Griffey back in Seattle?

If I could have one non-championship sport wish the next five years, this would be it:

• Now that Ken Griffey Jr. has filed for free agency, who needs a 39-year-old outfielder who has lost considerable range, suffered a substantial loss in production, and is prone to injury? The Mariners, of course. After losing 101 games despite having a $117 million payroll, Seattle desperately needs to rebuild. But Griffey would make sense, at the right price. For one thing, the team's return to contention appears to be a couple seasons away. The fan base realizes this -- but in the meantime, the return of Griffey would at least give them something to get excited about. And if he consented to a mostly DH role, he also might be able to stay healthy enough to hit 20-30 home runs while filling in occasionally in the outfield or at first base. In some ways, it would be a bit like the Mariners of the early '90s, when you had a couple exciting players and a potential ace (this time Griffey, Ichiro and Felix Hernandez, instead of Griffey, Edgar Martinez and Randy Johnson) to satisfy the fans while management builds the rest of the team around them. True, Griffey is way past his prime (and Ichiro isn't getting any younger), but Seattle fans deserve something fun to watch in return for their money. Plus, the starting rotation could -- cross your fingers and toes -- be pretty decent, perhaps even good enough that the Mariners might surprise people within a season or two. Again, it would have to be the right contract, but signing Griffey sure makes more sense than re-signing Willie Bloomquist.--copied from http://ping.fm/b31me

I will buy jerseys, hats, tickets, MLB.TV packages, whatever. This man created baseball in Seattle for me and will never, ever be forgotten.

Seth Godin's Tribes

If you haven't read Tribes, do so. It's available for free on Audible.com as an audiobook.

Heretics...unite!

How to start a successful business

1. Make a product better and cheaper than anyone else can.
-Nick McKay Sr., inventor of the very first Lint Pic-Up, made a fortune doing this. He designed an easy-to-refill, refillable, sticky tape on a roller product in his basement.
Then he looked overseas, calculated how much it would cost them to ship the inevitable copycats, and realized he could make them cheaper.

2. Enlist your friends for help.
-When Nick received complaints from his neighbors about the racket his self-built production machine made, he did the first thing that came to mind: offer them a cut if they put one in their basement. Never mind that they were loud as all get out, Nick paid four cents per unit and they all thought it to be worth it.

3. Work harder and longer than anyone else you know.
-Nick often comments he is not retired right now, he's just tired. He spent over 40 years inventing, tweaking, improving and distributing his products (1956 to 1999), which now affords him the time to do whatever he likes.

I've never seen a 89 year old man so happy.

What can we all learn from this?

Letter to Pearson CEO #1

...whom I've never met, an unsolicited letter about social media. Here is the email in its entirety.

I figure I'll either get fired or promoted.

Why doesn’t Pearson have podcasts? Why aren’t we interviewing actual teachers, showing them what we’re working on, and them asking them for input in a transparent, completely public setting? We could ask them their views on teaching initiatives, problems in the classroom and what they would like in order for this to work. Having regular, informal conversations would be a great way to really connect with our clients instead of just marketing to them.



I’ve heard of the projects Matt Murphy has been working on, but over-produced author videos is just another way of using old media techniques in an entirely new realm. With emerging technologies like Twitter and other Social Media applications, it doesn’t seem that Pearson has immersed itself in the real phenomenon, which is a conversation with our prospective clients. After attending PodCampAZ (www.podcampaz.org) I’ve realized there are so many little things that small companies are doing that are making them extremely successful. All of us from large companies (Pearson, Intel, Microsoft) were there only for our own benefit for side projects. There’s such an untapped talent pool there.



How cool would it be to have iPhone versions of our products? EnVision Math-lite? Sure, not every student would be able to access it, but it would be a free download. The ability for teachers to upload short quizzes for further review would at the best least be a compelling news story.



It feels that the education market is always about ten years behind the tech world, and I understand we move with that, but why can’t a small portion of what we do be looking ahead? If it’s intimate, conversational and easily accessible, people will listen. Techies will listen. Pearson will be recognized as not only an educational giant, but a forward thinking company capable of setting and influencing policy rather than just making what we have better.

Self Images

I hate getting my picture taken. Seldom will I step in front of the camera. Not sure why, maybe it's because I haven't always liked the way I look, maybe it's because I can't sit still or maybe, just maybe, I'm worried the pic will turn out like this:

http://ping.fm/UiyeD

Ouch. I need a better mirror here at home.

PodCampAZ, Day 1

I can be a bit of a pessimist about Arizona. Maybe it's the heat, maybe it's the fact it's so spread out, or maybe I'm just getting old, but I don't have much hope for this place as a creative hotspot.

There aren't any random places to hang out and meet people, nothing within walking distance that everyone goes to nor any cool place that's open all the time to get feedback on creative projects.

Now, thanks to social media and especially Twitter, all that has changed. PodCampAZ marks the beginning of something real, something substantial; it marks the beginning of AZ residents DOING instead of PLANNING.

We all have great ideas, or at least we think we do. What we don't have is action. To make things happen, we need support. I'm accustomed to needing face to face contact to make that happen, but that's not necessary all the time.

Thanks to all the PodCampAZ presenters (well, most of you. some of you missed the mark, but I sure as hell applaud you for trying) for giving this cynical fellow hope that there's more to this place than I thought.

#podcampaz

Chase bank sucks

There's not much worse than finding out you have no money. Bills to pay, gas to buy, food to purchase and...nothing. This happened to me.

I'm not a rich man. I live mostly paycheck to paycheck, pay my bills on time and don't have credit cards. I do invest in a 401k, but besides that, have no savings. I am the very definition of living within my means.

So when, after trying to pull $60 for a night of drinking, I discovered that I was overdrawn, I was confused. Not angry, not yet.

I called my bank immediately. They informed me of a $1300 charge in Alabama (yes, I live in Arizona) that had posted at 1:45 p.m. on Halloween. I'm fucking irate. IRATE. That charge, coupled with gas, food and some other minor expenses, wiped out my account.

When I was with Bank of America, my card was always shut off after a charge that doubled or tripled my usual charge average. So what did Chase do when a charge appeared on my card that quadrupled my highest transaction to date?

Not a goddamn thing. Nothing whatsoever.

Sure, if I had had fraud protection they would have warned me of this. I thought I signed up for it when I opened an account, but if I didn't, why the hell would they have not included it? I have to ask for my bank to protect me from fraudulent charges? In a time when computers can do nearly anything, this isn't automatic?

Chase sucks. Anyone know a better bank?