words written down

Businessweek Pieces: on Amazon / Zappos / United Airlines & Hearsay Social

2012-02-12T08:36:00.000-08:00

There was some interesting content from the last few issues of Businessweek starting off with the Jan 30-Feb 5 cover story.

Written by Brad Stone, "Amazon's Hit Man" details the new in-house publishing imprint at the web retail giant. Concept is for Amazon to hold tighter control over book pricing and distribution by cutting out traditional publishing houses and signing agreements with the authors themselves. Its an interesting approach led within Amazon by Larry Kirshbaum, the former head of Time Warner Book Group and has already resulted in agreements with Tim Ferriss, James Franco and Penny Marshall.

The Feb 6-12 issue as well featured an interesting cover story along with a few other pieces of note.

"Making the World's Largest Airline Fly" was a solid look at integration work out of the United-Continental merger. The piece was written by Drake Bennett and details the thousands of needed decisions around areas such as customer care systems and coffee to provide. Additionally, "Las Vegas: Startup City" is on Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and his backing of development efforts in the area around headquarters for the Amazon division. Its an interesting look from Brad Stone at personal for-profit efforts that also have an altruistic bent. Also of note from this issue was the short piece "Clara Shih's Hearsay Social" on the writer behind The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate. Shih was working at Salesforce.com is 2007, then built herself into a Social Media expert and in 2009, wrote her book and started the consulting company Hearsay Social... and more recently was named to the Starbucks board of directors.

"Pulphead" by John Jeremiah Sullivan

2012-02-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

Recently finished reading Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan: a book of largely first person essays done really well.

Sullivan's writing reminded me of that from Wright Thompson with his story subjects tending towards his southern home area and reading his essays inspired a jealously due to the things experienced. The most memorable story from Pulphead was "Violence of the Lambs", a story that... well, I don't know how to describe it other than to echo the words of accomplished Tampa Times writer Ben Montgomery and say its the strangest magazine story I've ever read.

Other essays from the book that struck me were the following: "Upon this Rock" - on Sullivan's time at the Creation Christian rock festival, "Feet in Smoke" - on his brother electrocuting himself and almost dying, "Mr. Lytle: an Essay" - on time spent living and working on his writing with an aging professor, "At a Shelter (After Katrina)" - about his experiences along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and which featured a fascinating reference to end of the world type experiences, "Michael" - on the amazing talent and completely different than all other people Michael Jackson, "The Final Comeback of Axl Rose" - about time spent looking into how the lead singer of the seminal rock band grew up" and "Unnamed Caves" - covers time Sullivan spent with some of the leading archaeologists and cave explorers of caverns in the south.

Again, amazing experiences that Sullivan has had and the writing is of such quality to make me interested in going back once more to read his book Blood Horses, a sort-of memoir, sort of history of horses and horse racing. I'm not interested at all in the horse part, but very much curious to read more about the life experiences of Sullivan.

Excellent Sports Writing - from Reilly, Wetzel, Lake, Segura, Phillips & Wertheim

2012-02-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

Have seen a host of interesting pieces of sports writing lately from a few different sources.

The recent Feb 6, 2012 issue of Sports Illustrated had two of them in Game, Set, Matchless by Jon Wertheim and Under Seige by Thomas Lake and Melissa Segura.

The Wertheim story was on the just under six hours epic Australian Open Final between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal. Solid writing on a domination of men's tennis with Wertheim noting that 24 of the last 28 Grand Slam semifinal spots have been claimed by one of Djokovic, Nadal, Roger Federer and Andy Murray (with the four in that order as of late). Its a pretty remarkable level of competition right now and brings to mind Wertheim's chronicling of what at the time was more just a Federer-Nadal rivalry in his 2009 book Strokes of Genius.

On the same just completed Australian Open Final, Brian Phillips penned the exceedingly well written Nadal vs. Djokovic: Here We Are Again, My Friend for Grantland. Piece covers the same four-headed domination of the men's tour, but differs from that by Wertheim in that Phillips gets further into Nadal and his drive, brilliant play... and still coming up short. Definitely writing on athletic struggle that traffics in the profound.

The Lake and Segura story in this same issue of Sport Illustrated was on the three months ago kidnapping of Washington Nationals catcher Wilson Ramos in his native Venezuela. Lake's writing carries an air of thorough reporting and this piece no exception as he and Segura delve into the particulars of the case and what may or may not have been the reality of his capture by Venezuelan government agents.

Another Jon Wertheim piece that stood out recently was Driving for Home from the Jan 23 issue of SI. About Delaware college hoops star Elena Della Donne, it brings to mind the 2009 Selena Roberts commentary "Burning To Play Again" on the at Deleware, but not yet returned to the game of basketball Della Donne.

Finally, two excellent pieces recently on New England Patriots QB Tom Brady. Shortly after his Super Bowl loss to the Giants, Dan Wetzel wrote Tom Brady in postgame daze of disappointment for Yahoo Sports and Rick Reilly did Tom Brady is as advertised for ESPN. Wetzel's story takes a more conventionally reporting approach than Reilly's (makes sense as Reilly tends towards commentary with his writing) and each shows Brady as someone who has both stayed a good guy and continued to try really really hard despite being at the top of his profession.

Writing on Joe Paterno and his passing

2012-02-03T18:33:00.000-08:00

Perhaps not the most timely of blog posts given the short news cycle that rules the day, but there was some exceptional writing over the past few weeks on former Penn State coach Joe Paterno.

Shortly after his January 22 passing from lung cancer were two pieces from esteemed journalists, one of whom had conducted the last ever interview with Paterno just a week prior. Sally Jenkins wrote Joe Paterno dies, leaving a record for others to debate for the Washington Post and for Sports Illustrated, Jack McCallum penned Joe Paterno wasn't perfect, but legacy more than final chapter.

Over the next week there were two stories on Paterno that stood out for their depth in reporting on the man. Joe Posnanski (currently writing a book on Paterno scheduled for release this fall) did Paterno's final days: no bitterness, just marveling at his fortunate life for Sports Illustrated and Wright Thompson wrote for ESPN the ridiculously lyrical Bringing home Joe on son Jay Paterno and reaction of Penn State faithful to his father's passing.

Writing on Writing - from Kruse, Lake, Altucher and Pearman

2012-02-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

Have come across a number of interesting pieces lately on the why and how of writing that bear noting.

Two different writer interviews were The Fury Files: Michael Kruse for the blog TVFury and by Brandon Sneed for his website.

From the Kruse interview I was struck by his statements on the absolute importance of solid reporting to the nonfiction writing process and the very methodical outlining he does prior to and as part of the actual writing. Super detailed work that's a long ways from just sitting down and letting nonfiction magic flow to the page.

The interview with Thomas Lake also featured the same idea of reporting leading to the story and an at times absolute dogged pursuit of access and information. Additionally, Lake spoke of his career path and the six years, four newspaper jobs and over a thousand stories written until he reached out to someone who opened the door for him to land at Sports Illustrated. Very cool content about putting in the work.

Still on writing, but on a specific output of writing were two additional blog mentions of interest. James Altucher wrote Self-Publishing Your Own Book is the New Business Card which echoed and expanded on sentiments expressed in his book I Was Blind But Now I See and Jeff Pearlman wrote on his blog Chris Dessi comes of age about his former classmates self-published book on Social Media Your World is Exploding.

"Man Seeks God" by Eric Weiner

2012-02-01T21:49:00.000-08:00

Having previously enjoyed immensely The Geography of Bliss by Eric Weiner I looked forward for some time to his recently published Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine.

The book came out of a health scare that included him in the hospital being asked "have you found your God yet?" Weiner comes from a Jewish background, but his not terribly devout path led to the idea of him trying out various religions to see how they fit him and figure out what he truly believes.

It's obviously a very personal construct for a book and the best parts of it were those where Weiner gets colloquial and personal about his experiences and thoughts on them. To this end, he reveals in the book nagging bouts of depression and self-doubt. Particularly interesting was his self-description of the pain that comes from doing things "7/8 assed... neither all the way nor not caring."

For the purpose of the religious exploration (and book about it) Weiner chose eight different religions (or slivers of faith like Kabbalah as part of Judaism and Sufism as part of Islam) and went and lived with each. Some of the faiths didn't have much in their feature chapter that resonated as a reader (or appear to resonate for Weiner as the person experiencing it), but some did have very interesting nuggets related on them.

About Buddhism, Weiner wrote on the idea of the pause between a given experience and then how that experience affects us. It was a fascinating concept that actually made me think of the James Altucher book I Was Blind But Now I See and it's idea (or at least the idea I ascribe to Altucher) of not letting ones thoughts get dragged somewhere not beneficial to go.

About the Franciscans Weiner spent time with, he wrote of both the idea of actions not needing to wait for full belief if the action a positive one and the concept of good work for others. Specifically noted around this idea of giving was there not needing to be returned gratitude in exchange for good works done.

The book isn't written as a math problem that began with a question and finished with a solved proof, but rather an examination on a topic with entirely personal answers. At an overall level, Weiner writes of connection with something greater as well as the all important idea of how someones truth makes them feel (and that truth is what works for someone). Especially in conjunction with Weiner giving of himself to the reader and making the thing personal, it's a good read overall even if not on as entertaining a topic as The Geography of Bliss.

Writing from Feb '12 Esquire Magazine

2012-01-26T20:36:00.000-08:00

Latest issue of Esquire had a number of pieces that didn't necessarily stand out for the flowery prose, but were well written and on interesting topics (or at least contained interesting tidbits).

Lengthiest feature was Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated by Tom Junod on a Federal conspiracy to commit terrorism case against retired Navyman Fred Thomas and three other seventy-somethings in rural Georgia. Detailed what was either a proactive ferreting out of terrorist ambitions or a shady government informant leading disillusioned old people down the path of horrible crimes they would have never committed.

Two other interesting features from this issue involved the topic of information and how it's acquired, used and communicated. The Man Who Knows Everything was written by Ryan D'Agostino and profiles Tibco Software and it's CEO Vivek Ranadive. Tibco provides infrastructure software and goes beyond this to efforts like it's TopCom communications platform for use by world leaders. A second Esquire piece around information was If You Could Master All the Data in the World... penned by Chris Jones. Story is on Jeopardy winner Roger Craig and the work he did to identify knowledge needed to be successful on the show. Out of this, Craig is now attempting to take this idea of learning patterns and attempt to pass it along commercially.

Finally, this Esquire edition also contained two celebrity pieces that contained nuggets of interest. Ricky Gervais: The ESQ+A was done by Scott Raab and had some very cool content from Gervais about staying true to himself in his work. A cynic could say it's easy to do that when already successful, but there's probably also a lot to be said for the idea of this approach helping someone make it in the first place. Also interesting was Mike Sager's Who Doesn't Love Woody Harrelson? which included quite a bit on Harrelson's avoidance of chemicals and processed/artificial food.

Time Magazine Pieces: on Warren Buffett, Barack Obama & YouTube

2012-01-23T16:04:00.000-08:00

Couple of excellent feature stories in the last two issues of Time Magazine.

Cover story from the Jan 23 edition was Warren Buffett Is on a Radical Track and it featured a look by Rana Foroohar at the business titan.

Some of the things detailed and touched on in the piece were Buffett's belief the economy will continue to improve, his views on taxes for the extremely wealthy and personal life. It's an extremely well written profile on an important and interesting guy. To this point, the piece made more appealing the idea of reading Alice Schroeder's biography The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life.

From the most recent Jan 30 issue were two excellent features... including the cover story on President Barack Obama and his foreign policy record thus far.

Written by Fardeed Zakaria, The Strategist is a nuanced and equitable piece on the foreign policy successes in addition to failures thus far Obama has had. Also from this issue was The Beast With A Billion Eyes on YouTube, it's place in American viewing habits and where it's trying to head. Solid writing as usual by Lev Grossman and a very interesting read.

Excellent pieces... its a shame Time puts online content behind a print subscriber paywall preventing new audiences from seeing the quality of work.

Fast Company Feb issue: Changing Business & Careers

2012-01-19T16:23:00.000-08:00

Couple of really good features in the latest issue of Fast Company.

First two pieces that stood out both relate to the cover verbiage and and get into how business as well as career management differs from their past iterations. Starting things off, magazine editor Robert Safian wrote the long (and long titled) This Is Generation Flux: Meet The Pioneers Of The New (And Chaotic) Frontier Of Business. Really interesting content that looks at change in business and how people are navigating careers from the standpoint of a toolbox of skills to take anywhere rather than simply hitching early to a corporation and hanging on.

Closely related to this career management path was the companion piece of The Four-Year Career by Anya Kamenetz. Solid stuff about how jobs and people's employment in them is going to change over time and workers should expect, be ready for and use to their advantage this change.

Not really connected to the first two stories, but also interesting was MakerBot's 3-D Printers Let Consumers Dream Up Prototypes Of Pretty Much Anything. But Do We Need More Plastic? by Rob Walker. The creation of actual objects at home based on the specs... an entirely new concept that could well become common in the future.

Scott Raab on Writing / Dave Eggers on Creating (& not Dismissing)

2012-01-17T22:20:00.000-08:00

Came across a few weeks ago a short and terribly insightful piece by Scott Raab (Esquire guy) on his website. The succinctly titled Writing has his advice for aspiring pen to page types and (to over simplify) boils down to if someone wants to be a writer, they write... and then they keep doing it.

Raab's advice reminded me of stuff I've linked to from James Altucher (who extols the virtues of writing fast and self-publishing) and Brandon Sneed (who did a few few posts on the writing process including an encouragement to write a book) and while not just on writing, seems in line with a Dave Eggers piece I recently found. Taken from a 2000 interview with The Harvard Advocate, his words on the dual subjects of creating / not dismissing create a mental visual of Eggers standing at a pulpit and railing away with his truth. What makes it all the much better is how much truth there seems to be in what Eggers so forcefully proclaims.

Very cool stuff that connects with messrs Raab, Sneed and Altucher is that each writes about the process of writing (heck, the process of anything if you want to expand the circle a bit) getting accomplished by just doing it and Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Writing On Lives Outside of Normal

2012-01-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

One of the hallmarks of good writing is it conveys a story outside the life experience of the reader and there's been a number of pieces I've come across lately that fit this bill. Subjects of the various works cross a wide spectrum of the population and how they became story subjects varies from decisions made, life circumstance or simple chance.

Two of the pieces stood out in detailing people whose lives are so far outside of my own to have them almost seem from a different species. The Ballad of Johnny France is a Richard Ben Cramer story from a 1985 issue of Esquire and reprinted with author permission on the blog Alex Belth's Bronx Banter. It's the ridiculously fascinating story of Montana Sheriff Johnny France and fugitive mountain-men Don and Don Nichols. After kidnapping (apparently in a twisted bid for female companionship) biathlete Kari Swenson, the elder of the father-son duo wound up shooting and killing a would-be rescuer and then they disappeared into the wilderness. Cramer's is a long and multi-faceted feature which not only portrays people living far outside the norm, but which utilizes language in the story as a way to drive home the difference.

Other piece in this different life than mine category was much shorter and remarkable not as much for the writing, but for the choice made by the subject of the story. Gang tattoo leads to a murder conviction is by Robert Faturechi for the L.A. Times and introduces gangmember Paco Rivera, who tattooed on his chest details of the unsolved murder he committed.

Lest this post descend into a quagmire of the twisted and bizarre, two other stories I've seen lately cover people who faced (or continue to face) great hardship and show how to carry through it. Strength From Weakness is an ESPN E:60 feature on former MLB player Ben Petrick and his battles with young-onset Parkinson's. Written by Steve Wulf, the piece reveals how someone cheated of his potential athletic greatness seems to have created a form of greatness with the life circumstances he now has.

Additional piece of feel-good inspirational value is Cary Williams overcame abuse and anguish on way to NFL by Kevin Van Valkenburg. Written for the Baltimore Sun, the profile on Williams details his hardscrabble early childhood, abuse suffered at the hands of his single dad and then being taken in and lovingly raised by extended family. Out of this, Williams then followed a fairly rocky path to his current position as a starting cornerback for the Ravens.

The Best American Sports Writing 2011

2012-01-13T15:07:00.000-08:00

Recently finished reading The Best American Sports Writing 2011 and found it had a ton of great writing.

It's probably a strange critique, but it seemed a bit like cheating to have the type of great stories I like discovering all compiled for me by Glenn Stout (series editor) and Jane Leavy (2011 edition editor). That said, the point of a compilation like this is to pull in a number of excellent pieces and it was accomplished well by Stout and Leavy.

