Having just returned from my first trip to China, I have one word to summarize it all - WOW.  The picture above is taken from the 29th floor apartment I was staying in for a week in the Central Business District of Beijing.  As you can see, there are some enormous buildings, all of which are surrounded by additional construction.  And this going on ALL OVER Beijing. 

We were staying in the CBD, but had to travel 45 minutes each morning to get to Tshinhua University up in the Northwest corner of the city.  Needless to say, nearly the entire drive had scenery like the picture above - big buildings interspersed with small buildings interspersed with run-down hovels.

This trip was a perfect example of “see it to believe it”.  You can read all the stories about the phenomenal growth in China, but it never really sinks in until you are right in the middle of Beijing (or any other city for that matter) seeing the increased level of activity for yourself.  To be sure, this kind of growth wouldn’t be possible without some fundamental drivers.  In my opinion, it comes down to the people in China and their passion for education, but more on that later.

For this weary traveler, all it took was one week to fall in love with China and the Chinese people.  I can only hope to return again soon.

So I have accumulated a few gift cards and certificates to Amazon, and I need to use them.  To make things even more interesting, I also have to pick a “productivity tool” as a welcome gift for joining a group.  I’d like to hear some advice on what I should pickup with my virtual wealth.  Let me break the task down into 2 parts.

Group 1 can include multiple items, but totals around $100.

Group 2 can be 1 item with a price less than $600 and needs to be a “productivity tool”.

I think “productivity tool” includes virtually any electronic item, since I was told that iPods were a popular choice.  I was hoping for an Xbox 360 “productivity bundle”, but Amazon appears to be out of stock still.  So go forth, browse Amazon, and post ideas!

I’ve been reading Thomas Friedman’s newest book, The World is Flat, for the last several months (sorry, Tom, I think you might make the same point a few too man times in a row to make it a quick read).  In it he describes the differences (of which there are many) between two retailing giants - Wal-Mart and Costco.  Of the points he makes, the one that struck me as the most interesting was the drastic difference in employee benefits.  Friedman writes:

“Wal-Mart spent about $1.3 billion of its $256 billion in revenue in 2003 on employee healthcare, to insure about 537,000 people, or about 45 percent of its work force.  Wal-Mart’s biggest competitor, though, Costco Wholesale, insured 96 percent of its eligible full-time and part-time employees.” (Friedman, p. 214)

No, that isn’t a misprint, you read it right - Costco’s health insurance plan covers 113% more of its employee base than does Wal-Mart’s. 

So which one of these two companies is the Wall Street darling?  You guessed it, Wal-Mart.  Because Wal-Mart is nearly 2x as profitable as Costco, Wall Street sees Wal-Mart as the better company.  Where the CEO of Costco is consistently berated by Wall Street for paying his people too much and thus not controling his costs as tightly, Wal-Mart is seen as a hyper-efficient, streamlined machine.  But is this drastic difference in Wall Street opinion warrented?  Should Wal-Mart be seen as such a Wall Street darling?

In my opinion, Wall Street is missing something very important.  They are holding Wal-Mart on a pedestal for the coporate policy of pushing the health benefits of 55% of its employees on the U.S. tax payers.  Ironically, this “government subsidy” looks the same to me as the type that France and the E.U. give Airbus, which Wall Street calls anti-competitive.  Apparently the Aerospace Industry traders don’t talk to the Retail Industry traders.

So this brings us back to my original question - What is the purpose of business?  In my opinion, it should be two-fold: to create jobs where employees are compensated well enough to be self-sufficient AND to generate returns for investors.  I can guarentee that the average Costco employee is a significantly better consumer (and thus more positive impact on the economy) than the average Wal-Mart employee.  It is my belief that the “value” of a company is actually understated (or overstated) by P/E multiples and Market Caps alone.  I think we need to add some other variables to the equation - ones having to do with the social benefit (or decay) of a company and the secondary and tertiary effects that it creates (i.e. employing quality consumers vs. draining the MedicAID budget).  If we could account for these variables in a suscint way, maybe Wall Street would rethink its stance towards the worlds two largest retailers.

Most people don’t live where they work, at least that’s what I would think.  Some people work across the lake, some work in different states, some work only blocks away.  People have to commute to work, and they use various modes of transportation.  Plane, train, automobile, bus, motorcycle or even a bicycle.  I live about 7 blocks away from work, so my commute is pretty much non-existant, and I don’t have too many options besides the 2 feet attached to me.  (It’s up a big hill so a bicycle isn’t really worth the effort).  Depending on costs of time, money, and effort people choose a specific method.  I am writing this post via Cingular’s HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) network (coverage map) or their EDGE network, and I have already accomplished 3 work related tasks, checked in with my girlfriend, and checked out some news.  It is so great that I think this changes my needs!  I NEED to have this kind of internet access if I ever need to commute to work.

