Category Archives: Uncategorized

So fragile…

The thing that amazes me most is how fragile the supply chains are these days. A sports event is going to have an effect on global drug prices….

“Over the past decade, many chemicals factories in India have closed down, as they were unable to compete with imports from China.But during the Olympics, Mr Majmudar says factories around Beijing have been shut in an effort to cut pollution.”

BBC NEWS | Business | China chemicals starve Indian pharma

Be careful what you ask for…

For years I spent about one week a month in Chicago. Every visit included multiple visits to Starbucks; I loved the shops, the coffee and the brand.

Then they opened in Paris; within a month I’d had my full. I now visit the Starbucks opposite my office about once a quarter! Which means less than when they were on the other side of the world.

Seems that I’m not the only one to suffer from this.

BBC NEWS | Business | Shunned Starbucks in Aussie exit

That reminds me…

Where did all the paper go?

“I receive on average 6 to 10 letters each month composed each of several pages to which you need to add the paper of the envelop. Raw calculation: 10×3 (pages)x12 = 360 pages a year envelopes. This is about half a kilo of paper (equivalent of printer paper bucket). HALF A KILO!!!”MYBLOG by Ouriel: Message to my bank: STOP sending tones of papers, i have an email

Every month I used to do a little rant about this. Every month the bank would send us five bank statements  in seperate envelopes that would all arrive the same day. It was madness, then suddenly overnight it changed.

We now receive next to nothing from Societe Generale. Even American Express has gone electronic. This in old world financial France.

The final stage happened last month; I almost fell off my seat. The bank has added an email system to the web site; and they answer the emails.

All this is good but try moving branches; the amount of paper is scary.

I think that he lacks ambition…

“As Domenico Fontana was to Pope Sixtus V’s Rome; Peter the Great to St Petersburg; L’Enfant to Washington DC; Hausmann to Napolean III’s Paris; Frederick Law Olmstead to Manhattan; Edwin Lutyens to New Delhi; and Walter Burley Griffin to Canberra, so Sheikh Mohammed’s vision for a new Dubai will redefine the quality of civic life for the citizens, residents and guests of the Arabian Gulf.”

CivicArts | Eric Kuhne Associates – Mohammed Bin Rashid Gardens 

Not loving the core product… (A Hugh MacLeod story: Part I)

I’m often hit by a strange realization; I almost always like the least popular product of a sucessful company. Yes, I’m the one that drinks Cherry Coke, liked the McRib and bought a Smart car! At best I love something before everyone else or long after they’ve left it.

Mr Hugh MacLeod (or Mr gapingvoid) is a case in point…

Hugh’s blog says, rightly, that he’s a …

“…cartoonist and professional blogger, known for his ideas about how “Web 2.0″ affects advertising and marketing.”

Now all this is true except that I don’t like the cartoons too much and his blog is about marketing. I read the blog and smile at the cartoons as Hugh publishes them; but they don’t tend to connect. I’m not in marketing and I’ve not spent too long in any New York bars!

However, Hugh has a more minor product that I adore. Pure art! Things like this…

Grey Purpose Small

gapingvoid: “cartoons drawn on the back of business cards”: the cloud’s best-kept secret

There is something about these works that I love. I have a collection on my hard-drive; it’s difficult to describe but they touch something deep inside me.

The earlier this year Hugh announced that he was going to be doing more of these larger works. And started showing pictures of Fred 42.

I had to act quickly. How I did is for Part II.

I heard about it on Twitter…

Years ago at dinner parties people used to discuss where they were when they learnt about X or Y. In years to come I can imagine everyone just replying “oh, on twitter”. We Read Twitter So You Don’t Have To: NASA finds water on Mars, Web 2.0 credits Twitter

How to kill your blog…

What is the point of having a blog when the posts say something like this… 

“I give some of my key learnings from what I learned from my time at PodTech over on FriendFeed.” 
Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive Podtech sold «  

 

I don’t want to Scoble bash (not now anyway) but this is a joke.