Cover Story on Amazon... & Other Businessweek Pieces

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.

Interesting Companies Posted On

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.

Eric Weiner Wisdom & Musings

One of the first posts to this blog was on the excellent Eric Weiner book "The Geography of Bliss" and after following him on Twitter for a while now now I gotta say... the guy has some interesting things to say.

Point of this post is to repeat some of his said Twitter-posted insight from the last six months...

From today, Nov 30 - link to a TED talk by Weiner!



Nov 29 - "Life is too short for pettiness or bad coffee."

Nov 13 - "Death is the Universe's way of making sure we pay attention."

Nov 3 - "The only thing worse than writing is not writing."

Nov 2 - "Most things in life get easier with practice. Unfortunately, writing is not one of them."

Oct 21 - '"A writer is person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people." --Thomas Mann. Amen.'

Jul 22 - "Writing is the art of taming your demons by naming them. That's why I've yet to meet a sane writer worth reading. They have no demons."

Jul 15 - "Silence may be golden but so is sound. We need the ambient chatter of others to cushion our own churning minds. That's why cafes thrive."

Jul 15 - "Never analyze enthusiasm. It's a sure way to kill it."

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Ok, now that I've copied my favorite Twitter missives from Weiner, I know why I like said missives so much...

If not obvious already, I've put the one-word clue as to why in italics above.

Fast Company Magazine - TED / Alex Bogusky

Two really interesting pieces in the Sept 2010 issue of Fast Company Magazine.



In "How TED Connects the Idea-Hungry Elite" Anya Kamenetz profiles the famous (at least in the circles that most Fast Company readers run in) TED Conference and how it's extended out beyond the namesake annual event in Long Beach.

One avenue of extending reach for the non-profit enterprise is through the TEDx program of allowing virtually anyone anywhere to stage a "TEDx Conference" based on the format, content and ideals of the main conference. Even more interesting than this idea of releasing control of the events is the release of event content via TED talks online. With some 700 talks posted on the TED website (all viewable via the iPhone, thank you very much) there's plenty of content out there and an 18 minute cap on each speaker makes each ripe for easy consumption.

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Also from this issue and not in the same "opportunity to learn stuff" as TED talks, but riveting in it's own right was "Alex Bogusky Tells All: He Left the World's Hottest Agency to Find His Soul."

It's a look at the career path of the former Crispin, Porter + Bogusky advertising guru and how he's "finding himself" since abruptly quitting the industry. Just the stuff about Bogusky and what he's doing now would be interesting enough, but author Danielle Sacks spends time with a good number of Bogusky's former colleagues and from this examines the question of motive behind the career change.

Sacks doesn't try to make any definitive statements, but does bring up whether Bogusky is really just steering his career in a now hot in business direction. Part of this is also consideration of whether he's a classic narcissist getting off on the idea of a grand manipulation of people and how they view him.

Just a very interesting examination of an interesting subject.

Most Innovative Companies Story from Fast Company

Some interesting mentions in the "50 Most Innovative Companies" Fast Company cover story.

Yea, Facebook, Google and Apple (among others) are all innovative and interesting companies, but the ones on the list that stood out to me weren't because of who they were, but because of what's described in the Fast Company writeup.

- Walmart and it's sustainability initiatives

- Cisco and it's efforts in sports

- Patients Like Me and the idea of social networking your own health care

- Sportvision and technology to measure the effectiveness of MLB players

- Twitter and mention of twitter using Daily Show correspondent (and author of "More Information Than You Require") John Hodgeman

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Also of note from this issue of Fast Company was mention of the video sites Fora.tv and Ted.com. I've certainly heard of both sites beforfe... maybe someday I'll actually spend some time perusing them.

TED (Technology, Entertainment & Design) Conference

I've been hearing about the annual TED conference in Monterey, CA (moving in 2009 to Long Beach) and am just plain fascinated by the whole thing.

The impression that I continually get from reading stories such as this BusinessWeek TED wrap up are that it's full of terribly interesting ideas given by brilliant people. Additionally, I pick up from the linked in BW story column by tech author Sarah Lacy (who happened to write a book described on this blog) that it's also a bit elitist... but, c'mon... it costs $6,000 to attend and everyone wants to. How could it not be elitist?

Anyhoo... regardless of how kind and friendly TED as an entity (kind of like the computer "Hal" from "2001: A Space Odyssey") may be, it does have those aforementioned brilliant people and accompanying ideas.

At the end of the day, maybe you just have to be thankful that the organizers of TED are good enough to provide us common folk with a website where we can view what's been presented by the smarties at TEDs past.