Seattle’s Sounder offers 802.11b/g wireless, but just not on the trains that go to Tacoma yet, but I hope they will do it very soon.  The pilot beta program also has 5 buses that go from Redmond to Seattle on Route 545 that has been running since December.  The Wi-Fi is currently free, and I hope that it stays that way when they continue the program.  If they were smart and wanted to charge, they should offer a commuter rate that ties into your monthly pass.  Anyway, I think this would make a lot of people re-examine their use of automobiles.  I can now work, or play, instead of fighting traffic and have gained time back!

 Anyone know of other cities with commuter sponsored Wi-Fi access points?

Thats right its a Plane!!! Alaska has cancelled flights left and right, rumor running around the airport is that the FTA is forcing them to cancel flights due to problems with pressurization. Alaska has had a ton of problems lately with their planes and these cancelations seems to be stemming from those issues. Luckly my flight is only two hours delayed, but the level of service from them is awful, heads up to other flying alaska you may have to build some flexibility into your plans. It continues to amaze me that Alaska opperates as a major airline and at times has trouble just keeping its planes running. Our plane eventually showed up, but it took them two hours just to move it over from the hanger, you would think that they would do some level of mechanical check on the plane and set up a back up plan if something goes wrong.

Ever hear someone say they are “OOF” when they mean “Out of Office”?  You might wonder why it isn’t called “OOO”.  Well, it comes from the old Microsoft email system which had an option “Out of Facility” and was shortened to OOF by users.   This is a great list of OOF replies.  Number 6 is my personal favorite.  Anyone got some more to add?

1) I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2) You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn’t have received anything at all.

3) I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me until I return from holiday on 4 April. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in the order it was received.

4) Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.

5) Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queuing system. You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in approximately 19 weeks.

6) I’ve run away to join a different circus.

7) I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons. When I return, please refer to me as ‘Margaret’ instead of ‘Adam’.

8) I am out of the office this week, and will not be checking email.  Please re-send your message to Sally who will pretend to help you until I return next week.

9) Thanks for the email.  I leave my OOF on so you know I was on vacation last week and you were not!

I got most of these from Blake’s post.

You have got a plethorea of services that start with “Windows Live”:  Windows Live Messenger (WLM), Windows Live Mail (WLM) [wait, which one is WLM?!], Windows Live Local (WLL), Windows Live Safety Center (WLSC), Windows Live Expo (WLE), Windows Live Favorites (WLF), Windows Live Search (WLS).  Then there is another set of “Live” services: Windows Office Live (WOL) and Windows OneCare Live (WOCL or WOL).  But the worst came today when I found out about the new Windows Live Local Search Free Call (WLLSFC).

At a company with over 60,000 employees, and a committee could ruin much of the work they do by making a huge mistake in naming.  I don’t mind getting rid of MSN, which has a slow, clunky, non-innovative history attached to it.  I understand that the naming works with the new organizational structure, but it makes no sense to the consumer to add extra words or letters. 

Why not make MSN into just Live?  Live Messenger, Live Mail, Live Search, Live Local.  You could even play off it for advertising Live (change it to live as in living).  They could do something even better, and get a whole new word/letter/phrase similar to “i” in iPod and iTunes.  Branding is a huge pain and I think they are digging a hole with the new naming pattern.  People can hardly tell what services are without long names like “Windows Live Local Search Free Call”.  That is an absurdly long name, which could have been called Live Search Connectoid.  I am partial to the word “connectoid” because I think it sounds interesting and unusual.  Microsoft is trying to continue domination of the desktop by keeping the word Windows as a top buzz word.  I think they are excluding users of Apple or Linux platforms who can easily access the Web 2.0 software being used.

When Lucent spun the Enterprise Networks Group out in 2000 it had to come up with a name.  They picked Avaya, pronounced uhv-EYE-uh, because it would set them apart and capture what they were doing.  Google was a made up word that came from the word googol, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Yahoo! is an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” and the founders liked the definition of “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth”.  Red Hat came from a lost Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes).  Cisco is short for San Francisco, Intel came from INTegrated ELectronics and HoTMaiL as it was originally spelled was constructed with the letters HTML, which were used to create the web-based software.