There's 29 stories reprinted in the book and of those I had only previously seen four (all in Sports Illustrated)... High School Dissonance by Selena Roberts, Eight Seconds by Michael Farber, Pride of a Nation by S.L. Price and The Courage of Jill Costello by Chris Ballard. Of the remaining 25, five were from ESPN (one ESPN The Magazine and four the website), two each from The New Yorker, GQ and the L.A. Times and the rest from sources with one piece each featured.

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There was a lot of excellent stories in the book with below being those that stood out the most...

- Sally Jenkins for the Washington Post with Culture of Silence Gives Free Reign to Male Athletes - very short and exceptionally well written missive on incidences of assault (including murder) tied to male athletes and the warning signs oft ignored.

- Paul Solotaroff for Rolling Stone with The Surfing Savant - written about Clay Marzo and his experience growing up to become a professional surfer who also has Asperger's syndrome. Compelling writing about someone pulled in different directions by (often times well intentioned) people.

- Bret Anthony Johnston for Men's Journal with Danny Way and the Gift of Fear - super interesting piece that similar to the one of Marzo, features an extreme sport (skateboarding) phenom who went through a number of challenges growing up.

- Chris Ballard for Sports Illustrated with The Courage of Jill Costello - piece was previously included in my listing of Best 2010 Writing Linked To (not sure why it's included in a 2011 anthology, but no matter). Written about the Cal-Berkeley crew member and her final days fighting cancer while continuing to complete with her teammates. Solid writing about a remarkable person.

A lot of great pieces featured in the book and it was overall an excellent read.

Business Pieces: Larry Scott & the Pac-12 Conference, Nick D'Aloisio & Summly, other stuff...

2012-01-11T17:02:00.000-08:00

A bevy of interesting people and companies featured in Businesweek over the past few weeks... and one guy and his startup not from BW, but which bears noting here.

Only feature to mention from Businessweek was Head of the Pac by the excellent Karl Taro Greenfeld. About the Pac-12 Conference and it's Commissioner Larry Scott, it shows how much TV money rules the day in college sports, with college football leading the charge.

Other pieces that stood out as interesting...

- Charlie Rose Talks to Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff on efforts at the cloud-based CRM company.

- Alain Rossmann's Klip, a Twitter for Videos on one of the early Macintosh team and his startup aimed at amateur video on the web.

- Keeping the Sea Safe from Plastic on a new biogradable in water material called PHA from Archer Daniels Midland and the startup company Metabolix.

Finally, the technology blog GigaOM last month featured 16-year-old Nick D’Aloisio and his startup company Summly. The product offering is a phone app that provides a quick web page summary, but what stands out in the piece is the description of D'Aloisio from GigaOM founder Om Malik. Title of Meet the Internet’s newest boy genius indicates what's to follow and below is a pretty remarkable statement from Malik:

"In my life I have met many smart people — Jeff Bezos, Andy Bechtolsheim, Larry Page, Andy Grove, Sergey Brin, Vinod Khosla and Bret Taylor. D’Aloisio belongs with them, I am convinced. Not because he has started the next hot company — who can predict what will be hot? But instead, he is a self-taught polymath, who is so adept at learning from reading, listening and observing. He is an old-fashioned technologist who was born this way."

Sports Illustrated Writing: from Chris Ballard & Michael Rosenberg

2012-01-06T16:10:00.000-08:00

Two excellent feature stories from the last two issues of Sports Illustrated.

From the Jan 6 edition was Tom Brady As You Forgot Him by Michael Rosenberg. It's been widely reported that Brady was a 6th round NFL draft pick out of Michigan, but Rosenberg provides a lot of interesting back story to his time there. Conventional wisdom seems to be that he was always great and nobody noticed, but Rosenberg does a really good job detailing Brady's college experience and how that helped shaped him. Additionally, Rosenberg writes some pretty interesting content on fellow Michigan QB Drew Henson, his career and relationship with Brady.

In the Dec 26 Pictures of the Year issue Chris Ballard wrote The Kiss on the Vancouver riots after the Canucks Game 7 defeat. His story really stood out as solid writing that examined multiple characters associated with the riots (a policeman, a rioter, the couple photographed kissing on the street, person who took the picture) and walked though their experiences chronologically. Was a compelling read that felt like it had been reported on very well.

Politics & Individual Welfare Writing

2012-01-05T15:21:00.000-08:00

Have come across some really good writing lately on the all too frequently not related subjects of politics and how people are fairing financially (with one of the pieces being about this very disconnect).

An overview of how individual people and families are doing came from two Charlie Pierce pieces in America's Muddling Purpose, Circa Christmas 2011 and then America Will Only Get Better When It Is Ours Again on the Esquire website. Excellent writing in both and to grossly generalize, the shared message is people are struggling to make it through and just how important that goal is.

Unfortunately, politics and the political process oft times seems to be removed from peoples daily lives as detailed well in The SportsCenter-ization of Political Journalism for The Atlantic by Patrick Hruby. One of those pieces that you hope and wish weren't true, but the arguments (which quote the aforementioned Charlie Pierce) valid.

People can still accomplish things (and we still have feel good stories like The Bank Around the Corner by Alan Feuer in The New York Times), but has definitely been some solid writing (including by James Altucher) which argues that political results and scoreboards oft don't matter for individual people.

A Whole New World Out There - Writing on Opportunities & Education

2012-01-02T11:16:00.000-08:00

The James Altucher book I Was Blind But Now I See that I reviewed yesterday was timely as I've seen a raft of pieces lately on Altucher's topics of education and opportunity.

A pretty firmly held idea from the book was traditional higher education being overvalued and in the past two weeks I've seen M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All from Forbes and mention of the organization Code Year and it's push to have people learn the skill.

Additionally, there's been a number of other pieces recently that at least in part echo the the Altucher refrain of there being opportunities out there for those willing to pursue them.

Seth Godin wrote in his The chance of a lifetime blog post of how it may be a rough time for traditional business as usual, but the conditions are there for innovation and entrepreneurship. This concept reminded me a blog post from Clay Travis titled 2011 Belonged To Twitter, So Does the Future of Sports Media. The piece from Travis is about Twitter, but beyond that, there's the theme touched on by Godin and hammered at by Altucher (easier of course to go deep in a book) of technology and how it's created, enabled and changed communication and business.

Also interesting from Travis was his mention of things to come in the form of Twitter monetization... which brings to mind Altucher's encouragement to think of and write lists of ways to utilize existing technologies. On this subject, I recently came across the blog post bitly in 2011 from the URL shortening company heavily utilized on Twitter.

Lot of opportunities and ways to move towards them being written about out there.

"I Was Blind But Now I See" by James Altucher

2012-01-01T20:42:00.000-08:00

Recently finished an interesting book in I Was Blind But Now I See by James Altucher.

Altucher is a former finance guy who was at times fabulously wealthy and completely broke and his current writing (including a frequently posted to blog) leans towards the self-help variety with this book describing what makes him (and may help make others) happy.

It was self-published using CreateSpace from Amazon and doesn’t seem to have been closely edited, but if a reader would dismiss the book due to typographical and grammatical errors, they’d miss out on some excellent points and ideas.

Starting point from Altucher is that happiness is something different for each person and a big first step towards reaching it is to drop any ingrained notions or definitions of happiness that may not personally apply. He then goes on to write of the financial value of this happiness goal as there's enough opportunities out there that people should be able to combine together being happy both outside and inside of a career. Towards this end, Altucher's stated personal goals are the following:

1. Be happy
2. Eradicate unhappiness in his life
3. Have each day be as smooth as possible with no hassles

These concepts can certainly be easier said than done, but Altucher provides some solid suggestions towards reaching them with one being to have a daily practice of actions taken in each of the following areas:

• Physical – Advice includes sleeping enough and not drinking to excess (ideally, not at all).
• Mental – Idea is to challenge your mind continuously and steps to take include engaging with others and assuming they have wisdom to pass on and simply writing down lists of ideas.
• Spiritual – Even if someone not religious, daily work in this area could be as simple as taking time to be grateful.
• Emotional – This is the area that Altucher spends the most time on and simplest manifestation of action to take would be people should do (and think about) things that make them happy and not do (or think about) things that make them unhappy.

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Another framework from Altucher that seems to make a lot of sense is to assign a designation of useful or non-useful to things, people and situations. The useful is then embraced and the non-useful avoided or walked away from… with some of what Altucher characterizes as non-useful noted below:

• College as the path to learning – He writes of people spending 4 or more years in a higher education system that leaves them in debt and still not knowing what they want to do for a vocation. Alternative would be to try to simply start doing things of interest to see if they’re still interesting after having been experienced.
• Home ownership as an important goal – Idea here is that the purchase of a house both ties up capital that could be used elsewhere and can hold someone back from opportunities elsewhere with the financial obligation to a bank.
• Being caught up in the daily news cycle – Point made is that news organizations often-times get caught up selling fear and sensationalism. As few of the things (including politics) reported on actually impact someone’s life, reading about or watching reporting on events can often just be avoided.
• Spending time on bad thoughts and situations – This relates very closely to the emotional category that would be worked on via a daily practice. Altucher writes of a number of different applications of this concept with things to avoid including: resentments, dwelling on problems, anger, attempted revenge, gossip & spending time with or thinking about people that bring you down. He details how the best thing to do with people who are not being useful is to just write them off and get on with life.

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Really, there's a ton of content in the Altucher book and (like any book) its up to the reader to make of it what they will, but his basic concept of "spend time on things that bring happiness, avoid things that bring unhappiness" is both profound and seems very actionable.

Good book.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

2011-12-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

Recently finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and found it to be a fascinating study of the man, his life and career.

Isaacson is an accomplished biography writer and the start of this book includes mention of how Jobs didn’t ask for any editorial control and convinced Issacson to write it so there would be an account of him done by someone trusted. The trade off for that which Jobs acknowledged was there would be some stories and details showing him in a negative light.

All in all, though, he comes across as a remarkable individual and some of the things noted by Isaacson that stood out as particularly interesting are noted below:

Differences between Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak - The two met while in high school and were draw to one another by shared interest in electronics as well high intellects. Where they diverged was both socially and in terms of motivations. Wozniak was a brilliant programmer while Jobs wasn't nearly as technical, but could both conceptualize and sell very well. Early on, the two developed technology that Wozniak would have given it away, but Jobs pushed for selling something he knew people would want. This initial successful partnership eventually led to the creation of Apple.

Non-traditional lifestyle choices and views of the world - Jobs at an early age because interested in LSD, fad diets and Eastern Spirituality and Zen Buddhism... to the point of leaving his job at Atari to go to India searching for enlightenment and a guru.

Almost immediate judgements made - Other people & their ideas would oft be decided by Jobs to be either great or horrible. This same hair-trigger determination could then be reversed at a moment's notice, at times with Jobs proposing as his own an idea previously rejected.

Favoring of open rather than closed systems - Jobs early on decided to not license the Macintosh operating system (different than Microsoft and their approach with Windows) and instead had hardware and software bundled together. This same closed system approach came out later on with development of the iTunes store, apps and Apple stores.

Championing of Design over Engineering - Jobs would seek for and identify great design and push for that in the products sold, oftentimes to the chagrin of engineers who would have to figure out how to make work the design. This was a topic throughout Jobs career and he talked about Apple products being "at the intersection of humanities and technology."

A respect for the creative - This manifested itself both in the appreciation of great design, focus on stellar advertising and actions taken while running Pixar. Jobs had respect for people who he viewed as truly creative and that led to him following the lead of John Lasseter and other Pixar creatives requesting money to make animated shorts. This work that was outside of Pixar's initial core hardware business eventually led to Toy Story being made... and started the company on the path to taking over leadership of Disney Animation.

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All this said, Isaacson wrote an excellent biography of Steve Jobs and as previously stated, the book wasn't designed by Jobs to be his legacy, but perhaps he would want the famous June 2005 Stanford commencement speech to serve as such...

Fast Company Dec/Jan Issue: Toms Shoes, Louis C.K., General Assembly, Bluefin Labs, Nest

2011-12-25T20:06:00.000-08:00

Several short pieces of interest from the Dec '11 / Jan '12 issue of Fast Company magazine.

In the Now section of the magazine was Toms Founder Blake Mycoskie's Fashion-Forward Childhood. Nothing terribly new in the short piece, but Toms Shoes an interesting company given it's practice of giving away a pair of shoes for each sold.

Also notable for the subject was Louis C.K.: The Next Steve Jobs Will Be A Chick. As this CNN story details, C.K. has been selling online for $5 a self-produced standup special and after a few weeks is now at $1M in revenue. Very interesting approach taken by C.K. and also cool given the $280K+ in charitable donations he's already dispersed from the proceeds.

Two longer, but not feature length pieces from this issue were on augmented education and utilization of Twitter for business intelligence...

Anya Kamenetz penned General Assembly Provides Entrepreneurial Skills To A Chosen Few about the New York-based startup which offers classes and education programs in the fields of "technology, design, and entrepreneurship". Seems a solid concept for a business as education certainly can't stop with the traditional receipt of a college diploma.

On a company working to aggregate and make accessible some heavily fragmented information, Rachel Arndt wrote Bluefin Mines Social Media To Improve TV Analytics. Selling services to "brands, agencies and TV Networks", Bluefin Labs works in an interesting area.

Finally, this issue of Fast Company had a short piece on the company Nest and it's smart thermostat. Fascinating product designed with user experience in mind from former Apple exec Tony Faddell.

Businessweek Dec 12 Issue: Vegas Real Estate Fraud, OnLive Video Games, TV Remotes, Tableau Data Analysis

2011-12-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

Quite a few interesting pieces from the Dec 12 issue of Businessweek.

Cover story by Felix Gillette was The King of All Vegas Real Estate Scams on fraud run amok in the area of faulty condo construction. It's a fascinating look at the illegal practice of taking over homeowner association boards and then funneling damages and repair contracts to businesses tied to colluding board members. Not surprising to read of something like this given legal Vegas real estate practices like buying larger and walking away from old property, but the scam described by Gillette shows a remarkable amount of fraud and deception.

Also from this issue were three smaller pieces that each dealt with interesting companies and topics previously noted on this blog...

- OnLive Mobile Helps Gamers on the Go is on the cloud gaming service from startup veteran Steve Perlman and stood out both with Perlman being someone I've linked to previous BW features on and with the described OnLive efforts around online tablet and smartphone gaming.

- Voice Control, the End of the TV Remote? covers innovation already occurred and especially to come in the future around the home television. Topic is especially interesting given rampant speculation about what Apple may eventually bring (in conjunction with the iPhone and iPad) to the TV market.

- Pat Hanrahan's Tableau Analytics Software provides a brief look at data analysis tools way beyond simple Excel in terms of both user interface and display of information. It's an interesting subject area and Hanrahan as a guy (and his Tableau Software by extension) is interesting with his time spent as an early stage Pixar engineer and two Oscars awarded for animation work.

Kevin Van Valkenburg Q&A on Blog TVFury

2011-12-22T13:39:00.000-08:00

It's been a few months since I've posted on any writing from Kevin Van Valkenburg and, fortuitously enough, came across recently a ridiculously good Q&A with him about his career and other topics around writing.

Interview was done by and posted on the blog TVFury ("Sports, writing and life through the eyes of Terry Vandrovec and Shawn Fury") and the final words of the Q&A intro are pretty much catnip to someone like myself with a bent towards great narrative sports writing...

"Here, Kevin talks about growing up with an editor mom, life as a college football player, literary heroes, leaving Montana and living in Baltimore, his story that made it into the Best American Sportswriting book, The Wire, David Stern’s ego, the writing life and much more."

Couple of things that stood out in the (long at 10,000+ words) interview were how different journalism was when Van Valkenburg graduated college and (towards the end of the piece) his listing of favorite long-form pieces, books and authors. Quite a few of the writers noted were ones I follow and of particular interest was a quote from sportswriter S.L. Price in his excellent memoir Far Afield.

Very well done interview with interesting answers provided. Not a surprise, though, as Van Valkenburg is a really good writer who (as noted in the piece) does a number of different types of writing.

He references in the Q&A his most rewarding work being this five-part serial narrative about a football team in West Baltimore and my favorite piece of his I haven't already linked to was Sense of loss drives Ngata on Baltimore Ravens (and former Oregon Ducks) lineman Haloti Ngata. Additionally, Van Valkenburg is known for his interesting Five Things We Learned Baltimore Sun column following Ravens games.

John Branch on Derek Boogaard / Sports Journalism Today

2011-12-16T10:09:00.000-08:00

Remarkable profile of former NHL player Derek Boogaard earlier this month in The New York Times. Written by John Branch, the three-part series is titled Punched Out: The Life and Death of a Hockey Enforcer with first Learning To Brawl about his early years and then Blood on the Ice about his National Hockey League career. Finally, A Brain 'Going Bad' covers both his accidental overdose (from painkillers and alcohol) death last summer and then damage found upon study of his brain.

