Joe Klein Piece on Obama's First 100 Days

Really insightful cover story from Joe Klein in the May 4 issue of Time Magazine.



The title "Joe Klein on the President's Impressive Performance Thus Far" gives an idea of the bent of the article, but it's simply an interesting read.

Time Magazine - Apr 27 Issue

Some really interesting stuff from the Apr 27 issue of Time Magazine.



"The Great Recession: America Becomes Thrift Nation" is the cover story and written by one of my favorite Time writers, Nancy Gibbs. Definitely not a long piece, but a very insightful look at how Americans are cutting back in difficult economic times... and how that can have a long-term impact on how people will even when economic conditions improve.

Also from this issue of Time is a fascinating story titled "Logging On to the Ivy League". The story details something I had heard about before, but not in such detail. In short, there's tons and tons of free university lectures available on both iTunes U from Apple and now YouTube Edu.

In addition to these well known platforms, lectures can be found through the OpenCourseWare Consortium which had been led in part by MIT efforts to have its coursework online. Also, www.AcademicEarth.org and www.TED.com are sites at which interesting material can be found.

Finally, an interesting mention in the Entertainment Short List section about a graduation speech from deceased writer David Foster Wallace. Might be worth checking out the speech...

Health 2.0: Patients as Partners Article from BusinessWeek

Very interesting article titled "Heath 2.0: Patients as Partners" from the Dec 15 2008 issue of BusinessWeek.



This piece relates to the Jeff Jarvis book "What Would Google Do?" (which I reviewed here) in that it looks at how social networking and collaboration could be used to help people with their personal health care.

Interesting ideas...

"What Would Google Do?" by Jeff Jarvis

I've already done two different blog posts about the Jeff Jarvis book "What Would Google Do?", but now that I've actually finished reading the book, I can do a more complete summary.

I first came across it from a BusinessWeek excerpt which I posted about and linked to here and then made a second post about mention in the book of the blog http://www.avc.com/.



The book itself is an interesting read that looks in the first half at what Google does to be successful and the second half at how it's business principles could be adapted to other companies and industries. Granted, there's a bit of prognostication and crystal-ball seeing in this latter half, but it's definitely compelling business reading.

Jarvis himself has a fascinating background in that he was first behind Entertainment Weekly and then went on to create the blog http://www.buzzmachine.com/. From this blog (which Jarvis still writes), came his current teaching position in the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism and backing of the news website http://www.daylife.com/.

Not to take the easy way out, but it's probably easiest to switch to listing out some of the key ideas and websites discussed:

Concepts of business on the web
- Customers are in charge
- Openness in the key to success
- Most successful enterprises are networks or platforms
- Have to be searchable and able to be found on the web (whether you're a person or business)

Websites of note (not already mentioned above)
- http://www.digg.com/
- http://www.facebook.com/
- http://www.twitter.com/
- http://www.flickr.com/
- http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
- http://longtail.com/
- Meg Hourihan "What We're Doing When we Blog" essay
- Posts from http://www.buzzmachine.com/ related to "entrepreneurial" (Jarvis teaches an entrepreneurial journalism class at City University of New York)
- http://www.buzzmachine.com/tips/ containing recommendations from Jarvis on "five steps to a Googlier you"

All in all... an excellent read.

Fred Wilson Venture Capitalist Website & Time Internet Business Article

I came mention of venture capitalist Fred Wilson and his blog http://www.avc.com/ in the Jeff Jarvis book "What Would Google Do?".

I'll definitely write more about the book itself when I finish later this week, but wanted to mention and link to Wilson's site in the interim. One of the principle ideas that Jarvis puts forth in his book is interconnectedness online (as he terms it, being "Googly") and he refers to Wilson as "the "Googliest guy I know in this (venture capital), the Googliest industry."

The Wilson site features his thoughts on technology and what cool things are out there. This very much has similarities to what I try to do with this site, primary difference of course being that Wilson is actually a VC and is in what I'll call... a better position to fund and make successful these business ideas he comes across.

That said, as a recent Time Magazine article titled "The New Internet Start-Up Boom: Get Rich Slow" details, you don't really have to be a venture capitalist in order to be involved in business start-ups. If you've got an idea, the opportunities for business creation are there with much lower upfront costs than ever before.

All very interesting stuff.

Flickr: "Most Interesting Photos" Website

I came across mention of this site in the Jeff Jarvis book "What Would Google Do?" that I'm now reading (and will do a post on once it's finished)...

The Yahoo! owned photo site Flickr is unique compared to some other photo hosting sites on the web like Snapfish (which I use and is owned by HP) or Shutterfly in that Flickr was designed to have hosted photos easily viewable by the public. The result of this is a huge network of people and images with recommendations being made, comments posted and images linked to.

Out of all this interaction, Flickr has developed an algorithm that results in their "most interesting photos"... which is constantly refreshed and features what Flickr feels are the most interesting from the last seven days.

The URL is here and images can either be viewed by this opening page, by clicking on a given picture or in slideshow form.

Just for giggles, I've posted below the first image that appears right now (which will be of course different in a day/week/month)...



Really cool stuff.

S.L. Price Book Excerpt from Sports Illustrated

Really interesting book excerpt from S.L. Price in the April 20 issue of Sports Illustrated.

The story is titled "Hit in the Head" and adapted from Price's book "Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in the Minor League America". The book itself is about Colorado Rockies minor league coach Mike Coolbaugh who was killed by a batted ball while coaching first base in 2007 and much of the SI piece is about the bigger picture of dangers from projectiles faced by baseball players, coaches and fans.