What do you think of this new naming scheme from Microsoft?  How would you change it?

PS: I do really like the name Microsoft, and it would have been nice to see them stick that back in.  They have made great software.  I know the name has had a bad reputation with games, but the Xbox has changed that around and given birth to Microsoft Game Studios. 

Have you ever been working away on your computer and wished there was a better way to interact with it? The mouse and keyboard are great and all but how about something more tactile or something three-dimensional? I often feel this way — I feel restrained, overwhelmed by the limited control over how my machine responds to me. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching a circus through a key hole. Think about it: all the lights, power, and excitement funnelled through these antiquated devices named after a small furry rodent and a musical instrument!  How awkward!

As an example, think about the Chinese keyboard. It hurts my brain to even begin thinking about it. An article on Slate does a good job of conveying the complexity of using one of these keyboards. There’s the Pinyin method, the Wubi method, and in Taiwan there’s the Zhuwin method. But it also mentions that older people who aren’t comfortable with these input methods like using an electronic writing tablet to actually draw the characters. They are then understood by the computer just like the handwriting recognition software that PDAs use these days. Of all these options, this seems like the most natural way of interacting with a computer, but its slow input speed limits widespread adpotion.

So what is a good interface? Well as corny and far-fetched as it sounds, I have always thought that the interface that Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report would be a great way to deal with information overload. I honestly believe the human brain is capable of processing much more information than we think; it is figuring out how to organize and communicate that information that is tricky. This interface allows one to not only interact with the information actively but also be immersed in that information. Defense company Raytheon is actually developing something like this for the U.S. military.

How long will it take for a better user interface to gain widespread adoption? What will that interface be? A user interface connects a user to a machine, and combining the power of the human brain with the raw speed of these little boxes that sit on or beside our desks will unleash power that could previously only be imagined through TV and movies!

Update: Another step toward getting people immersed in user interfaces: a group of scientists involved with the AIST have created a device capable of displaying “real 3D images”. They say, “Most of the 3D displays reported until now draw pseudo-3D images on 2D planes by utilizing the human binocular disparity.” However, this is the first device that displays “dot arrays in space where there is nothing but air.” Check out the pictures in the article; the images are clearly primitive at this point, but think about the early Apple II monitors. Monitors have come a LONG way since that!

I started organizing my desk at the office and noticed I have a lot of junk in my cubical. Aside from all the computers, cables, blackberries, cell phones, papers, folders, boxes and packaging materials there are the fun items that help me get through the day. So let’s take a look at what I have at my desk.

1. Red watergun. Found it in the office and never used, so I don’t know if it even works.
2. Foam dice. Toss it with others, or use it to pick a number from 1-6.
3. Air duster. More for work, but fun to play with.
4. Nerf football. Toss it around for a bit to think outside the box.
5. Magnet sculpture. See how tall you can make it without it falling apart. (Don’t put near electronic equipment)
6. 16oz Rockstar. In case I need to a pick-me-up.
7. Zipfizz. A bigger pick-me-up. (Note: I wouldn’t want to combine this with #6)

That’s all the stuff I have. Not too much, but some fun stuff. What kind of things do other people have on their desks? I want to know what I should invest in next. Maybe a USB Missile Launcher, mini Remote Controlled Car, Cubical Dwellers, or the Ambient Orb (read the FAQ)? So share what you got at your desk or cubical, and what I should get next.

Yup, today Phil woke up from his long winter slumber yesterday, and there’s all sorts of exciting stuff going on. Supposedly there are now multiple rodents (is a groundhog a rodent?) that people observe to determine how many more weeks of winter we are going to get. Isn’t this a strange tradition? According to one site, there are 34 other groundhogs with the same occupation, including a llama and a chicken.

How much money do you think is made off of this non-event? I mean a groundhog sticking its head out of a hole is watched by more than 12,000 people and covered all over the national news (2,020 articles written according to Google, with this one as 2,021), there has to be someone making money off this. In fact, one of the websites I linked to above is actually called Committee for the Commercialization of Groundhog Day. How do you calculate how much money is made though? How about in the media? I’d be willing to bet that hundreds of thousands of dollars of advertising revenue are made through all the advertising that accompanies news segments and articles about Phil and his fellow weather forecasting rodent competitors.

Other notable organizations that seem interested in the commercialization of this chubby-bellied, big-toothed creature include the PA Tourism Office and the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day. Know of any others?

Oh by the way, the original, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow… and you know what that means!