It's captivating reading about first the idea of sixteen and seventeen year-old hockey players seeking to make a career with their ability to fight during games and then those same players having severe neurological trauma later in life... in Boogaard's case, a life of just 28 years.

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Branch's piece is an extremely thorough profile that's sports journalism by virtue of it's athlete subject, but does more than hold it's own in the broader category of journalism. To this point, there's been several interesting stories come across lately about sports journalism and the great work being done in the field.

For New York Magazine, Gabriel Sherman wrote Blitz!: How sports journalists learned to go for the hard tackle which uses the Branch series as an example of the deep investigative reports being done into sports topics in recent years.

A second piece lately on sports journalism is The Sporting Scene column for the New Yorker by Reeves Wiedeman. It's an interesting short missive about the volume of solid beyond the boxscore sportswriting being generated online.

Sports Illustrated Writing: from Alexander Wolff, Charles P. Pierce & Jim Gorant

2011-12-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

Some great writing from the recent Sports Illustrated double issue that features Pat Summitt and Mike Krzyzewski as the SI Sportswoman & Sportman of the Year for 2011.

Longtime SI writer Alexander Wolff did the cover profile on the coaching icons and paints a revealing portrait of two driven individuals who appear focused on winning the right way. It's solid writing made the more so given that Summitt no longer does one-on-one interviews with her diagnosis of having early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type.

If Wolff's piece was a well-written profile of exceptional public figures, two other features from this issue of Sports Illustrated stood out as really good writing on subjects known in much smaller universes.

Centered in the town of Magazine, Arkansas, How To Become An American is on the children of Hmong immigrants (with the Hmong portrayed by Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino) playing high school football. Written by Charles Pierce, it combines an almost lyrical beginning with an in-depth description of the athletes and their assimilation into the community and impact on the team. I see Pierce stories most frequently in Esquire and expected and then found a great piece after noting his name in this SI story byline.

A feature that actually turned out to be much more than I expected was According To Alex Kline... on the 17 year old college hoops recruiting guru. Written by Jim Gorant, the two things that stand out in the piece are Kline for creating a thriving avocation out of his interest and Gorant for the style of the piece. After the introduction, the writing flows backwards with sections on various ages of Kline's life to trace what led him to today. This approach helps take something that if done superficially could be little more than a puff isn't that cute? type of piece and makes it a revealing and interesting profile.

Entrepreneurial Journalism Education / Difficulty in Sports Reporting Today

2011-12-09T21:17:00.000-08:00

Expanding a bit on my post from yesterday about the Nieman Foundation (and Nieman Storyboard), I've come across some interesting Journalism education content lately including a webinar attended earlier this week.

As could be expected, the online session was the most engaging of the various sources of wisdom and class itself the Knight Center webinar to teach journalists how to start a successful entrepreneurial project taught by journalist and City University of New York J-School professor Jeremy Caplan.

I wouldn't say I was disappointed with my time spent, but it did leave me feeling it tough to get a tremendous amount from an online learning environment. There was the opportunity to post questions to a chat board that were then answered, but not much interactive learning (which isn't a terribly damning statement as you likely shouldn't expect much more from a two hour online session).

As to the content itself, material was posted to both Scribd and Google Docs and the high-level 7 Steps to a successful entrepreneurial Journalism startup are below...

1. Market research
2. Competitive analysis
3. Content & structure development
4. Building community
5. Cultivating sustainability
6. Leading on the path
7. Adjusting on the way

Important points to be sure, but my thoughts on the content were that it was pretty basic business school type stuff (but, again... maybe that's not being critical as it could be new learning for some in the session) and that the actual application of the steps seemed to be described as most frequently towards building hyper-local community news websites.

All in all, Journalism and the business around writing (which obviously could cast a pretty wide net) is definitely of interest and attending the session was a good step in learning more.

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On this subject of new opportunities in Journalism, the aforementioned Nieman Foundation had on it's Nieman Lab site recently a Justin Ellis piece How Time Inc. is preparing for a future in digital news with a j-school of its own. Interesting concept with the old media giant offering in-house education (heavily leaning towards digital new media topics) to employees.

Finally (and also related to the idea of changes in Journalism), excellent piece titled Death of the interview posted to ESPN earlier this week. Written by Tim Keown, it delves into how sports reporting (both by the press and athletes) has changed in today's environment of short attention, tight news cycles and need for the sensational. Very solid piece that's both entertaining and thought-provoking.

Writing & Work from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism

2011-12-08T14:07:00.000-08:00

Having not heard of it until fairly recently, I've found online some really cool work and resources from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. As is detailed on the about page of the site, the foundation administers a yearlong fellowship program for journalists, but where I heard about them was through the Nieman Storyboard website. Taken directly from the Storyboard about page...

"Nieman Storyboard looks at how storytelling works in every medium. In addition to highlighting outstanding print narratives, we seek to feature the best examples of visual, audio and multimedia narrative reporting. As a bonus, we’ll also give you occasional updates on conferences, awards, and other narrative news."

Given my interest in learning more about and love of interesting narrative stories written down (and to fall a bit into a cliche)... that's right in my wheelhouse!

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First time I came across Nieman (Foundation or the Storyboard website) was with mention of venerable narrative journalist Gay Talese doing a lecture with two-time National Magazine Award winning Esquire writer Chris Jones. While it would have been great to actually attend the talk, Nieman Storyboard provided this transcript of the session as well as the notes from an equally interesting Jones Q&A with Narrative Writing Instructor Paige Williams.

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Looking further into the Storyboard site, I found noted as contributors a number of the writers whose stuff I admire and look for. From 2009 there was Tommy Tomlinson: making words work for a living and more recently a Storyboard series titled why's this so good? with analysis of classic narrative nonfiction writing. Concept held a lot of sway with me as it's the intent of this blog... but, with stuff by accomplished writers rather than just my ramblings.

There's so far been 23 different pieces in the series with those below representing ones either about or by authors I'm familiar with and enjoy...

- “Why’s this so good?” No. 4: W.C. Heinz on Air Lift, son of Bold Venture by Chris Jones
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 11: Tom Junod on Mister Rogers and grace by Susannah Breslin
- “Why’s This So Good?” No. 15: Michael Lewis’ Greek odyssey by David Dobbs
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 18: Brady Dennis goes short by Ben Montgomery
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 22: Hank Stuever on 9-ish by Michael Kruse
- “Why’s this so good?” No. 23: William Langewiesche’s voice of experience by Thomas Lake

Very cool writing series and lot of other interesting things being done by Nieman.

Time Magazine Pieces - Familial DNA testing / Rhode Island Pension Reform / Jon Huntsman / Nest Thermostat

2011-12-06T15:01:00.001-08:00

Quite a few interesting stories from the December 5 issue of Time Magazine.

All pieces require a magazine subscription to read online and first of note was The Case of the Grim Sleeper by Terry McCarthy. Pretty fascinating content on familial DNA testing and how it was used to locate a suspected serial killer in Los Angeles.

Another feature was by the excellent David Von Drehle titled The Little State That Could about the recent Rhode Island pension reforms enacted by State Treasurer Gina Raimondo. Her efforts might run counter to those from AFL-CIO labor leader Richard Trumka (profiled well in this Esquire piece), but Raimondo comes across in the story as someone extremely intelligent driving necessary change.

With the subject being in the same adult voice in the room category, Joe Klein's column was Jon Huntsman's Big Idea. As Klein writes, the top six banks hold assets of almost 65% of U.S. GDP and Huntsman's idea is to reduce their power (via a targeted fee) and hold on the economy.

Final thing of note from this issue of Time was the short Reinventing the Wheel on the new high-tech home thermostat from Nest. Very interesting product designed to foster energy conservation through both it's technology and stellar user interface (with the company founded and led by Apple iPod creator Tony Fadell.)

Profiles from December 2011 Esquire

2011-12-05T14:15:00.000-08:00

Some excellent feature profiles in the December 2011 issue of Esquire Magazine.

Americans of the Year on the cover refers to an entire section of profile pieces within and not to make short shrift of seventeen of these remarkable individuals, but three stood out as particularly interesting.

Cover story itself is Mark Kelly, American by Chris Jones and portrays someone who appears to exemplify the best of people can offer of themselves. I find Jones to be an excellent writer and it seems some of his best pieces are on the subject of space and the people who explore it.

The other two profiles to highlight aren't on people in roles necessarily as glamorous as astronaut, but are on individuals doing things both interesting and impactful to many.

Richard Trumka, American is written by John H. Richardson and profiles the head of the AFL-CIO. As Richarson details, the union is made up of "twelve million firefighters, teachers, nurses, miners, electricians, and entertainers" and Trumka's efforts have a large impact in the role of labor in America. Additionally, the statements made and advocacy described by Trumka in this piece seem to ring true and be very timely in what could be described as a rich getting richer economic climate.

Another of the people profiled is similar to Trumka in the leading of a large organization many have strongly held views on. Craig Fugate, American is about the head of FEMA and, as chronicled by Tom Chiarella, seems to be doing an exemplary job (much better than "a heck of a job") running the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Structure put around the agency and it's role by Fugate appears to be extremely solid and is described well by Chiarella.

Sport In America from Sports Illustrated... and role of Sports Journalism

2011-12-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Very interesting cover story in the November 28 issue of Sports Illustrated.

The entire text of the piece by Time Inc Sports editor Terry McDonell doesn't appear to be online now (just silly, me thinks), but Sport In America is posted as an abridged version. The story introduces a future HBO series of the same name that Sports Illustrated will be co-producing.

Overall concept of the series and introductory story is described on this Inside Sports Illustrated blog post and around the question of what sport means to individual people... with this question still quite relevant in today's environment of large money and high level cynicism around sport.

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The piece by McDonell was interesting (if only the whole text could be provided here) and got me thinking more about sports journalism and what it does. There's certainly recapping of with scores and game summaries, but also much more. The narrative recreation of fan memories is a huge offering that sports journalism can provide and another aspect of journalism around sports is the revealing of information.

This can be around things like player profiles a well as supremely important topics like Jerry Sandusky and the Penn State child sex abuse case (with my blog post last month on writing about the scandal). This case provided another example of how sports journalism can play a much more important than score and game notes role with this NBC interview with Sandusky where noted sports journalist Bob Costas let Sandusky eviscerate himself in relation to the accusations made and charges filed.

Very important stuff to be sure... and this revealing, recreating and recapping that can be provided by sports journalism doesn't even fully cover the entertainment value that solid media coverage can add to the (financially very valuable) total fan experience.

Writing on Unstructured Data Analysis - Palantir / Hewlett-Packard

2011-12-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

Very interesting cover story in the latest Businessweek that got me thinking about the concepts of structured and unstructured data analysis.

The feature is Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon and looks at the Palo Alto, CA company whose data mining software is used by a number of government agencies to flag and compile information on potential threats. The aforementioned unstructured data refers to information held not in database (structured) form, but rather in bank transactions, purchases made, videos recorded and social media postings.

What Palantir does is take in and sift through all these disparate data sets to try to provide a clear picture of what's going on... with this offering being valuable for private industry (example being banks fighting fraud) as well as government. The BW story detailing all this is an interesting piece from Ashlee Vance and Brad Stone on a fascinating topic.

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This idea of unstructured data analysis is coming to the forefront in Business today with both the amount of loose data multiplying and newer and better product offerings trying to tame and make sense of said data.

Written a few days ago by Brandon Bailey for the San Jose Mercury News was HP unveils new products for sorting 'unstructured data'. The piece is around the first publicized results of HP's Autonomy acquisition and published yesterday on ZDNet UK was HP mates Autonomy with Vertica that brings in the early 2011 HP acquisition of Vertica.

Money Writing from Businessweek, Bloomberg & Time

2011-12-01T00:06:00.000-08:00

Several piece of writing on money I've come across lately that were interesting by themselves... with two downright fascinating when viewed in relation to one another.

From the Nov 28 issue of Time Magazine came the feature Below The Line on living in poverty. Written by Barbara Kiviat, it's a solid piece that looks at the 46 million Americans living on less than an annual income of $22,314 for a family of four. A lot of interesting content there... including how different external events (sickness, injury, car breakdown) can be cataclysmic financially for those barely making ends meet.

A different story on what feels like the opposite end of the financial spectrum was Secret Fed Loans Gave Banks $13 Billion Undisclosed to Congress from Bloomberg. Very much made me think of my blog post from a month ago on Boomerang by Michael Lewis as well as Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone.

Also on money, but not in the same curl your stomach vein were two short pieces from the Nov 21 issue of Businessweek. All Those Stock Buybacks: A Bullish Sign? is on the trend of companies feeling valuations low and buying their own stock and James Altucher, Wall Street's Keeper of the Pain on the venture capitalist and author (of both books and his self-titled blog).

"The Postmortal" by Drew Magary

2011-12-01T00:05:00.000-08:00

Just finished reading The Postmortal by Drew Magary and found it to be pretty enjoyable.

I'm not a huge reader of fiction, but I heard about the book from the Chris Jones Son of a Bold Venture blog with a Five for Writing Q&A with Magary and have since seen his work for the sports websites Deadspin and Kissing Suzy Kolber.

The Postmortal is set in the future where a cure for aging has been discovered and follows one particular character through this landscape. It's an interesting premise leading to negative enough outcomes that the book could probably be included in the genre of apocalyptic fiction. Additionally, Magary is an engaging and entertaining writer which prevents the read from devolving into pathos as the inevitable bad things occur.

I wouldn't say I loved the book, but thought it to be a pretty good read and developed from it an appreciation for Magary as a writer.

Sports Illustrated Writing: from Alan Shipnuck, Chris Ballard, Tim Layden

2011-11-27T20:50:00.000-08:00

There's been a few excellent pieces from Sports Illustrated in recent weeks that stood out as solid.

From the October 17 issue came The Invisible Fastball by Chris Ballard and Owen Good. The piece chronicles the life and 1950s era career renaissance of minor league pitcher (Kelly) Jack Swift in rural North Carolina. It's a solid read on baseball as I wrote about it here and reminds me again of how hockey is my favorite sport, football the one I'm most easily entertained by and baseball the one I find to be the best.

For the November 7 edition of SI, Tim Layden wrote The Forgotten Hero on former Williams College football player Mike Reily and why his jersey has been retired since the 60s. Excellent piece that combines together a thorough reporting job with profound story.

Finally, the recent Nov 28 issue had Tim Tebow's Wild Ride by Alan Shipnuck. Tebow's story is fascinating given how polarizing he is to both the media and general public and Shipnuck uses the tactic of writing the piece through quotes in and by the media. It's the same approach as was taken in a recent book on the history of ESPN (which I reviewed here) and seems to perfectly fit the breathlessly reported on overall Tebow story.

Writing of Profundity - Posnanski, Kruse, Brooks and Simpson

2011-11-22T14:49:00.000-08:00

While most of the individual posts on this blog have story links pulled from either one writer or website, lately there's been a few pieces I've come across from different writers and sources that both share a leaning towards the profound and are really darn good.

With this idea of profundity as the common thread (why the heck not?), the first piece to note here was the Joe Posnanski blog post I Hope You're Happy With Your Husband. Very cool and heart warming story about his youngest child... and which brought to mind this equally cool and heart warming piece about Posnanski's oldest.

Other three pieces pieces to link to here all have a retrospective on life slant to them... beginning with Born to race, Dan Wheldon found happiness in town's slower pace. Written by Michael Kruse for the St. Petersburg Times, it looks at the Indy car driver who died as a result of injuries suffered during a Las Vegas race. The story is well told here in part through vignettes and anecdotes of people who interacted with Wheldon (with this story approach being something I've previously seen employed successfully by Kruse).

Given that Kruse's subject in the link immediately above was Steve Jobs, it seems fitting to also highlight A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs by Mona Simpson. Extremely poignant and well written piece (Simpson is a novelist and English professor) for the New York Times on the brother she didn't meet until in her twenties.

Also in the New York Times, I also found noteworthy The Life Report by David Brooks. It was written about a month ago and asks readers over 70 to provide Brooks with written evaluation of their lives and what they've learned. It's an interesting request that Brooks wrote of making to then post some reader responses online. There may well be more coming, but as of today, Brooks has posted to his Times blog ten of these reader Life Reports.

Fast Company Pieces - 3M Design Chief / Serial Entrepreneurship / Ads on the Web

2011-11-19T14:05:00.000-08:00

Three different stories from the past few months of Fast Company that stood out as being on interesting companies and/or business topics.

