BlogSat

LinkedIn recently did a pretty slick integration with Twitter ... its one of the smartest things they've done in a while. I'm a great example of the kind of user that LinkedIn and possibly Twitter were hoping for. It has me more engaged with my LinkedIn connections and I even had a few people on LinkedIn reach out to me that hadn't in ages because of something I'd tweeted. The integration seems to working to get more LinkedIn users engaged with the site even when they're not looking for a business connection. I think that's the risk of the integration as well though. To grow in terms of users and page views, LinkedIn has added a lot (their app platform, this integration etc.) More than most social networking sites, LinkedIn has to lot to lose because of noise, but I can see why the product team there had no choice to move in this direction. Back in the good old days, LinkedIn was where you had professional contacts (the pitch was Resume 2.0) and Facebook was ...

Google has proved a surprisingly good place not just for great work and good food, but also pretty savvy management advice. Something I've heard from execs at Google a few times (appropriately!) now is the need to repeat to get your message it across. I've heard it stated two ways that I've really liked: "By the time you start to get bored saying something, is the time other people are starting to believe what you're saying" or "It takes saying something 20 times, before people start to get it" I have to admit this was something that annoyed me when I first started here. I'm sure I encountered it before Google as well, but it seemed much more often out here (both internal and external to Google.) I'd often find myself thinking "...but I'd told you this" or "we'd talked about this last week" even as I went over it yet again. It'd get a little annoying. But I've realized that ideas and messages just take time...

Promotions work; they're a great way to close that on-the-fence customer and differentiate your product. This one below (50 songs on emusic.com with a pretty cheap broom) was... shall we say unexpected. :) Call me silly, but I actually think its a pretty slick move by the marketing folks at both the broom company and eMusic, assuming it was relatively low-effort to execute on. Brooms are as close to a commodity as you can get (even the shiny, yellow one that I bought.) And eMusic is one of a few underdogs in the online music space. You need to take any the little wins that may be available. Anecdotally, I'm not sure how much the eMusic promo swung me in the direction of buying the broom, but it didn't hurt.:)

The other benefit of train travel is that I get to people-watch again. :) I was unsurprised that on the ride home 5 people around me had the familiar while earbuds in their ears. Yes, yes; everyone has an iPod/iPhone and they listen to it on their daily commute. The music takes the pain away. What did surprise me was when one of these people (a rather dour-looking young girl with blue streaks in her hair) pulled out what her earbuds were connected to, I didn't see the shiny device that is apparently the everlasting testament to Steve Job's genius, but the device that I had in my pocket at the time. Clearly she was using her Android phone as her primary music device. I looked at the other 5 people, wishing some of them would pull out the device they were listening to. One did; it was an iPod, and perhaps the others were as well. But I'd like to believe that as Android devices have more adoption, this is an experience that will be much more common! :)

Living in NYC and taking the trains now means I actually might have time to get some reading done! Woohoo! So let's start with the books: I finished " The Dip " by Seth Godin (really slim) The message (or more accurately what I remember): First, know when to quit; second, remember there is disproportionate reward for being the "best"; third, being the best requires having the will and determination to power through "The Dip". Great examples, and fun and useful read in a psychology-for-people-who-re ally-want-to-over-achieve kind of way. I definitely recommend it. I'm about two-third's of the way through Nassim Taleb 's " The Black Swan " It a very engaging read. The book goes over a number of biases we humans have and the fallacies and errors in judgement we perpetuate. Lot of great examples of how we don't really know how much we think we know, how we try to force logic and ill-fitting explanations on situations and most ...

I'd nearly forgotten why I was an avid Michael Jackson fan growing up, and would have most likely skipped this movie. As part of an event at work, I happened to go out and catch this and was soo happy that I did. Watching him dance, sing, and meticulously plan what would have been a surprising and worthy comeback brought back some great memories. It really was inspiring to see that underneath and despite all the tabloid fare, an incredible performer still existed and was able to show it. Its tragic that the world didn't get to see what he'd planned, but the film (which is really just edited footage of him rehearsing) offers Michael Jackson - the performer some redemption and those that loved his work solace that despite everything (controversies, age, health, personal issues etc.) the incredible performer was still alive and near the top of his game.

... Google's paid homage to Sesame Street all of this week with different Doodles across the globe. As someone who grew up on Sesame Street, the doodle below makes me really happy. :):) It's been a pretty great set of Animated/puppet doodles the last few months , including this Dilbert series .