Tuesday, March 20, 2007

More unfortunate Ford news

The Detroit Free Press reported that a man committed suicide by jumping off the 10th floor of the Regent Court Building in Dearborn. The Autoblog identified the building as Ford's Marketing HQ.

Although the suicide was not work related, it can't be good news for Ford when it has announced huge losses and that it is selling off Aston Martin.

Even on the marketing side, it seems that rival car companies are coming up with creative campaigns. Nissan is now engaged in a viral marketing campaign with fake car keys being left in popular hang outs with a tag that says the new Altima doesn't need a key due to its push button start.

I hope that the money they are getting from the Aston Martin deal will help implement their latest turn-around plan. I'm skeptical because it was just over 10 years ago that "Ford 2000" was supposed to bring the company into the 21st century and allow it to take the world's #1 auto maker position from GM. It didn't. Unless Ford is investing its new funds and energy into remodeling itself from the inside (i.e. less focus on headlines and more on internal processes and flawed operations) it will not be able to overcome the decades of entrenched thinking to pull itself out of the hole.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Just Bag-it!

As I globe trot around northern California, I would like to share a helpful travel tip.

On a trip to Italy's Cinque Terre, I decided to carry along a large Zip-lock bag. This isn't the regular quart or gallon, but the very large Zip-Lock Big Bag. It is normally marketed as a way to store everyday things like soccer balls and board games. I used them to keep my dirty travel clothes away from my clean clothes, eliminating the need to have one suitcase specially for dirty clothes.

What you do: As you dirty clothes, put them in the Zip-lock Big Bag. You zip up the bag to keep in all the dirty touristy smells. You can put this bag right in the suitcase with the clean clothes without worry.


As you go through the trip, the Big Bag will get more and more full, and the suitcase will have less and less clean clothes. The wonderful thing is that you are carefully separating the clean from the dirty without taking up extra space or making life complicated. When you get home, you can just take the entire Zip-lock to the laundry (it comes with built-in handles).

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

I'm a survivor. I'm not gon give up.

When you go to the gym regularly, there are some people you start to see over and over. Of course there are the muscle heads that don't leave the spot by the free weight right in front of the mirror for fear that their muscles will deflate if they stop looking at them. There are the really skinny girls on the elliptical machines, trying desperately to get back to their birth weight (what they weighed when they were born). There are the cross-trainers, who are all over the place as if they are on a workout scavenger hunt. And then there's the little old lady. She's there in the afternoons and walks on the track. Even for the walking lane she's slow. She's hunched over as she shuffles her feet. I believe she's carrying the first Sony Walkman ever sold. It looks like she can pass out from exhaustion at any minute.

At first, I feel really bad for her. But then I realize that I shouldn't feel bad for her at all. I should admire her. She's at the gym several times a week, surrounded by much younger people whizzing past her on the track. Yet, she's doing it her way. And she's exercising, which is much more than what more people do just by itself. I hope that when I get to be 80 and hunched over that I still have the spunk to be at the gym regularly, shuffling my feet along to the tunes on my discman.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

How much is your time worth?

Chicago Public Radio recently started its spring pledge drive. Regular NPR listeners probably think of these drives as the time that their local public radio stations are the least enjoyable to listen to. It seems that there are very large chunks of airtime devoted to repeating the phone number to pledge or the URL where you can become a member.

The dynamics of the daily pleas for money are very interesting. During very popular shows, on-air pledge drive hosts seem to stress that money collected during certain shows does a couple of things:
  1. It tells the station which shows are most popular. Very democratic, but this assumes that the number of donations and/or money collected during a show is directly related to the popularity of the show, which may or may not be true.
  2. It tells the national NPR programmers what kinds of shows would be best to produce due to popular demand.

During times of the day when there are fewer listeners, however, the hosts change their tune. During these times, the arguments seem to be that public radio offers a special and currently unique set of programs that are free from corporate and political strings. They clearly state that public radio gives news that is relevant and not just celebrity gossip, sports or other pop culture. With this argument comes the implication that regular (i.e. commercial) stations are at the mercy of their corporate ad sponsors. And therefore, if you hate having your programming dictated by large companies trying to sell you something, you should donate to NPR.

This reminds me of the recent study released that claims that many cell phone users are willing to see advertisements in their mobile content. I for one, am part of the mob that wants as little ads as possible. That doesn't seem to be the trend, seeing as how major media companies are hopping into the mobile adspace. With large companies such as Nokia leading the charge, it seems that cell phone banner ads galore are right around the corner. The Online Publishers Association certainly thinks so. Some are claiming that 50% of mobile users will accept mobile adds. The key to me is "accept", just like they "accept" banner ad on regular PCs now. That doesn't mean they want them.

I for one am willing to trade an unobtrusive banner ad in exchange for otherwise free content. Just so long as they don't start to adopt the movie theater model of charging for admission and then making you sit through 20 minutes of commercials and "trailers".

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Step 1: PAIN

A lot can happen in two weeks. In my case, "a lot" translates into muscle atrophy and a measurable decrease in physical ability.

After only two weeks of not being on the training schedule, I appear to have suffered a very noticeable setback. When I went to the gym today, I was hurting quite a bit. The 30 minute run that I would have easily done before was now a struggle. I stopped before I wanted to and moved on to doing stretches, crunches, etc.

I remember this point when I first started going to the gym at the beginning of the year, and I didn't like it then either. If things this time around work like the first time, the pain should subside after a couple more trips to the gym before the end of the weekend.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

If you don't stumble...

You don't have a chance to get back up again.

That's one of those proverbs that motivational speakers and people desperate enough to listen to every word they say and think they can change their lives often quote.

I don't think I fall into either of these categories. But, I readily recognize that I have my share of opportunities to "get back up again". This coming Memorial Day, I will swim/bike/run my way to the finish line of the Galena Triathlon Sprint. This will be my very first attempt at a competitive sport like this. The goal for this event is two-fold. First, I want to get in better shape. Second, I want to finish the race without falling over or resorting to crawling.

To help me along, I will make a public commitment to sticking to a training schedule. My schedule will be posted online through Google Docs & Spreadsheets. I will update my training schedule here. I will also add a link to the right hand column where the spreadsheet can be accessed.

Where does the "get back up" come in, you ask? Well, as you can see from the training schedule, I have hit a huge hiccup with the last two weeks of training. This was a rough period of time, and only yesterday did I get back on the bandwagon. It's time to get back on the horse. To have a stiff upper lip. To belly up to the bar. To put my money where my mouth (blog) is. To live up to my potential.

One stride at a time.

Friday, March 2, 2007

The first step is a doozy!

Here comes my first solo blog. I have long thought about creating my own blog, but several factors such as time, convenience, and personal humility have kept me from thinking that I had anything that anyone else would ever want to read.

After overcoming the personal humility hurdle and settling on a mindset that I am the center of the universe, I have finally started the blog. It's too bad that I can't instantly say that I have had this blog since 2002. But, I can honestly say that I have had thoughts at least that long.

So, here we go.