From the recent November 2011 issue came Bill Nguyen: The Boy In The Bubble on the founder (or co-founder) of at least four different startups, including Lala (sold to Apple) and now the much talked about, but uncertain as to it's eventual success or failure, Color.

The piece is written by Danielle Sacks and a pretty fascinating read not so much because of the verbiage about Nguyen himself, but the article's description of the ethos of Silicon Valley and the startup culture. Interesting content on seed and venture capital investors backing founders who have had multiple successes (defined by exit with money for investors) and a business idea in an area considered hot at the time. While both of these things do certainly carry an import to them, what's often not taken into effort account is the particulars of the idea itself.

Also interesting from the piece was the description of how investors don't necessarily put a mark against the company founder's track record if not all ventures succeeded. Concept being the business failure looked at as simply a shot that didn't work out and not a big deal as long as other efforts did succeed.

As to Nguyen himself, Sacks details his bona fides in the areas of wealth creation and deal-making (in both the initial cash raising and then end-game business selling phases) and how this past success led to such large amounts of money invested in Color as a business idea. This outlay by investors takes on greater import given the underwhelming launch of Color and subsequent repositiong (with that so called pivot being another acceptable and almost expected thing in startups). Whether the company eventually succeeds or not, Nguyen is wealthy from past successes... and likely would resurface with another business idea, and investors willing to back him.

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From the October 2011 issue of Fast Company was another solid feature... this one dealing not with a startup culture, but rather someone creating change in a large corporate environment. The Nine Passions Of 3M's Mauro Porcini is written by Chuck Salter and details the design chief at the Minnesota based conglomerate. Porcini is described as succeeding at 3M by trumpeting the process involved with outstanding design work as well as it's pure aesthetic value. Beyond this, he's developed credibility within the company by doing the all-important trick of being behind design work that's increased sales.

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Additionally, Adam Lisagor Is Advertising's Quietest Pitchman was an interesting short piece from the September FC issue. Written by Bill Barol, it's about Lisagor's small production company, Sandwich Video and the straight-forward and well received online product videos (web ads) produced for the likes of Groupon, Airbnb, and Flipboard (with the Airbnb spot below and four other videos linked from the Fast Company piece).

Esquire Mental Health Writing - Chris Jones & Mike Sager

2011-11-17T14:31:00.000-08:00

Two excellent pieces of writing (neither currently posted online) from the November issue of Esquire Magazine with Panic by Chris Jones and Depression by Mike Sager.

The Jones piece covers with his own past suicidal thoughts to the point of first contemplating jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge and later superficially cutting himself with a knife. Each episode was described as something of a culmination of spiraling emotions involving excessive anger, stuck thoughts of problems not improving, or runaway thoughts of those same problems getting much worse.

It was remarkable reading because of the level to which the author gave himself up to readers and a positive conclusion of sorts to this story comes in the form of a post by Jones towards the bottom of this SportsJournalists comment thread.

Wouldn’t be true to write that I understand how he felt because that’s just dumb and I've never been in the place he describes (brain not wired to go that dark... just fortunate, I suppose). That said, life can be a challenge at times and it's refreshing (yep, that's the word) to read of how it's not easy for those that one might think live a charmed life (and I’ve had that view of Jones with his writing ability and career).

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The Mike Sager piece differs in that it's about someone who was not actually sick with depression, but very well could have been giving his life circumstances. Sager was going through a divorce (and accompanying time apart from his teenage child) and actually diagnosed with major depressive disorder. He fought the diagnosis (which drove up insurance costs) and was able to overturn it as incorrect. Sager’s writing certainly seems to indicate a lack of depression as he keeps his life moving forward and makes the all-important statement “how much can one man take? As much as need be."

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While the two pieces come from very different places, it seems the aforementioned Sager quote in line with how Jones closed his story by writing that he wished "we would always be terrified of death... and spend the rest of our lives running from it."

Other thing I keep thinking about in relation to both pieces is the distinction between two different ways of viewing situations… one being to imagine how much better things could be (bad view) and the other how much worse the possibilities (good view).

This relative ranking of viewpoints doesn’t advocate for perpetual status quo, but rather for an appreciation of things good and/or really not that bad.

Clay Travis Writing on College Football

2011-11-14T21:36:00.000-08:00

As a college football fan and fan of good sports writing, I'm surprised I haven't heard of him until recently, but glad I've come across Clay Travis and his website Outkick the Coverage.

According to the Bio page on the site (which lists eight different writers), Travis is a Nashville afternoon radio show host in addition to writer and I first came across his stuff with the hilarious Les Miles and LSU Make Alabama Frat Boys Cry about the game in Tuscaloosa.

On the more serious (not you know... serious, serious, but more in-depth reporting serious) note, I last week saw the profile Kirk Herbstreit: The Face of College Football on the ESPN/ABC announcer and College Gameday host. I found both this and the LSU piece to be very well written and had planned on doing a post on College Football writing that doesn't make you ill, but then learn that lo and behold... both pieces from the same guy.

With the first two pieces of his I've seen being highly funny/entertaining and detailed/insightful respectively, the trifecta completed with now the third story of his I've seen (all on Outkick the Coverage) being reasoned/informative. Starting 11: If LSU Splits Arkansas, Georgia, it's in Title Game is on this year's BCS Title Game possibilities and includes the analysis from Travis that "there is a 95% chance -- potentially even greater than that -- that this title game will be LSU-Oklahoma State or LSU-Alabama."

Businessweek Pieces: Workplace Productivity Software / Apple Supply Chain / Rare Earth Metal Mining

2011-11-14T13:35:00.000-08:00

Several interesting pieces from Businessweek lately with the largest of which on a new productivity software startup. Asana: Dustin and Justin's Quest for Flow was written by Ashlee Vance and profiles the company started by two beginning stage ex-Facebook employees (with Dustin Moskovitz at eight days younger than Mark Zuckerberg being the world's youngest billionaire). As detailed by Vance, Asana is offering a free version for smaller groups (with the idea that even personal tasks will be managed via Asana) and then building larger demand.

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Other recent feature of note from BW recently was Alaska’s Billion Dollar Mountain on entrepreneur Jim McKenzie and his mining company, UCore. Focus is on Bokan Mountain near Ketchikan, Alaska and the large support of valuable rare earth metals held deep underground. It's an interesting story written for Businessweek by Daniel Grushkin in the efforts of McKenzie to gain mining access and in how the land reached it's current valuation.

Previous attempts to mine Bokan were unsuccessfully trying to find and extract uranium and this is exactly what McKenzie was initially interested in and hoping to convince the old prospector (Bob Dotson) who owned the mineral rights to allow him access to. Through spending time together, McKenzie learned of it's rare earth metal potential and then brokered a deal with Dotson and his estranged children (to whom who he had granted shared rights) to be able to mine Bokan.

In 2010, China as the world's largest producer of rare earth metals then made the decision to dramatically cut it's exports of these minerals (that go into complicated electronics, jet engines and missiles) and as a result made prices skyrocket and dramatically increased the value of Bokan. It still remains to be seen whether the cost of deep underground extraction will make the investment pay off, but the potential is very much there. Interesting story from a lot of different perspectives.

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Final Businessweek piece to mention is Apple's Supply-Chain Secret? Hoard Lasers. Apple combining great consumer experience with supply-chain competitive advantage... that's a pretty compelling proposition.

Time Magazine - Troops Coming Home / Progessive Messaging / Virus Hunting

2011-11-14T10:57:00.000-08:00

Several features of note from Time Magazine over the past few weeks including the Nov 21 issue cover story on US Servicemen and Women returning home from duty.

Written by Mark Thompson, The Other 1% examines the ever-widening disconnect between those in our Armed Forces and the rest of the population (including our elected representatives). The problem detailed by Thompson is an important one, but short of a there being mandatory service (which hardly anyone advocates), it's not really clear how to fix the problem and bring more in step the military and rest of US society. Also, it's neither a backing for Thompson's points nor a rebuttal, but another piece closely related (and referenced in the issue's Editor's Note by Richard Stengel) was The New Greatest Generation by Joe Klein on contributions made by returning veterans.

The other story from this issue that stood out was the Michael Scherer written profile on former Obama Administration staffer Van Jones. The Return of the Rabble Rouser looks at the efforts by Jones around messaging of progressive issues and features interesting content related to both the Occupy Wall Street movement and President Barack Obama. Extremely simplified point around Obama was any sort of effort has to be led by ideals rather than an individual. It certainly didn't seem to be a slam at the President, but rather a statement that the man is not the movement. Whether someone agrees with Jones political views or not, the concepts from him as laid out by Scherer are interesting ones.

Final recent Time piece to mention was Virus Hunter from the Nov 7 issue. The Bryan Walsh story looks at Nathan Wolfe and his work as founder and head of Global Viral Forecasting. Fascinating efforts from Wolfe in an effort to identify early on future infectious diseases so outbreaks can be prevented prior to the level of a full-blown pandemic.

Penn State Crimes, Moral Failures & Journalism

2011-11-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

While the typical path of this blog has been to link to and write about specific pieces or books that struck me as interesting, this post is about the Penn State scandal and it's mesmerizing (in mostly bad, but also some good) elements.

Details of the actual indictment and alleged crimes within are horrifying, but what's really captured attention has been the characters apart from the accused molester Jerry Sandusky, especially living legend and now ex Penn State coach Joe Paterno. In his case, you have someone who has done much good, but in this case (by all appearances) failed at the most important moment.

It's a fascinating subject, this concept of duality within an individual... his good deeds remain so, but one specific thing handled in entirely the wrong way impacted so much for the victims. Paterno is of course the most recognizable name involved that could have raised these allegations to police years ago, but there's also now ex Penn State President Graham Spanier and his head in the sand approach both years ago when Sandusky's crimes were raised and since the indictment came down over the weekend. If one can detach from the horrible nature of the crimes, it's a study in how people in power (now including the Penn State Board of Trustees that fired both Spanier and Paterno) react to events, create environments and set policy.

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So... the story itself has been riveting, but what's also held my attention over the past week has been the words from sports journalists reporting on the story. Some writers I respect a great deal have had fascinating observations to make and they've first appeared as real-time twitter musings and then as published columns.

There's been so many good pieces written already, but what many sports journalists and fans of sports journalism are waiting to eventually read is the announced earlier this year book from Joe Posnanski on Paterno and this season (which of course nobody could have envisioned turning out like it has). Posnanski thus far has written two different blog posts on the scandal, first Darkness and then Curiously Short Posts and I doubt he knows what his eventual book on Paterno will contain, but I have to imagine it's going to be an enthralling read. Just a guess of course, but it may well be heavy on the aforementioned duality of how a good person (which Paterno certainly seems to be) can do a bad thing (specifically, the limits to his actions taken when allegations were brought to him).

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Back to the subject of reporting and sports journalism... reading the columns and musings from good writers as this story has unfolded has gotten me thinking more about journalism and writing. To this end there's been three different pieces I've come across lately about the profession that all stand out as interesting.

First was an address given by Nate Silver to the Columbia School of Journalism. Silver founded the political blog FiveThirtyEight and in his speech imparts both his background and valuable career lessons for someone about the enter the field of journalism.

Second was a series of tweets from Tommy Tomlinson about an Ira Glass speaking event. I've also been at a live event by the This American Life creator and concur that Glass is a definite master storyteller.

Third was a tumblr site We Are Journalists I just came across today. Very interesting vignettes from people in the profession working to chase down and report well on stories... including things like the horrible crimes and subsequent inaction (and now action) out of Penn State.

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Updated on 11/14 with additional pieces that struck me on the child sex abuse scandal (not a "scandal, not a "sex scandal")...

- Good Riddance, Joe Paterno by Buzz Bissinger for The Daily Beast
- Omelas State University by author John Scalzi on his website
- The End of Paterno by Joe Posnanski on his Sports Illustrated blog

A horrific and amazing ongoing story.

Boomerang by Michael Lewis & Matt Taibbi on Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-08T21:10:00.000-08:00

Have come across some excellent writing lately on money and markets. Form of the works have been in a quote, a magazine piece and the Michael Lewis book Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World.

If Lewis's 2010 book The Big Short (which I reviewed here) looked at the recent financial meltdown at a corporate level in relation to things like Credit Default Swaps and CDOs, this new effort looks at financial train wrecks with a much larger country level. It's a riveting and fast read and separated into five sections (with my thoughts on each)...

Iceland - "Hey, let's all become heavily leveraged investment bankers assuming the markets will rise forever. What could go wrong?"

Greece - "I want services provided by the government, but see no reason to do things like pay my taxes since the government doesn't seem to mind me not paying."

Ireland - A bit like Iceland, but financial insanity through real estate development.

Germany - The adult in the room... needing to decide how much pain to take on themselves to try to rescue the irresponsible kids (or PIGS).

United States - Perhaps the most interesting simply because it's local (including Lewis writing on Vallejo and San Jose here in the Bay Area). Covers the concept of country level financial problems (like underfunded pension obligations) simply getting pushed down to the cities. Ramifications of this... bad.

Lewis has quite the talent for creating easy reading on complex topics and with Boomerang, writes an excellent (and frightening) book on bad money decisions run amok.

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On the same subject of money, greed and decisions made at a high level impacting the common folk was a piece for Rolling Stone by Matt Taibbi. Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating is a look at Occupy Wall Street and offers a harsh indictment of the financial system and how it's structurally set up to reward the bankers who run it. Very well written and thoughtful story.

Finally, it's only a quote, but in the same vein as the Lewis book and Taibbi article was that below from Businessweek by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of The Black Swan about outside of normal financial events)...

"We're not living in capitalism. We're not living in Socialism. We're living in some wierd economic situation with the banks controlling more than their share. It's like we're serving them rather than them serving us."

Wright Thompson on Good BBQ, Les Miles and Great Pizza

2011-11-05T21:41:00.000-07:00

There's a few writers whose stuff I'm drawn to and Wright Thompson has definitely become one of them.

A few months ago I did a post linking to a number of his pieces and fairly recently I've come across some more of his writing from various sources. To this point, the story that stood out the most did so because it was published not by ESPN (or the ESPN property Grantland that Thompson also writes for), but in Garden & Gun Magazine.

The piece is titled Pork-a-Palooza and is about Thompson joining together / hanging on with a team of BBQ aficionados (like, they make their living doing it) competing in the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. It's really engaging writing that coupled together with the other Thompson stuff I linked to cements the concept of him as someone whose writing oft includes first person alcohol and food indulgences (sweet niche he's carved out).

In the same (completely fantastic) subject vein, another piece of his I came across earlier today was The Best Pizza in the South from Grantland. The story is about a hole in the wall joint in Baton Rouge and chowing down with LSU football coach Les Miles and the Miles family. Yep, as noted before... pretty sweet writing life he's got there.

Linked within the Grantland story was actually the point of Thompson's time in Baton Rouge... an ESPN Outside the Lines profile on Coach Miles. I suppose it's a bit of a cliche to say, but it's one of those profile pieces that stands out because the author goes deep and gives a nuanced look at the subject's personal as well as professional life. So, it's not all about the food and booze... it's also just solid research and excellent writing from Thompson.

2011 World Series Writing

2011-11-04T15:19:00.000-07:00

Following on the heels of an incredible final day of the regular season was an equally astounding (more so given the stage) World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals winning in 7 games.

There was great writing done on that Game 162 (with pieces by Messrs. Verducci, Posnanski and Kruse linked to here) and as could be expected, also some excellent pieces on the World Series and particularly the epic Game 6. Starting things off with the widest (post World Series) view was the excellent Go Crazy, Baseball, Go Crazy by Tom Verducci story for Sports Illustrated.

It doesn't take anything away from the very solid Verducci piece, but the unbelievable if not real 6th game of the World Series provided the writing that stuck with me the most, with the three most memorable pieces below...

- 2011 World Series: David Freese caps Cardinals’ unbelievable comeback by Thomas Boswell for the Washington Post.

- David Freese, St. Louis force Game 7 by Jayson Stark for ESPN.

- Game Six by Joe Posnanski for his Sports Illustrated blog.

Michael McRae & Mark Jenkins in Outside Magazine

2011-11-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

Having recently subscribed to Outside Magazine (after not getting it for the past few years), I found a couple of interesting features in the November issue.

Piece that stood out the most was How the Nomad Found Home on conservationist Mike Fay. Written by Michael McRae, it details Fay's work creating National Parks and championing conservation in Africa and more recently holing up in the Southeast Alaskan wilderness. It's an interesting portrait of a guy extremely dedicated to his causes... and who has been able to accomplish quite a bit in relation to them.

