the assorted rituals and rites that would be performed. However since every one of the nineteen attendees is a lovely person, and the park is home to things like tennis courts and bowling alleys it didn't exactly live up to the hype of 'death by social occasion'.

Each year there is a theme, and this year's theme was 'Old Dutch Games' the idea being to hold a small 'Olympics' based on old Dutch childrens games. It turns out that Old Dutch Games are pretty interchangable with Old English ones. There was skipping, there were hula-hoops, a sack race, marbles, bubble blowing and so on. There were also costumes, which I suspect have warped my notion of old fashioned Holland beyond all recognition.

So all in all a fine weekend. Good food, good company and good fun. Now I just have to wait a year for the next one...

Spanish bombs

There's been a lot of stuff written about what happened in Spain. Commentators from left and right have found a new hobby - interpreting the results in a way that makes the other side look bad. The results were pretty simple, people died. The commentators should bite their tongues. Some things go beyond who's going to win the next election or whether the new Spanish government are soft on terrorism.

The best thing I've read that's been written about this (I couldn't really translate the two pages of the local Dutch paper which were sensibly given over two Spanish writers) is this column from Sid Lowe. He's a football journalist, in Spain. So this is Sid's weekly round-up of the Spanish league, only it isn't, only it is. Footballers aren't normal people, but on a day like this maybe they are and their reactions say a lot about how terrorism affects people.

The whole point about terrorism is that it crashes in through the windows and makes things different. You shouldn't think about bombs when you watch football - but then you do. That's what the article is about, normal life goes on, but it doesn't. The only response to terrorism is not to be terrified, but that's hard.

Spanish bombs

There's been a lot of stuff written about what happened in Spain. Commentators from left and right have found a new hobby - interpreting the results in a way that makes the other side look bad. The results were pretty simple, people died. The commentators should bite their tongues. Some things go beyond who's going to win the next election or whether the new Spanish government are soft on terrorism.

The best thing I've read that's been written about this (I couldn't really translate the two pages of the local Dutch paper which were sensibly given over two Spanish writers) is this column from Sid Lowe. He's a football journalist, in Spain. So this is Sid's weekly round-up of the Spanish league, only it isn't, only it is.

The whole point about terrorism is that it crashes in through the windows and makes things different. You shouldn't think about bombs when you watch football - but then you do. That's what the article is about, normal life goes on, but it doesn't. The only response to terrorism is not to be terrified, but that's hard.

Why websites become successful

This I'm afraid is a shameless plug for the article I've just written for my other website. It's called 'What makes a website popular' On Friday I spent hours trying to find a good subject and ended up writing almost nothing. On Monday I wrote this in a couple of hours (I'm told it shows), still I'm pretty pleased with how easy it was in the end.

Hopefully it will go some way to convincing the latest round of companies who've recieved my CV that I have something interesting to say. At volume.

Opening up to Open Source

I've just installed Open Office as an alternative to MS Office. So far it's hard to tell the difference. I mean the icons are different and stuff but the dislocation is no bigger than the switch from something like Office 97 to Office 2000. A few things are in different places, some stuff looks a little different, but that's it.

Feedback is good

I was once told that one of the worst things about websites is that 'you do your development in public'. That's not a bad thing, that's a great thing. Sure your mistakes are out there, but so are your successes, and most importantly of all people who are actually interested in what you are doing will take the time to comment.

My MBA class have been giving me great feedback about my new website. Everything from the copy, to the URL to the prices I'm planning to charge. They've even recommended books I should be reading.

So, in some ways it's back to the drawing board, or at least the construction site, but its going back with a new raft of ideas and a new bunch of things to work on. It's a good feeling, and as I slowly expose the site to more and more audiences the key will be tracking the feedback, watching the logs and making sure I end up with something good. I certainly think I'm getting there.

Something in the water

FIFA's list of the top 100 living footballers is out today. For me the things that stand out are

The fact that there aren't very many Englishmen on there
The fact that there are an awful lot of Dutchmen on the list

I mean allowing for the Netherlands tiny population they've been more successful at turning out footballing genius' than any other nation in the world. I mean Brazil, Germany and Italy all have more players on the list, but they're all at least three times the size of Holland.

So either its something in the water, or all these football parks in the middle of town are making a difference.

Something in the water

FIFA's list of the top 100 living footballers is out today. For me the things that stand out are

The fact that there aren't very many Englishmen on there
The fact that there are an awful lot of Dutch

I mean allowing for the Netherlands tiny population they've been more successful at turning out footballing genius' than any other nation in the world. I mean Brazil, Germany and Italy all have more players on the list, but they're all at least three times the size of Holland.

So either its something in the water, or all these football parks in the middle of town are making a difference.

The Onion

I've been finding a lot of the Onion stuff a bit samey lately, but this ones a corker.

Haiti Explained

The Financial Times has run this article today (subscription needed for the FT site so this is a mirror), so you have to assume its not complete fiction. It certainly explains why when Bush is so set on bringing democracy to places like Iraq he singly failed to defend it in Haiti.

I remember seeing the news when Colin Powell said he though Aristide should consider his position thinking it was really odd. The Iron fist came out of the velvet glove and Aristide must have known the game was up.

Lets hope the UN can make something out of this. Maybe Aristide was a wrong un, there's certainly evidence that he had armed thugs of his own running about. The question though is, if you're running a place like Haiti and your foreign aid has been suspended just how do you say no to the men with guns?

I'm sure there's a reason

But this is just a bit odd when you read it

"The contingent of 150 to 200 Marines, joined by over 100 French troops, unloaded machine guns, grenade launchers and bottles of Evian water"

And why is the US military paying for brand name mineral water? News from Yahoo.

Freelance Internet Marketer

That's what I am and this is my new website.

Freelance-internet-marketer.com , it's as good a name as any other. Furthermore it may even help with the search engines and if only this was 1998 it would have a massive sell on value.