Other story from this issue of Outside that I noted was Amundsen Schlepped Here by Mark Jenkins. The piece is about Jenkins and his brother Steve skiing the path across the Hardangervidda Plateau taken 100 years ago by adventurer Roald Amundsen.

While the writing was solid and contents interesting, what got me was recalling my three years ago reading and then posting on The Hard Way by Jenkins. Seems a long time ago this blog was begun in earnest, but it's been enjoyable writing (and reading the stuff written on).

Rin Tin Tin by Susan Orlean

2011-10-27T22:41:00.000-07:00

Finished reading the other day Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend by Susan Orlean and found it to be an interesting book.

Orlean is also the author of The Orchid Thief (which I reviewed here) and each book features as part of the storyline specific individuals and their obsessions. In the case of The Orchid Thief, it was a guy and his devotion to a type of flower and in the latest Orlean effort, it’s actually several different people (with one primary) and devotion to a dog. Beyond that, though, the story of Rin Tin Tin is about devotion to what Rin Tin Tin meant.

The story began on the battlefields of WWI with US solider Lee Duncan rescuing some German shepherd puppies and then bringing them back home. From there, Duncan developed a deep attachment with one of the pups and he eventually got the idea of and was successful at getting a silent film made starring the dog.

This spawned many other feature films with Rin Tin Tin performing amazing feats and saving the day countless times. As a result of this, the dog became inextricably tied with the hero persona for countless movie goers who could be completely entertained in a silent film by this concept. Eventually, talking pictures came to Hollywood and that signaled a decline in Rin Tin Tin’s career with Warner Brothers cancelled with him in 1929 and then Rin Tin Tin dying in 1932 at 14 (when Lee was in his late 30s).

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Lee was unquestionably devoted to Rin Tin Tin and even though there were Rin ancestors, none resonated with him as much as did his original dog. Rin Tin Tin Jr. performed in smaller budget movies earning less and then Rin Tin Tin III was born in 1941 and eventually become known through promoting the US Dogs for Defense effort during WWII.

After the war, came The Return of Rin Tin Tin in 1947 and though the movie was a success, things were relatively quiet for both Lee and his dog until Bert Leonard met the trainer in 1953. This was during the time that television was exploding in popularity and Bert convinced Lee that the traits of goodness and heroism personified by the character of Rin Tin Tin would translate perfectly to the new medium. The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin television program was a Western set in 1870 and once again made Rin Tin Tin a household name.

One interesting distinction between the show and the original silent films was the actual character of Rin Tin Tin was being played by a dog completely unrelated to the original dog brought back from WWI. Bert and the backers of the television show didn’t view the current Rin Tin Tin dog to be smart or physically capable enough to star in the show so brought in another dog to play the role of Rin Tin Tin. Lee didn’t seem to mind (or at least left no record of his objection) so maybe the point is that he realized the original dog was his favorite and all of the descendants were about representing rather than actually having the traits of the original.

The show started in 1954 and was an immediate hit and then Lee got wealthy once again and passed away in 1960. A key point that gets made in the book by Orlean is how Lee seemed a good person, but one who seemed to have less of a connection with his family than he did first the original Rin Tin Tin dog and then with the idea of the dog's qualities and legacy. It's interesting reading about someone completely devoted to a thing or idea, but an effect of the devotion often seems to be that other areas of their life suffer.

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At this point, the Rin Tin Tin legacy on television was being carried on by Bert Leonard with episodes being rerun in syndication at various points and Bert unsuccessful seeking to have another Rin Tin Tin movie made, but this one being the story of Lee and his life with the dogs.

The story of Bert then becomes a sad one at the end as in addition to his lack of success in continuing with Rin Tin Tin entertainment, he become entangled in a web of lawsuits with people around the name of Rin Tin Tin and what could be done with it. Primarily legal combatant was Daphne Hereford, the granddaughter of someone who got Rin Tin Tin puppies in the 50s and then bred them.

It’s a good book by Orlean and really it’s about the ideal of Rin Tin Tin and how it became such a strong narrative through many decades in people’s lives. As part of this, she wrote about her grandfather who cared so much for a Rin Tin Tin figurine (and his attachment would have come from the original silent films), but also how writing the book made her feel like Lee Duncan in the way she became consumed by the story.

Solid read on the human condition and devotion to a concept.

Brandon Sneed Writing

2011-10-22T21:35:00.000-07:00

Having followed him on twitter for a while now, I've been seeing more and more interesting content lately from freelance (aren't we all, I suppose) journalist Brandon Sneed.

Previously I had posted on his interview with newly published in Sports Illustrated writer Tommy Tomlinson and now Sneed has made the same author jump to national magazine (well, least first national mag piece I've come across). The October 2011 issue of ESPN The Magazine has Sneed's story Nobody walks alone on former NBA player Mike Williams and his near-fatal injury and learning to walk again.

It's an excellent piece of unfairness, struggle, courage and determination (yep, those oft seem to travel in a pack). What really strikes me about Sneed, though, is the process of writing posting he's done on his site http://www.brandonsneed.com/. Love me some good content on the topic... as evidenced by my month-ago post Five for Writing Posts from Son of a Bold Venture Blog.

Sneed has certainly reached a level of success (published in ESPN The Mag at a young age), but he seems really grounded around the process and work required. To this point was his blog post about the ESPN piece and since then he's done three insightful posts on the writing process...

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Really cool content in all of these...

Luke Dittrich on the Joplin Tornado & Other Esquire Pieces

2011-10-19T13:47:00.000-07:00

Remarkable feature on the Joplin Tornado in the October 2011 issue of Esquire (which includes an interesting, but not linked to online cover story by Chris Jones about his time hanging in full Bert & Ernie costumes with Justin Timberlake at Comic-Con).

Really, though, what stood out from the issue was the Luke Dittrich feature from Joplin, MO. It's one of those stories that pulls double-duty with being very well written, but also about an absolutely gripping topic. The storm killed 160 in Joplin and Dittrich profiles the experience of a dozen or so whose lives were saved by taking refuge in a convenience store walk-in cooler. Several times during the reading I felt a bit choked up reading about the decision points that led each person to that convenience store and just how arbitrary the difference between living or dying was for many hit by the tornado.

Two other Esquire pieces I found interesting recently...

- From the same Oct 2011 issue was the brief vignette on the Esquire Economy Car of the Year - the 2012 Ford Focus. Much less profound than the Dittrich piece (or Pierce one noted below), but I have grown fond of Ford lately and like quite a bit the looks of this car.

- Mentioned in the same issue's Note from the Editor was a Charlie Pierce profile on Barack Obama some six months prior to his November 2008 Presidential victory. The piece is titled The Cynic and Senator Obama and Esquire editor David Granger referenced the below passage on Obama from Pierce...

"There is a remove to his movements and a distance to everything he does that mutes his charisma and dampens what might be a frenzy in his crowds into a patient, well-behaved enthusiasm."

It's an interesting view and may well factor into how Obama seems to have garnered admiration for his efforts, but has also taking quite a bit of criticism (even from ardent supporters) for not selling his ideas well enough and even for not trumpeting well enough his successes.

GQ October 2011 Issue - Devin Friedman on Hip Hop Artist Rick Ross & Other Features

2011-10-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

One tremendous and several other solid as well features from the latest issue of GQ Magazine.

Piece that stood out the most was that on hip hop star Rick Ross by Devin Friedman. It's an entertaining recount of the author's time spent hanging out with Ross and his entourage, but also featured some really good writing... with below being from Friedman's profile.

Where Rick Ross really separates himself is that he inhabits the cliché completely while also seeming to know it's a cliché. You can like him if you think you're hard, and you can like him if you think being hard is ridiculous. Because Rick Ross is always both inside and outside a joke he's making about hip-hop music. I mean, look at him in the Lil Wayne "John" video. The man is sitting in a wheelchair that has big silver spinner rims on it. But at the same time he looks so freakin' boss in that burgundy velour suit."

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Couple of other pieces of note from this issue...

Cover feature was an interview with Leonardo Dicaprio and Clint Eastwood leading up to the release of J. Egdar (with trailer linked) on the former FBI head. Currently GQ is only posting an excerpt of the interview, but Eastwood as the Director and Dicaprio as movie's star both come across as people having interesting views on solid movies and the folly of chasing box-office success.

Additional feature story from GQ this month was The Man Who Sailed His House by Michael Paterniti. It's a lengthy piece on someone found at sea floating on his roof days after the Japan tsunami... and is as amazing a tale as the description would indicate. Actually, reading it made me think of the even more amazing story of Louis Zamperini told in Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken (which I reviewed here), but it's certainly a good piece on it's own merits from Paterniti.

Final piece to mention here didn't necessarily stand out for it's writing (wasn't meant to be about the prose, I'm sure), but for the topic written on. Josh Dean did a interesting short piece on the need to walk as a way to overcoming health problems brought about by the largely sedentary jobs most of us hold.

"Life Itself" by Roger Ebert

2011-10-13T21:15:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Life Itself by Roger Ebert and found it to be a very interesting, if somewhat peculiar memoir.

What struck me as peculiar is the writing seems to be a a set of ruminations on life, life experiences and people rather than traditional autobiography. In this regard, it made sense to me that I was told while reading about someone who loved Roger Ebert's writing, but didn't care for the book. That said, if a reader accepts that it follows a somewhat meandering non-traditional path, the book can then be an excellent and thought-provoking read.

I first developed an interest in Ebert from the highly regarding Esquire piece
"Roger Ebert: The Essential Man" (which I posted on here). What caught my eye was the profile being written by a writer I like in Chris Jones, but it revealed a pretty fascinating individual as the subject. From there, I started reading with some regularity Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times blog and found some great work by him. Some of the posts that stood out (and all of which I posted on and linked to) were "How do they get to be that way?" on racism, "All the Lonely People" on... that, and one on the value of a great video game vs The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

It was from an Ebert blog entry that I first heard about this memoir with him posting online the beginning of the book back in July. The writing both in this first chapter and throughout has very much a lyrical and pensive quality to it and Ebert definitely reveals himself as a intelligent if not brilliant guy from a young age up to and including today.

In this regard, it was borderline annoying reading about how he knew at a young age he wanted to be a writer and then devoted himself tirelessly (and with success) to the goal. Stephen King wrote in On Writing of basically having the same goal and approach at a young age. Good for both of them that they knew, but the annoying part is that most of us don't know the life or career goal that early on...

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Anyhoo... not Ebert's (or King's for that matter) fault, and he wrote with this memoir an interesting almost stream of consciousness book about his life, relationships and experiences. Those people noted in the book as huge influences included the writers Studs Terkel and Thomas Wolfe and his wife Chaz Hammelsmith Ebert. In terms of experiences written about, good portions of the book came across almost as travelogues with detailed descriptions of Venice, London, and Boulder... specifically the Conference on World Affairs on the University of Colorado campus.

Additionally, a huge part of Ebert's story is his health problems and the aforementioned Esquire story made them known to many. It's a bit of an aside to note here, but reading of the various surgeries and rehabilitation involved made me feel Ebert fortunate to have the resources available for what I'm sure has been an incredibly costly process.

All of this said about the book, it did seem to be written by Ebert for himself as a record of his life, it's experiences and relationships... and as long as reader is fine with that, the book is a fascinating portrait of the man.

Steve Jobs Writing... On & By Him

2011-10-11T21:30:00.000-07:00

There's been some extremely solid writing on Steve Jobs published or brought back up with his passing last week. I'm sure more great content out there I haven't seen, but below is the best from what I have...

The cover story from the latest issue of Time was American Icon by Walter Isaacson. Formerly Managing Editor of Time, Isaacson's short piece on Jobs gets at the man as well as what he accomplished... and is a good indicator that the upcoming authorized biography Steve Jobs from Isaacson could be excellent.

From Michael Kruse for the St. Petersburg Times came As Apple grew, so did an entire generation. Kruse seems to do very good human impact writing (another example being this on the Tampa Bay Rays a couple weeks back) and he writes of Job's death through the story of someone that's grown up using the devices conceived of and supplied by Jobs and Apple.

Another piece of writing on Jobs that stood out to me wasn't even directly about him, but rather the concept of forward-thinking entrepreneurship best exemplified by him. The Steve Jobs MBA Unit 101: Don’t think about the present was published in June 2011 and part of a series for Wired Magazine. What got me to read the piece (and truth be told, what also influenced my enjoyment of it) was it being written by Alain De Botton... author of the fascinating book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work (which I linked to and posted on here).

Finally, it's been referenced over and over since Jobs passed away, but his June 2005 Stanford Commencement address really is deserving of the all the attention as a testament to the guy and his ideas.

Working... & Writing on Michael Lewis Working

2011-10-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

Having previously done a number of posts on work (the most involved probably being Working on the Railroad... with help from Robert Fulghum & Patrick Swayze), it seemed high time to revisit the subject... and link to a guy doing work very very well right now.

A couple of concepts around work have been floating in my head lately... that of everything counts and taking a path.

Everything counts as a perspective is something to employ (pardon the pun) when looking at where we want to go or want we want to be doing career-wise. It can oft be a daunting task looking at something new, but the past shouldn't be discounted when looking to the future. Past experiences (whether those be education, past jobs held or roles within those jobs) can very well provide the linkages to the go-forward ideal.

The old jobs held may not related to the future jobs sought, but the connections and relationships from those prior roles could well provide that entree to what is desired... just gotta be proactive about looking. At the same time, skills from the past may not necessarily be the skills that a desired job would employ, but perhaps the skills learned could either get a foot in the door of something new, or even be used in the finding of thing new.

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Taking a path in relation to careers and job changes is the principle of just doing something. In cases of uncertainty as to how to reach an end goal (or even knowledge of of what that goal may actually be), it's best to just... do something and be going forward. One may not know whether it's the right path or not, but if the current state isn't an ideal one, it's best to be moving... and maybe the ideal will reveal itself eventually.

So... if you want to do something not done previously, think of what you have done and how that can help and then just start doing something new. Maybe it will work out, maybe it won't, but the movement probably won't hurt.

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Granted, all of this can seem a bit fluffy and hypothetical, but it should be noted that with talent, work, utilization of past efforts and action-taking, work efforts can come up roses.

To that point in the writer world, there's the subject of It’s Good to Be Michael Lewis. Pretty fascinating on the author by Jessica Pressler for New York Magazine. It's a solid piece and Lewis an excellent writer deserving of success... and he's certainly knee-deep in success right now.

Cover Story on Amazon... & Other Businessweek Pieces

2011-10-05T21:20:00.000-07:00

Excellent cover story from the Oct 3 issue of Businessweek.

Amazon, the Company That Ate the World is written by Brad Stone and details the company's tablet entry, the Kindle Fire. The company as a whole has done a lot right over the years and early indications are that they've created a compelling offering.

Not quite as profound in terms of it's potential reach to consumers, but also from this issue of BW was a profile of New York City based drugstore Duane Reade. Written by Susan Berfeld, It's pretty interesting reading on a retail chain that previously could do no right and now seems to make the correct move with every step.

Finally, I found noteworthy the short piece How to Give the Perfect TED Talk by Sebastian Wernicke. TED is a fascinating concept and it was interesting reading about what types of things help make some TED talk speechs stand out over others.

Money and Related to $ Writing from Time

2011-10-05T20:26:00.000-07:00

Some solid writing on money, the economy and jobs in Time lately... particularly in the recent Special Money Issue.

Leading off the section was a piece by Rana Foroohar titled No. 1 A new Era Of Volatility. Good writing on the current economic climate and it's ramifications for economies and people. Also on this subject was the Jeffrey Sachs essay Why America Must Revive Its Middle Class. It's certainly an argument brought up by others as well, but Sachs does an excellent job discussing the divide in haves and have nots in the U.S. as well as takes to task the opt-trumpted idea of "Reagan economic policies were great... need to go back to those."

Two other pieces from the prior week's issue of Time that stood out as interesting and related to the same topic of money...

At a macro level, Michael Grunwald provided Street Smarts on how widespread infrastructure work could help revitalize the economy. This notion of long-term improvements being done on public-works projects such as highways and electrical grids has been certainly talked about, but seems to be on a limited basis and only at a city level.

With a much more individual focus, this same Oct 3 edition contained The New Online Job Hunt. Written by Francine Russo, the piece details how Social Networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter (as well as career site LinkedIn) are taking on a great place of import for both employers and job seekers.

Sports Illustrated Pieces: on Walter Payton, Gary Patterson & the Philadelphia Phillies

2011-10-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

There's been a few different feature stories from Sport Illustrated lately with really solid writing on interesting topics.

For the September 12 issue, S.L. Price wrote "The House Of Dream Chasers" on TCU football coach Gary Patterson. While Patterson's tale was an interesting one and told well as Price stories inevitably are, what stood out from the piece was the author's connection to the coach. The sub-heading to the story alludes to the time spent living in the small college town of Davis, CA and it was fascinating reading about how both the author and subject were then living lean and starting out in their desired careers.

"Twenty-five years ago TCU coach Gary Patterson was a tumbleweed assistant clinging to a Division II job. No one expected he would rise to the top of his profession—not even the author, who lived with him then."

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Most recently, the Oct 3 issue of SI featured an interesting book excerpt from Jeff Pearlman. "The Hero No One Knew" was taken from Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton and (similar in this regard to most of the books excerpted in Sports Illustrated) a solid read.

Granted, I wasn't Bears and Walter Payton fan, but it's remarkable to me the flack that Pearlman has taken about the contents of the book. Even in this excerpt (which is of course just a portion of the book), Payton isn't portrayed as a terrible guy... just a flawed individual who probably became more flawed after leaving the game that defined him. For someone to think any favorite athlete infallible and then criticize those who would reveal him as less than perfect just doesn't make sense.

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Also in this latest issue of SI was 'We're In Baseball Heaven' by Gary Smith on the Philadelphia Phillies and the town's relationship with the team. The piece was the third installment of a series Smith has done of the Phillies this year with the first two being on the starting rotation and then profiling catcher Carlos Ruiz.

Smith writes very well pieces with a strong emotional hook and in describing specific fans and their relationship with the team, he's definitely in his element as a writer. Pretty compelling reading...

Moneyball Movie & Writing On It

2011-10-01T01:46:00.000-07:00

In what would seem to be a highly improbable trifecta, the Brad Pitt vehicle Moneyball was an excellent movie loosely based on a great book sort of about a team that was often, but not always a great team to be a fan of. There's of course a lot of modifiers in that statement, but good things don't always come wrapped with tidy bows on top...

With my having attended 20-25 of their games a year from probably 2000-2005, I can say the Oakland A's provided some amazing moments to watch and countless instances of exhilaration as well as heartache (with both being necessary ingredients of fandom (see: Red Sox circa September 2011). One constant on this team of frequent roster upheaval was General Manager Billy Beane and what certainly seemed to be his "smarter than the average bear" approach to building a team.

When the Michael Lewis book Moneyball came out, I eagerly grabbed it like most A's fans and found it to be a pretty phenomenal read. While on-base percentage as a holy grail was the concept generally taken from the book, really what Beane appeared to be doing was using an undervalued asset that could be stockpiled using the limited resources (see: $ for salary) available. The fact that it was on-base percentage wasn't really as important as the approach of exploiting the overlooked.

Either way... a team that provided some great experiences and memories for the fan and a fascinating book.

Now, after several false starts including multiple directors, the movie was made and hit the theaters. I had high expectations going in and not because I expected it to be entirely true to real life (in this case, baseball) or to have the exact book presented in a different medium, but because I was excited to see what was done was the material available. After watching the thing, I walked away a fan... already was a fan first of the team for certain reasons, then of the book for others, and finally the movie for still other reasons.

In many ways, my view of what made the movie so good were elucidated by two pieces from a couple of my favorite sports writers. First Joe Posnanski on his blog and then Austin Murphy in Sports Illustrated wrote about how the story told in the movie didn't necessarily stick hard and true to the events that transpired, but was both tremendously interesting and unlike almost every other sports movie ever made.

Excellent writing from each guy on a very cool film (again, which was pretty much on a great book for the most part about the building of a great team)...

Game 162 of the MLB 2011 Season & Great Writing on the Night

2011-09-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

Stunning, crazy, epic, redonkulous... all words that apply to last night's events in the final game of the MLB regular season. I suppose one could make the point that once the playoffs start it doesn't matter how a team got there, but sports fan me would respectively disagree.

Yes, the players are the ones competing and they've all got their own motivations (including of course the paycheck variety), but the fans are by and large in it for the entertainment value provided. To that point, last night's Red Sox-Orioles and Yankees-Rays games were each remarkably entertaining in it's own right, but the two games viewed together as they should be... yep, redonkulous (this doesn't even consider the National League games yesterday).

I fully expected to find some great writing on the events transpired and (not surprisingly) the best I've seen today has been in pieces for the Sports Illustrated website from Tom Verducci and Joe Posnanski respectively.

Verducci wrote the illustratively-titled Drama of Game 162 never seen before and likely never will again and spent more time chronicling the events of the games than Posnaski did in his Baseball Night in America. While I found both works to be exceptionally solid (and Verducci's had the timeline of events), the piece by Posnanski really did it for me with it's vivid descriptions of what makes baseball so great for those who follow it.

Going back in time a bit this idea of baseball fandom was eloquently laid out by Kevin Van Valkenburg in A funny thing happened on the way to Camden Yards for the Baltimore Sun.

Very cool writing from all three guys on a sport that (as Posnanski says) can be boring, but also can be so very much more to it's fans.

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Postscript - The text above was the original post done yesterday, but in the "too good to not include here" category was Six minutes that shook baseball history and put the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL playoffs from Michael Kruse and Ben Montgomery. Written for the St. Petersburg Times, it's got the same timeline approach that Tom Verducci provided, but also provides content around individual Rays fans and how they followed and reacted to the madness. Great human-element writing...

"Those Guys Have All the Fun" by James Andrew Miller & Tom Shales

2011-09-25T21:36:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. It did drag on at times in it's 750 odd pages, but was a worthwhile read for anyone interested in sports… and particularly sports journalism.

Here’s what stuck with me from it…

Style of the Book

It was written as an oral history with segments of interviews done with people in the business or related in some way to ESPN (both within and outside the company). Some 500+ interviews by Shales and Miller went into this effort and there’s frequently interspersed text from the authors linking together the interview segments. At first I thought the book would lack in narrative flow, but I’d say it worked fairly well as an approach.

That said, I did have jump out to me one interview segment given in two different places in the book (ESPN exec John Skipper about personality Tony Kornheiser on page 677 as well as 610). Maybe this was done intentionally rather than being a mistake in construction then overlooked in the editing process, but I found it pretty jarring as a reader.

ESPN Business Early On

It was pretty interesting reading how the idea for ESPN began with the intention of showing local Connecticut sports, but then the realization that it cost no more to send a signal nationally. Shortly after this was made what turned out to be the brilliant decision to buy a satellite transponder for broadcasts when it was still relatively inexpensive as cable was a new thing. These early years were pretty fast and loose (with Stuart Evey as the Getty Oil money guy helping lead the party charge), but the business took hold… in large part due to the dual revenue stream of both advertising dollars and cable operators paying to run the channel.

Content on the ESPN Networks

It came across in the book that the deals with various sports properties drove the company forward (with the NFL being by far the most important partner), but also there was significant mention of key non-game broadcast content provided via various platforms (with the non-TV platforms obviously being more recent).

ESPN the Magazine was created to slap back at Sports Illustrated and their CNNSI sports network and (while I personally find the graphic-intensive delivery to be annoying) established a new way to reach the audience. Additionally, programs such as SportsCentury (produced by wunderkind and future exec Mark Shapiro) established ESPN as a credible news outlet and source for documentary filmmaking. Non-game content discussed at length in the book were successful programs like Pardon the Interruption with Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser and College Gameday.

Perhaps successful from a ratings perspective, but not critical view was the LeBron James spectacle “The Decision”... which showed the ongoing tightrope that ESPN had and continues to have to walk between journalism/reporting and game broadcasting/league partner.

Journalists at ESPN

In the beginning, ESPN put a focus on showing a professional production on screen and worked to have solid on-air talent. Among early hires were current notables like Chris Berman and Bob Ley. As time went on, there continued to be very interesting stories around the anchors and broadcasters, with Keith Olbermann and his acerbic brilliance often in conflict with management.

The closer to present-day stories about the writers for ESPN might have been the most compelling part of the book for me (with the following people featured)…

Buster Olney – excellent baseball writer and someone who puts incredibly long hours into the job.

Bill Simmons – created his Boston Sports Guy blog in 2001 and got noticed with a scathing review of that year’s ESPY Awards. Writes an enormous number of words and comes across as a bit of an ESPN outsider… and who runs the ESPN writing website Grantland.

Dan Patrick – one of the early stars at ESPN… left fairly recently and now does a weekly column for Sports Illustrated.

Rick Reilly – a former Sports Illustrated star writer (one of the only ones in the sports writing world)… came not long ago to ESPN and it’s various platforms (including of course, The Magazine).

Wright Thompson – excellent young writer for the ESPN website and it’s E:60 investigative journalism. Also does great content for Grantland.

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The book could have I think been a bit shorter, but there was definitely solid content on an interesting and powerful (and with only around 6,000 employees worldwide) company.

Tennis Writing on Roger Federer

2011-09-18T13:04:00.000-07:00

Lately have come across some very interesting writing on tennis star Roger Federer. The work is from a variety of different sources over a pretty wide timeframe, but a constant is there's something about the guy and his game that lends itself towards great copy.

In 2009 I posted and linked to writing about the Federer-Nadal rivalry with this review of an L. Jon Wertheim book as well as this blog post on an S.L. Price story for Sports Illustrated. More recently I had recommended to me the Michael Kimmelman New York Times column "Where They Paint the Lines With Topspin." It's really solid prose that features a short description of Federer as tennis virtuoso.

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With the US Open tournament played out over the past few weeks, there's been a raft of interesting tennis writing (perhaps because of the individual rather than team sport competition)... and writing on and related to Federer being some of the best.

For ESPN.com, Jeff MacGregor did the column "U.S. Open: Beginnings and endings." It's solid and lyrical writing with the subtitle "The constant of Roger Federer's grace seems to soothe a volatile sport in transition."

Posted on Grantland a few days later was the piece "Director's Cut: Federer as Religious Experience". Director's Cut is a recurring Grantland feature with writer Michael MacCambridge detailing background on well known writing and providing his take on what makes a piece good... in addition to providing the original writing.

In this case, "Federer as Religious Experience" was on the 2006 profile of Federer by the late David Foster Wallace for the New York Times magazine, Play. The Wallace piece is remarkable writing with it's description and use of language and MacCambridge provides really interesting content around the story and process of it.

As an aside and not to say that it's done as well on this blog as by MacCambridge in his "Director's Cut" features, but what he does in linking to great work and noting what makes it stand out is much the exact same intent of what's posted here.

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Wrapping up this dissertation on Federer and Federer writing was another Grantland piece. This one by Brian Phillips, "Novak Djokovic: The Shot and The Confrontation" was posted the day after Djokovic fought off two match points to win the semifinal matchup between the two star players.

The writing was certainly solid, but what struck me was the actual play sequence described... where another Federer triumph could have wrapped itself up, but was instead completely turned around in a stranger than fiction shot and Djokovic reaction.

Also interesting from the piece was the description of Federer's post-match reaction to Djokovic's shot. Some may view it as dig against Djokovic, but when you're a player of Federer's stature and have hit against you on match point the shot that Djokovic unleashed probably really truly does seem a matter of a "lucky shot." It doesn't in any way make the win by Djokovic any less impressive, but does perhaps make sense in the context of the person he hit the shot and got the win against.

This remarkable shot then turned into a remarkable championship win by Djokovic and capped off probably one of the more remarkable individual year's in modern tennis. So, acclaim deservedly due to Djokovic, but that Federer sure plays an amazing brand of tennis... which in turn has spawned some great writing.

9/11 10th Anniversary Writing

2011-09-14T21:48:00.000-07:00

Really remarkable commemorative issue of Time Magazine this past week.

The special edition was published without advertising and much of the content was a "Portraits of Resilience" gallery with individual people's stories. Leading things off was a short piece by photojournalist James Nachtwey on his experience in New York that day and accompanying the writing was a series of images he took at and around Ground Zero.

From Nachtwey's work, the picture below made me think of the Tommy Tomlinson piece for the Charlotte Observer "Tribute and renewal in a New York moment" with it's reference to St. Paul's Chapel by the Trade Center site.

Another thing that struck me from the Tomlinson story was his closing paragraph about life in the City continuing on... which was very much in line with the sentiment expressed by Scott Raab in "The Memorial" for Esquire (which I posted on here). In this same life moving forward view, one vignette from this Time issue that stood out was the profile on Lyzbeth Glick Best which included significant mention of the 10 years since losing her husband in the Shanksville, PA crash of United 93.

Really powerful stories on Best and by Nachtwey, Tomlinson and Raab... and excellent work overall by Time Magazine.

"The Greater Journey" by David McCullough

2011-09-12T20:06:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading The Greater Journey by David McCullough... didn't finish the book, just finished reading close to half-way through.

I had high hopes for it after enjoying a great deal John Adams, Truman and 1776, but never found myself captivated in the same way by McCullough's latest effort. The experience of reading was similar to that I had with the Bill Bryson book At Home... really good author with a new book I was looking forward to reading, and then never could get into. Actually, an even closer comparison would be to another McCullough book that I didn't make it through, The Johnston Flood.

This notion of liking an author, but not having the same level of enthrall with everything they write was something I wrote about in a blog post in relation to a J.R. Moehringer GQ piece. For a reader to really get into a book or story, there has to be a combination of both interesting topic and good writing... with that writing then needing to hit the always elusive balance between sentiment, entertainment and information providing. It's a tough nut to try to crack and even the best writers don't do so every time for every reader... which is ok.

Keeping in mind that again... McCullough is a good writer and my not being into The Greater Journey doesn't make it a bad read, the New York Times book review by Stacy Schiff was a generally positive one (and I probably would have stuck with McCullough's book to conclusion were it not for so many others I want to read).

Inc. Magazine Speaker Event

2011-09-08T21:34:00.000-07:00

Recently attended a speaker panel put on by Inc. Magazine here in San Jose and found it to be pretty thought provoking. The event was titled "Helping Businesses Grow Healthy" and put on by Inc. in conjunction with United Healthcare.

Information on the event from the Inc. website:

"Building a healthy workplace is a tough job. Leaders that promote and support wellness in the work environment reap the benefits of loyal employees and gain a competitive advantage. Hear from a panel of entrepreneurs that are implementing new workplace initiatives and have been recognized for their winning culture. Even if you aren't in a position to execute ideas at once, you'll learn about the small steps that make a difference for your employees and for the health of your company."

Moderator Kyra Cavanaugh, President and Founder of LifeMeetsWork
Panelists:
Tania Binder, Senior VP of Global Sales of TRX
Chris Mittelstaedt, Founder and CEO of The FruitGuys
Eric Ryan, Chief Brand Architect & Co-founder of Method; Co-author of The Method Method: Seven Obsessions That Helped Our Scrappy Start-up Turn an Industry Upside Down

My thoughts on the event:

1. The invite was very much appreciated and while I don't imagine running these events is a profit center for Inc., having them is probably very much in line with the message and value-add of the magazine.

2. It of course relates to the "Healthy Workplace" theme, but there seemed to be such an emphasis by the panel speakers on employee culture. This manifested itself in things from the the hiring process (was interesting to hear of the difficulty in hiring good people) to how employees are treated. Ranging from things like encouraging healthy living to asking workers what matters to them, this concept of employee treatment was a big deal to the panelists. Pay value of that to the company would be to both keep attrition low and have employees be more productive and better ambassadors for the business if they feel treated well and buy in to the company mission.

3. I found myself wondering how much harder it must be for leadership of a public company to have this same focus on employee culture. The long term benefit of a positive work experience is of course there for both public and private companies, but a publicly traded business is more beholden to shareholders and short term results. That whole mandate for officers of a public company to increase shareholder value... it can be a nebulous charter.

4. Was very impressed by the panelists from the perspective they each had an idea that they made into something. Eric Ryan from Method probably has achieved the most success so far, but all had interesting stories to tell.

My take away from their accomplishments was whether it be for a product, a company or a person in the workforce… an offering or value add can be a powerful thing and shouldn't be discounted. If someone has said offering, the goal then should be to find a place for that thing rather than simply trying to sledgehammer a product, service or candidacy as an employee into an existing slot that may not jibe with or appreciate it fully.

True, this may or may not be what the panelists were really trying to communicate (and it's presumed wisdom that trends towards the squishy), but anyone having taken the time to attend the event should take from it what makes sense to them.

Back to the statement made at the beginning of this post... thought-provoking stuff that I'm glad Inc. put together and extended the invitation for.

Esquire Writing - Scott Raab on WTC Memorial & C.J. Chivers "What I've Learned" Feature

2011-09-06T22:05:00.000-07:00

September 2011 issue of Esquire contained exceptional writing by Scott Raab... as well as an interesting one page piece of musings from C.J. Chivers.

The Raab story is "The Memorial" and the seventh installment in his "The Rebuilding" series about the World Trade Center since 9/11. In October of last year I read part six "Good Days at Ground Zero" and his work is both emotional and conveys an extremely real view of the people working at the WTC site.

Pulled out of the latest story and put as a heading is this from Raab...

"People talk a lot about the "healing process." Well, this is New York. In the aftermath of a tragedy of monumental proportions, the healing process has been noisy and rude, with elbows out, redolent of greed, power, and the darker forces that drive human existence. And most of the shouting has been about how to make a fitting monument to what happened here. But in a hundred years, all the shouting and all the politics will be forgotten. What will be remembered is what is built here, now, on these sixteen acres."

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Also in this issue of Esquire was the "What I've Learned" installment featuring war reporter C.J. Chivers. I'm drawn to anything resembling wisdom from a writer, but also to someone willing to put themselves in dangerous situations to write about a conflict (with Sebastian Junger being another guy who does this).

Tommy Tomlinson Writing - for ESPN, GoodCall and Personal Blog

2011-09-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

In a veritable onslaught of Tommy Tomlinson content, today there was a piece of his posted at ESPN.com and interview with him on a new sports website.

Now, lest this onslaught comment be seen as sarcastic, it really did seem remarkable to see tonight via twitter links to a Tomlinson ESPN story and interview about another he did for Sports Illustrated. Pretty heady publications for a guy who is an excellent writer that seems to just now have his work getting national publication.

Tomlinson penned for ESPN "How we find healing through sports" on sports and what games mean and can provide. The commentary revolves around 9/11 and the upcoming 10 year anniversary and really does a good job conveying the impact of sports as well as where that impact stops in a larger context. It's really well done and insightful work... profound, but with that profundity not oversold.

The interview on a new website was done by Brandon Sneed for GoodCall and centers on the piece "Something Went Very Wrong At Toomer's Corner" that Tomlinson did for Sports Illustrated. It was a tremendously interesting interview that covered not only how the story was written, but how the assignment (his first for SI) came about. Sneed obviously shared the same curiosity I did after reading what was an excellent piece... I'm just thankful that he and Tomlinson got the story out (you know, on the Interweb Superhighway Tubes).

While on this whole Tommy Tomlison kick (if posting on and linking to a piece by and interview with him is a kick), it seemed apropos to note to a very cool (and short) blog post by him from last month. "Waaaaaaaay Overdue" was on an overdue library book, but (not surprisingly given how boring that sounds) also much more. Routines, habits, intertia, breaking out of a seemingly intractable state... these are the themes covered well by Tomlison here. True, it's easier said that done, but as they say... "if it was easy, everyone would do it."

Time Magazine Writing - Joe Klein on Veterans, Mehmet Oz on food & Barton Gellman on Dick Cheney

2011-09-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

Some solid pieces from Time lately... two of them cover stories and another within the latest issue (and all of them requiring a magazine subscription to be viewed online.

From the August 29 edition came "The New Greatest Generation" by Joe Klein.

It's a pretty lengthy feature on the contributions back here at home of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and has some impressive stories within. There's leadership, teamwork, a dedication towards helping others... a lot of actions being done in the U.S. by people who recently served their country overseas. Klein also notes as a big part of the story how the roles and contributions of these returning veterans will continue to grow over time.

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The September 12 edition of Time had another cover story with interesting content and then a second feature that stood out as a compelling read.

Cover story was "The Oz Diet" and while this piece from Dr. Mehmet Oz was a bit of a slog at times, it was on the important topic of food and included mention of what foods he eats for and their health benefits.

Piece from this same issue that was terribly fascinating was by Barton Gellman on Dick Cheney. "The Power and the Zealotry" looks at the memoir "In My Time" by the former Vice President and is a pretty scathing rebuke of Cheney. From what he did to the way he went about it and then how it's described in the book, Gellman's impression is definitely not a positive one. Remarkable content in this piece about a guy who wielded an immense amount of power (and saw that power then diminish) in the George Bush White House.

Sports Illustrated Writing: Lee Jenkins & Joe Posnanski

2011-09-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Couple of entertaining works lately from Sports Illustrated writers... one written for the magazine and one the website.

Cover story for the August 29 issue was by "Strange Brew (but It's Working)" on the first place team.

Written by Lee Jenkins, the writing is solid, but more than that... it's just fun. The team comes across as a personification of the little engine that could just trucking towards a playoff showdown (or for Milwaukee fans, hopefully three showdowns) against better know and bigger market teams. Heavily featured in the piece was sparkplug outfielder Nyjer Morgan and while reading about him didn't necessarily make me love the guy, it did make me want to watch... and after all, the point of being a sports fan is to be entertained.

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From the Sports Illustrated website yesterday was "My Favorite Year" by the excellent and prolific writer Joe Posnanski. It's a long piece (did I mention he's prolific?) on the sports stories that struck him from 1986. Included in the story (which had more beyond this) was the Chicago Bears Super Bowl team, Bo Jackson taking baseball by storm, Jack Nicklaus winning the Masters at 46, the death of Len Bias and the MLB playoffs featuring Bill Buckner and the much sadder tale of Donnie Moore.

It's really entertaining reading made all the much more so by the links and videos that Posnanski embeds (highly recommend the Bo video of an outfield wall catch and then strike to first base).

Finally, he does that thing that much of his best blog writing features where he includes personal anecdotes along with stories of the athletes and their accomplishments. A big part of this was commentary about 1986 being a pivotal one in the beginning of his writing career... and linked to was a profile of Jim Murray by Rick Reilly, and noted by Posnanski as being "probably the best story ever written about a sportswriter."

Businessweek Pieces: Double Eagle Coin, HP, Apple, Salesforce & Rachel Ray

2011-09-02T15:16:00.000-07:00

Some interesting pieces from the August 29 issue of Businessweek...

I find BW often has interesting features and with this edition being no exception, "Gold Coins: The Mystery of the Double Eagle" was written by Susan Berfield. The story looks at the exceedingly rare 1933 Double Eagle gold $20 coin and the layers of intrigue and drama surrounding it's collection.

As Berfield details, 500,000 of them were made, but then to have been destroyed prior to being issued. However, not all were... with what was billed as the only one remaining auctioned off for $6.8 million in 2002. Back to the whole intrigue and drama thing, another 10 coins then were discovered in 2004 to still exist. As might be expected, this led to a courtroom dispute that's still only sort of settled. Pretty fascinating read...

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In addition to this feature, there was a number of smaller stories from this issue that stood out...

- "Rachael Ray on Catching Her Big Break" on the now talk-show host and how she was discovered for television (and what she did leading up to that).

- "How Salesforce Tames Twitter for Big Business" on Social Media tools offered to clients by the company.

- "Is It Time for Hewlett-Packard to Go Back to the Garage?" featuring the sub-headline "Once an icon of stability, HP is in chaos under CEO Léo Apotheker."

- "Steve Jobs: ‘Unfortunately, That Day Has Come’" about Tim Cook taking over for the visionary CEO at Apple.

GQ September 2011 Issue - Will Leitch on Michael Vick & Other Features

2011-08-30T19:22:00.000-07:00

I've not been much of a GQ Magazine reader in the past, but found the most recent issue to have some solid content as well as (at the risk of being a bit hyperbolic) borderline spectacular.

What got me to purchase (and it's the first magazine I've bought from the rack in probably years) was seeing that J.R. Moehringer wrote the cover story. Author of the brilliant memoir The Tender Bar (which I reviewed here) as well as co-writer of the equally brilliant Andre Agassi memoir Open, Moehringer pens for this issue a profile of New York Jets Quarterback Mark Sanchez.

The piece is titled "Broadway Mark" (currently available online just in excerpt form) and while good, didn't necessarily strike me as great. To this point, I kind of like when my favorite writers do stuff that I like, but not as much as other work of theirs. Reminds me that everybody's human and while you strive to do your best work at all times, you're simply not going to have everything you do in life be your best work. When it is, that's great, and when it's not... you know you did what you could and then move on to the next project.

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What I felt was the best piece of writing from this issue was another quarterback profile... this one written by Will Leitch (he off the book God Save the Fan that I reviewed here). His piece "The Impossible, Inevitable Redemption of Michael Vick" is really good writing on an interesting subject... and has the additional cachet of having created news itself. Leitch's reporting of Vick being directed towards the Philadelphia Eagles by the NFL is likely not something the league office would want put out and there and a pretty remarkable detail assuming it's true (and I have no reason to think it's not).

Back to the writing itself, though... Leitch takes the approach of portraying Vick as more than just a caricature of someone who was a bad guy who hated dogs and now is a good guy that loves dogs. Really interesting look at someone who is both an ideal (good or bad) that people assign to him and an actual guy.

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Another piece from this GQ that featured a compelling story was a restaurant review (that's right, a restaurant review as compelling) by Alan Richman. "Diner for Schmucks" details his experiences at and with the proprietors of the New York eatery M. Wells. It's remarkable reading that traffics in the concepts of service, customer expectations and the power of accusation.

Postcription to the M. Wells piece... restaurant lost their lease and now closed. Don't feel bad for the owners in the slightest.

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Finally, this issue contained the Chris Heath piece "Tell: An Intimate History of Gay Men in the Military". It featured accounts from various gay current and former Servicemen and what struck me was an anecdote towards the end of the piece.

From an unnamed member of the military who will soon be able to serve his country without his sexual orientation being grounds for dismissal if publicly known...

"Since I'm a single officer in the Marine barracks and I've got the highest security clearance you can get, I also serve at the White House in close quarters with President Bush and President Obama at social events. Very seldom was the president ever alone, but one time the president had said, 'Go and get the vice president,' and all the straphangers went, and the president went in the Blue Room and was just standing there waiting for Biden. And there was no Secret Service around or anything, and I went, 'Fuck it, I'm going to go and talk to the president about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." ' He was looking out south—there's an incredible view down past the Washington Monument to the Jefferson. And I just stepped in and said, 'Sir?' and he turned around and walks to me and I just started: 'You know, sir, I want to let you know that there are a number of us that work very close to you who appreciate very much what you're doing on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"—more than you probably realize.' And he was shaking my hand, he looks up and it's like...he got it. I said, 'I want to thank you for this.' And he goes, 'No, I want to thank you. Thank you for your service, and thank you for your courage.'"

Interesting Companies Posted On

2011-08-24T21:11:00.000-07:00

A post that I've wanted to do for a while now has been on interesting companies and the below list represents alphabetically the businesses (large and small) that I've found of note and posted on from the past year...

1. Airbnb - company website here and blog search results here

2. Amazon - company website here and blog search results here

3. Apple - company website here and blog search results here

4. Ford - company website here and blog search results here

5. Google - company website here and blog search results here

6. Hewlett-Packard - company website here and blog search results here

7. Khan Academy - company website here and blog search results here

8. LinkedIn - company website here and blog search results here

9. Rearden Companies - company website here and blog search results here

10. Salesforce.com - company website here and blog search results here

11. Subaru - company website here and blog search results here

12. TED - company website here and blog search results here

Granted, this blog is still primarily about great writing (both found and the process around producing it), but there are me thinks some interesting companies out there doing cool things.

Five for Writing Posts from Son of a Bold Venture Blog

2011-08-19T20:25:00.000-07:00

I first mentioned it in a Feb 2011 blog post and lately have thought more about the Five for Writing Series done by Chris Jones on his Son of a Bold Venture blog. Concept as introduced in this blog post by Jones is five questions he e-mails to a writer and then their responses... with the writers covered (and each Series post) hyperlinked below:

1. Gene Weingarten - a Washington Post columnist and humor writer... winner of two Pulitzer prizes for feature writing. Notes the absolute need to get correct the details of what's been written.

2. Wright Thompson - an ESPN website writer who also provides some excellent and heavy on sentiment work for the ESPN/Bill Simmons site Grantland. Provided both links to some of his past work and content about the writing process and concept of becoming interested in a topic, hopping on a plane and go learn about it, and then recording it's details in print. Thompson also covers his seeming penchant for producing first person writing (reminds me J.R. Moehringer in this regard).

3. Jeff Pearlman - columnist for the Sports Illustrated website and author of multiple books about famous teams or athletes... Dallas Cowboys, New York Mets, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and now Walter Payton. Blog post has some solid writing process stuff both in relation to physical act of writing (where it works for Pearlman) and what type of book subject is (and isn't) going to attract readers.

4. Charles P. Pierce - highly esteemed Esquire and Boston Globe writer. Makes some interesting points in this post about writing the perfect words to describe something. Somewhat related to this, the post also had some good content on the power of language and rhetoric (which Pierce then expands on really really well in this Esquire piece).

5. Glenn Stout - editor of the Best American Sports Writing series and himself a book author. Post contains Stout's mention of the unequivocal need for a writer to tell a story with confidence and in a manner that doesn't let the reader's attention wane. Also of interest from Stout was his writing about words as his job... not that he doesn't enjoy it, but he's got to work to get paid. Also linked to this piece was an SI story "Heavyweight Championship Of The Word" by Jeff MacGregor on the writer W.C. Heinz.

6. Gregg Doyel - CBS Sports columnist. Nothing specifically stood out from Doyel's responses to the Five for Writing questions, but as Jones writes, he deserves definite credit for the incredibly fast turn-around answers provided to the questions posed.

7. Drew Magary - writer for the websites Deadspin and Kissing Suzie Kolber... now author of the novel The Postmortal. Almost counter to some of the other Five for Writing authors who wrote about the power of words, Magary writes about about the notion of words arranged on a page for the enjoyment of readers... and financial gain for the writer. As part of this is his commentary about viewing a novel as being a promising track to wealth given the (free) availability online of so much sports commentary or humor writing out there.

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Not to forget the blog host himself, there was a similar Q&A blog post done with Jones by the aforementioned Jeff Pearlman... this time on Pearlman's blog. Big take-away from this piece was late in the Q&A how Jones described the experience of writing in the flow... just as Charlie Pierce's above noted description of writing the perfect words.

"Wonder Girl" by Don Van Natta Jr.

2011-08-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

Recently finished reading Wonder Girl: The Magnifcent Sporting Life of Babe Didrikson Zaharias by Don Van Natta Jr.

Didrikson was an incredible athlete (listed in the top 10 of the Sports Illustrated listing of best athletes of the twentieth century - male or female) and the book is a solid account of both her achievement and life as a whole. At times I found my interest in Didrikson waning with the accounts of her over the top cockiness to the point of extreme rudeness, but the account of her latter years really brought her back into the realm of someone I wanted to care about. Van Natta I'm sure portrayed her as his research revealed, it was just nice to feel some semblance of warmth towards someone time as a reader has been invested with.

Completely setting aside how nice Didrikson may or may not have been at different points of her life, one thing that struck me reading the book was her struggles with eligibility for amateur competition due to her attempts to actually make a living at sports. Different times than now to be sure, but I really saw correlation between what she faced and the environment modern day college athletes compete and live in.

All in all, a good book on a remarkable athlete and competitor... one who faced adversity along the way and when all was said and done, seemed to have her heart in the right place.

Politics of Discontent Writing - Time Magazine, Laurie Penny & Charles Pierce

2011-08-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

I've come across from a few different sources lately some excellent writing that definitely shares a common theme and seems to also offer the same take away idea.

The theme is around violence perpetuated at least to a degree by politics and examples of it have been way too common. In the US there's been the shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and other innocents and in Europe recently both the attack in Norway and riots in London. Now, these atrocities are all distinct events and care should be taken to not link them too tightly, but they do all traffic at least somewhat in social standing and politics.

In terms of political discourse, the Charles Pierce Esquire feature "The Bomb That Didn't Go Off" examined the prevalence of right-wing violence and how what Pierce describes as an us vs them fragmentation of politics feeds the fire. I previously posted on the story, but it was just fascinating stuff that looks beyond the superficial causes people like to attribute atrocity to in order to make them feel better.

Not long after this piece came the aforementioned London riots and some excellent writing on them from both Time Magazine and a blog by UK-based writer Laurie Penny.

Latest issue of Time featured two really solid pieces on the London riots... one on the violence itself and one about the causes of it. "London's Long Burn" was by Nathan Thornburgh on the first subject and the more lengthy "The End Of Europe" from Rana Foroohar looked at some of the systematic causes and raises definite flags about prospects for stability in the future.

Naming convention for the story is obviously on Europe, but reading Foroohar's words towards the end brought to mind the political climate in the US as both described by Charles Pierce and evidenced by the recent budget debates and political entrenchment. Point is made in the story of the role Germany could play in the financial stability of the continent... but, both in Germany and elsewhere, the trend towards a politics of polarization would have to give way to a discourse around the greater good.

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Closely related to both Time features and that by Pierce was the aforementioned Laurie Penny blog post "Panic on the streets of London." It's good writing that in a short space conveys both the violence that was happening and how it's wasn't simply "mindless acts perpetuated without cause." This of course isn't to say they were justified acts, but just as Pierce wrote... to simply call a heinous act something heinous done by crazies and nothing more is to not look at the conditions behind them and whether steps can be taken to improve and prevent.

As George Santayana told us (according to Google): "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

Businessweek Pieces: Steve Perlman / Google+ / Most Popular Things

2011-08-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Quite a few interesting stories and mentions in Businessweek lately... particularly in this week's edition labeled the Popularity Issue.

The cover feature looks at an eclectic blend of companies and products and below are three which had fairly sizable write ups in this BW... and three with only brief vignettes, but that still stood out as interesting.

- "Behind Five Guys’ Beloved Burgers" profiles the expanding burger chain noted for it's simple menu and "authenticity" (perhaps like Chipotle).

- "Vibram's shoes: the next best thing to nothing?" is about the FiveFingers shoes that were heavily mentioned in the excellent Christopher McDougall book Born to Run (posted on here earlier this month).

- "How Nordstrom Bests Its Retail Rivals" features the department store with the exceptional customer service reputation. As part of this, the piece has some interesting content about how the family (three brothers and a cousin) runs Nordstrom.

Three additional products mentioned in this Popularity feature that stood out as interesting were the all-electric Nissan Leaf, the not killed by the iPad Amazon Kindle and Story Cubes... the dice game where people make up stories based of the various images on each die rolled.

From this same issue of Businessweek was also mention of an interesting retail product and restaurant chain... neither of which I had heard of previously and both of which are coming soon to the US market. The story "Toys 'R' Us Wants a Robot (to Sell) for Christmas" is about the My Keepon toy and "A Spanish Starbucks for Sandwiches" details the casual dining chain 100 Montaditos and it's planned (major) expansion into the US.

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Two other stories featured in Businessweek lately that stood out...

From the July 21 issue was "Google+’s Circle Logic" on the latest Social Networking foray from the search giant (and what appears to be their best effort yet to compete with Facebook in this space). Finally, the July 27 edition had "Steve Perlman's Wireless Fix" on the successful inventor and his latest company.

Perlman's previous ventures include WebTV (sold for half a billion to Microsoft), the graphics company Mova (whose technology has been used in a number of studio movies) and streaming video game venture Onlive. Pretty remarkable background and the BW story subtitle gets at both Perlman himself and the subject of this piece...

"Silicon Valley’s self-styled Thomas Edison has found a way to increase wireless capacity by a factor of 1,000."

It's very interesting stuff about Perlman's DIDO wireless technology and the guy himself (who is also noted in the BW story as having founded the business incubator Rearden... as in Ayn Rand's Hank Rearden from Atlas Shrugged).

Sports Illustrated Pieces: Dustin Pedroia / Toomer's Corner Trees / Pitching Prospect Trevor Bauer

2011-08-12T21:05:00.000-07:00

Three excellent stories from the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.

Cover story was "The Muddy Chicken Hits It Big" on Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia. Solid piece by Senior baseball writer Tom Verducci that really gets into Pedroia, who he is and what he does. The story does a good job of covering both Pedroia's personal and professional lives, with the professional being grounded in his love of the game and how that helps him be a leader on a team full of personalities. Lot of ground written about well by Verducci.

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Another profile piece from this issue was "Trevor Bauer Will Not Be Babied" by Lee Jenkins. No slight at all intended towards the writing, but what stood out here was the subject covered. Similar to Stephen Strasberg and Bryce Harper (SI cover stories about each posted on here and here, respectively), Bauer represents the idea of potential greatness in baseball. As Jenkins details, the 20 year old Diamondbacks prospect could see Major League time as soon as September for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

What makes the story even more interesting is Bauer's single-minded ownership of and contrarian approach to his pitching development. Pretty fascinating content both in terms of what Bauer has done and how baseball thinking has adjusted somewhat in his direction around training and conditioning practices.

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Final story that stood out in this SI was the Tommy Tomlinson feature "Something Went Very Wrong At Toomer's Corner". About the University of Auburn oak tree poisoning, the piece features the type of compelling writing that can often be found in the last feature of each SI issue. Tomlison goes beyond the crime itself and delves deeply into football in Alabama and what it means to people... both for better and much much worse. Excellent "slice of life different than known by many" prose.

Wright Thompson Pieces from Grantland

2011-08-06T14:58:00.000-07:00

Some remarkable pieces I've seen recently by Wright Thompson of ESPN and Grantland. Thompson is I guy whose I first heard mention of in this Five for Writing feature with his responses to writing process questions posted by Esquire writer Chris Jones on his Son of a Bold Venture blog.

A few months after that Feb 2011 interview, I came across the lengthy ESPN Outside the Lines story "Deadly Games" on the Macacos slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Pretty remarkable piece whose subtitle tells the story of it's content - "In Rio, where the next Summer Olympics and World Cup will be held, nearby neighborhoods have become war zones."

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The writing I've seen lately by Thompson, though, was the trigger to post about and link to him. For the ESPN/Bill Simmons website, Grantland, he's done a series of heartfelt and well written pieces about loss and remembrance.

The last two pieces posted were "On Whiskey and Grease: A Yoknapatawpha Wake" and "On Whiskey and Grease: Drinking the last bottle of Jim Beam". Each is a really good blend (no booze pun intended) of the solid and the sentimental about someones passing and how their lives are celebrated.

Reading these stories then sent me back to looking in the Grantland archives (not that vast since the site is only a few months old) for other Thompson stories... two of which I recall having read and thinking "man, that's good writing." "On Whiskey and Grease: Pappy Van Winkle" (yep, more booze) was about the hard to find Pappy Van Winkle bourbon and then "Four Nights at Elaine's: The Last Will and Testament of a Great Saloon" about the heavily writer-frequented New York bar closing for good.

Really good writing that brought to mind the piece "Last Call at Elaine's, ft. Kevin Van Valkenburg" from the Son of a Bold Venture blog. Similar pieces from these young writers who were part of a group having their last night at Elaine's... and which both had some excellent stuff on being a young writer.

Politics Writing from Esquire - Pierce, Marche & Jones

2011-08-03T19:32:00.000-07:00

Latest Esquire featured three different excellent pieces that dealt with politics.

One of them was a solid Presidential candidate profile, one a commentary on the President and one a ridiculously profound look at our country's political discourse and the violence it's wrought.

The profile is by Chris Jones and titled "Romney Doesn't Scare Obama. This Guy Does" on Republican challenger Jon Huntsman. It's a solid look at someone who could be a formidable general election opponent. On the subject of the President, Stephen Marche penned "How Can We Not Love Obama? Because like it or not, he is all of us". Oftentimes I find myself skimming Marche's monthly 1,000 words column, but here he provides a really interesting piece.

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Best of the three, though, is "The Bomb That Didn't Go Off" by Charles Pierce. It's a thought-provoking look at domestic terrorism and how it's caused in part by a poisonous climate of political conversation. Pierce begins the piece with the gripping tale of an attempted Martin Luther King Day parade bombing earlier this year in Spokane, WA.

That story in itself was compelling and worthwhile narrative, but it's then tied to what Pierce terms a fragmentation of politics into an us vs them combat rather than conversation between people and parties. The point is made that the perpetrators of such terroristic acts are simply labeled nut jobs and we go on with our lives, but perhaps a closer look should be paid to what's bringing so many cases out of the woodwork. Pierce references journalist David Neiwert who counts close to 30 such acts of right-wing violence (completed or foiled) since 2008 and uses that as backing for his point that ignoring the cause of the attempts and climate that ferments them just keeps the cycle going.

Pierce strikes me as home-run type of writer who I at times read without taking much away from and sometimes am practically awestruck by how good a piece he has written. This story definitely falls into the latter category with his combining together of an extremely human story of an attempted terrorist act with a larger take-away message. As stated in the beginning of this post... ridiculously profound writing.

Joe Posnanski & Gary Smith for Sports Illustrated - on Baseball & Lyndon Baty

2011-08-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

Two really good pieces from the last two issues of Sports Illustrated.

For the July 25 issue, Joe Posnanski wrote "Loving Baseball" about a cross-country road trip he took visiting different ballparks and spending time with icons like Dodgers announcer Vin Scully. Posnanski is an excellent writer who traffics very well in sentiment (more on that topic with the second piece) and he hits the metaphorical home run with this story.

The subtitle is "What Keeps the Grand Game Great? Everything Old is New Again" and topics covered range from Derek Jeter's epic game in which he got hit number 3,000 (story posted on and linked to here) to the bat Wonderboy from Robert Redford's The Natural. As Scully said upon reflecting on The Meaning of Baseball... "dreams and escape", and Posnanski does a really good job of putting that idea into print.

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Out of last week's SI issue came another good piece from acclaimed writer Gary Smith (and the blog post on Jeter by Posnanski also links to a Smith article). "A Boy And His Bot" is about 15 year old Lyndon Baty and his life attending high school via robot (from VGo Communications). Baty suffers from polycystic kidney disease (PKD) and given his weak immune system any exposure to germs could prove deadly.

The story makes it into Sport Illustrated as Baty pursues his dream of being a sports announcer, but really it's another case of Smith penning a tale that on the fringe of sports, but squarely in the heartfelt. I've seen pieces by him before that went too far towards the sentiment, but the majority of his stuff seems more like this... well written and telling stories with a sports bent of people fighting through obstacles.

Quite solid writing from Messrs Posnanski and Smith.

"Bossypants" by Tina Fey

2011-08-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Recently finished "Bossypants" by Tina Fey and found it an entertaining read. The memoir from the 30 Rock creator covered a lot of ground and was frequently pretty funny.

Point of the book wasn't necessarily to impart lessons on work, but it included that and I particularly liked some of what Fey attributed to Saturday Light Live from Lorne Michaels...

- "The show doesn't go on because it's ready; the show goes on at 11:30."

- "You're gonna do some great stuff, but also some crap - it's ok, just know the difference."

- "Don't make big decisions when you're in the thick of things."

- "Don't hire anyone you wouldn't want to run into in a hallway at three in the morning."

- "Never tell a crazy person he's crazy - get the best you can out of people and don't alienate or show them up."

Pretty solid stuff on working and working with others.

"Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall

2011-08-01T00:15:00.000-07:00

Recently finished one of my favorite books of the year thus far... Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (author website here). Published in 2009, it's subtitled A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen and combines a compelling story with well researched detail about running as a pastime.

The book extends on a piece done several years ago by McDougall for Runner's World Magazine and starts with the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico's remote (and dangerous) Copper Canyon region. The Tarahumara then serve as a center for the book while different topics and areas (detailed below) are examined and then brought together for the aforementioned race.

Running - how

McDougall writes early on of being a runner with the personal question of why his feet hurt from running. He then did extensive research and the writing on running here gets into both the technical and conceptual.

In terms of actual how to run advice, there's the ideas of staying below your aerobic threshold and running with a straight back, from the gut and light on the feet. Additional ideas are given around a low meat, low carbohydrate diet (heavy on fruits salads) and using minimalist running shoes.

On this topic, McDougall writes of staying away from new and heavy cushioned running shoes and instead using older broken in shoes. Along these lines, barefoot running or the use of Five-finger shoes is spoken off as definite options that could be worked into. Barefoot running is a fairly controversial idea, but one of the main benefits as trumpeted by it's proponents would be to encourage running light on the feet and help keep the legs under the hips while running. The idea behind beat up or less padded running shoes has the same basis with the striving towards the goal of the natural foot working with you and seeking to find an optimal landing point at each step.

Running - why

McDougall writes both scientifically and through examples from runners themselves of the health benefits of running with it serving to lower disease, help bring about better sleep and serve as an anti-depressant. Additionally, he writes of endurance running as an evolutionary step that our bodies are built for.

Running - how (again)

In terms of conceptual ideas on how to run effectively, McDougall broaches the topic of enjoyment and love of running. Whether it's the Tarahumara, Czech Olympic runner Emil Zatopek or the American runners featured in this book, there's a definite thread of people running well who truly love it. The struggle may certainly be there as people push themselves, but that's enjoyed as part of the overall experience.

Characters in the book

The Tarahumara are the center of this story around running and life, but there's some remarkable Americans featured as well. Early on in the book McDougall introduces Caballo Blanco... the man who came to live among the Tarahumara (and previously went by the names Michael Hickman, Gypsy Cowboy and Micah True). Also central to the story are the ultra marathoners Scott Jurek, Jenn Shelton, Billy Barnett and the iconoclast (though, they all are in one way or another) Barefoot Ted.

Race that ties it all together

There's a lot of interesting content in the book and what keeps it driving forward is the compelling narrative of the Copper Canyon race put together by Caballo Blanco with the Tarahumara and the American ultra marathoners (as well as McDougall himself).

It's fascinating stuff that brings together running (both the how to do it, why to do it and how to feel about it) with the human drama of those competing at the highest level, but with that competition being grounded in a brotherhood of sorts. It's remarkable (and serendipitous at times) content about incredible people and achievements.

Really good book... and in addition to simply reading the the thing, more can be learned about both McDougall and the Tarahumara via a quick YouTube search.

Russell Brand, Dave Bidini & Caroline Sullivan on Passing of Amy Winehouse

2011-07-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

Never would have expected heartfelt and incredibly well written prose from him, but that's what goofball actor Russell Brand provided with "For Amy" after Amy Winehouse passed away July 23rd. Written for his website, it's about the life of an addict and what that struggle means as well as being about Winehouse herself. Interesting, profound, solid... just excellent writing.

On this same subject of Winehouse and her death there's a few other not quite as great as that from Brand, but also good pieces of writing I came across. From the London newspaper The Guardian came the "Amy Winehouse obituary" by Caroline Sullivan and Dave Bidini penned "Let's not raise a glass to this" for the National Post.

Sullivan's writing provides an overall look at the life of Winehouse and Bidini's piece in the Toronto newspaper is about the inexorable linking of drugs and alcohol to someone living a celebrity life... particularly one in music. It's an interesting take from someone who's a musician as well as writer (and guy with interests close to my heart as evidenced by his book "Tropic of Hockey" that I reviewed here).

Good writing all on Winehouse and her passing... a shame to have anyone die young and to have such a talent gone.

Sebastian Junger's "The Storm" for Outside Magazine

2011-07-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

Recently came across "The Storm" by Sebastian Junger for Outside Magazine and found it to be extremely compelling writing. The piece was published in 1994 and became the basis for Junger's best selling book (and subsequent movie) "The Perfect Storm".

I've posted on Junger previously and after reading four of his books now enjoy both the work itself and reading pieces like this Outside Magazine interview that get into how he became a writer.

Additionally, Junger makes a point in the interview that I completely agree with... people who do dangerous stuff are fascinating. Whether its someone Junger writes about (including himself) or people written about by Susan Casey (also in relation to the ocean and giant waves) there's something interesting about those who live with such risk.

Excellent story here from Outside for both those who have and haven't seen his book that it's based on (and anyone who hasn't had a chance to read the book would likely want to after this story).

Businessweek Pieces: Transocean, Anheuser-Busch & Other Stuff

2011-07-19T21:58:00.000-07:00

Handful of interesting stories from the last month of Businessweek.

In terms of feature writing, the issue that stood out was the July 4 edition with the exploding oil rig on the cover.

The lead story of "Transocean: No Apologies Over Gulf Oil Spill" painted a remarkable picture of a company focused on limiting their blame (and eventual liability) in the Deepwater Horizon fire and then Gulf Oil Spill. Good writing by Paul Barrett on the strategy taken by Transocean and it's crisis management firm (led by a former tabloid editor).

Another feature from this edition of Businessweek was "Fall of the House of Busch" by Susan Berfield. Pretty remarkable reading on the previously family-run Anheuser-Busch and it's ex-president (and current train wreck) August Busch IV.

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A bunch of other stories from this and other recent issues were notable in featuring interesting companies and technology...

- "Daniel Ek’s Spotify: Music’s Last Best Hope" on a recent entry to the US market for music delivery.

- "Pay as You Go with Smartphones" on current efforts to finally get something widely adopted in the field of mobile payments.

- "Turntable.fm: Where the DJ Is in the Next Cubicle" on a music service with a social component.

- "Can Jeff Weiner Realize LinkedIn’s Full Potential?"

- "Raves for Robert Brunner’s All-New Nook" on the Kindle competing eReader from Barnes & Noble.

- "Ford Steps on the Gas in Asia"

- "HP's Plan to Make TouchPad a Hit"