I did a post referencing a different S.L. Price story several weeks ago and was very interested to read about this new book from him... enjoyed his "Far Afield: A Sportswriting Odyssey" quite a bit.

There was quite a bit of press in 2008 about shattered bats and the risk on injury these cause, but not as much attention has been paid to what a batted ball can do. However, as pitcher Joe Martinez of the San Francisco Giants found in a game earlier this month, the batted ball has huge potential for damage... video below:



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From the SI issue one week prior, Michael Bamberger wrote a profile of Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer.

I note this and link to the story not because I'm a huge Phillies or Moyer fan (he does come across as a good guy in the piece). The reason I do so is because Bamberger has done some excellent work in SI (which can be through a search for him in the CNNSI Vault) and is the author of the book "The Man Who Heard Voices" about M. Night Shyamalan and the making of the movie "Lady in the Water".

Fully understand I'm in the minority on this, but I really enjoyed the movie... and found Bamberger's account of it's creation by Shyamalan to be quite interesting.

Great Isiah Thomas Story

Really interesting piece posted onto Yahoo! Sports yesterday. Written by Adrian Wojnarowski and titled "Thomas Won't Find Soft Landing in College" it gives a sense of the fun that Florida International University is in for now that Isiah Thomas has been hired as head basketball coach.

For more details about past bizarre and destructive behavior from Thomas... his Wikipedia entry gets really entertaining once you reach the "post-NBA career" section about halfway down. Some of the highlights (and you know if they're on Wikipedia, they must be true)...

End of Continental Basketball Association ownership: "Many CBA managers blamed Thomas for the league's failure, citing mismanagement and out-of-control spending on his part. Many such managers publicly declared that Thomas ran the league into the ground, possibly on purpose to eliminate the non-NBA-owned minor league in order to make room for the NBA-owned NBDL."

End of New York Knicks employment: "As part of the reassignment agreement Thomas was banned from having contact with any Knicks' players under the rationale that he could willingly or unwillingly undermine Donnie Walsh and the new head coach."

"Sexual harassment lawsuit: In October 2006, Thomas and Madison Square Garden were sued for sexual harassment by Anucha Browne Sanders. The matter came to trial in September 2007 and Thomas was determined to have made demeaning statements to Sanders, as well as making sexual advances and repeatedly telling her that he was in love with her."

"Drug overdose: On October 24, 2008, Thomas was taken to White Plains Hospital Center near his New York City area home after taking an overdose of Lunesta, a form of sleep medication. In the opinion of Harrison Police Chief David Hall, Thomas tried to 'cover up' the incident by claiming his 17-year old daughter required medical treatment when in actuality he was the patient."

Crazy...

Yahoo! Travel Sucks - Dolce Hayes Mansion

Here's a fun game to play...

1. Go to Yahoo! Travel.

2. Do a hotel search for locations within 6 miles of zip code 95118 on the night of Friday May 1.

3. See if Dolce Hayes Mansion comes up at a "Good Buy" price of $59.

4. If it does, go through the time it takes to select that, then put in your contact info and credit card number to book this "advance payment required" rate.

5. See if you get an error saying that "this rate is not available anymore, would you like to book at a different (higher) rate?"

6. Call the Yahoo! Travel 800 #.

7. Get a "Customer Service" representative who doesn't really hear you saying anything about the trouble online and does a standard search for you.

8. See if they offer you the same $59 "Good Buy" rate and then take your contact info and credit card information.

9. See if they then tell you that rate is not available anymore and ask if you would like to book at a different (higher) rate.

10. Ask to speak to a supervisor.

11. Have that supervisor not really hear you saying anything about the trouble online or on the phone and then do a standard search for you.

12. See if they offer you the $59 "Good Buy" rate at Dolce Hayes Mansion and (just for fun) take the time to give them your contact info and credit card number.

13. Laugh when they then tell you it's not available anymore and ask if you would like to book at a different (higher) rate.

14. Laugh again as their response to you telling them you'll never use Yahoo! Travel again is to ask "if there's anything else they can do for you?"

Sure... there can (but, shouldn't) be a lag time between a rate available online and on the phone. That said, this experience I had trying to book Dolce Hayes Mansion through Yahoo! Travel was a week ago... and the $59 "Good Buy" rate still appears online.

Moral of the story: Dolce Hayes Mansion either puts out intentionally misleading prices or simply doesn't know what the experience of their potential customers is (either being not good) and... Yahoo! Travel, well, I think the above speaks pretty well for itself.

Hilariously good times.

Esquire Magazine - May issue

As part of the May 2009 issue, Esquire published multiple pieces around the topic of "How to Be a Man"... with two that stood out as particularly interesting.



The first was an extremely well written and compelling essay by Tom Chiarella titled "What is a Man?". I suppose some of the points he makes you could quibble with and I'm sure you could add others, but all in all... it's definitely worth the short read.

The second can't really qualify as being well written as it's more of a list with pictures. The slideshow titled "Things Every Man Should Own" has 30-some items that Esquire feels a man shouldn't be without. Similar to the Chiarella piece, there's probably other needed things not on the list, but... I don't know that someone would be the worse for it by having each of these things along with a competency of how to use.

Also from this issue of Esquire was mention of a few different books to read...

- "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen. Having begun and not yet finished (but, someday I will), I can say that it falls into that category of "writing so good it makes you feel you can't write".

- "Empire Falls" and "Bridge of Sighs" by Richard Russo. Similar to my above statement, I've had the change to read Russo's "Straight Man" and found Russo to be both an excellent writer and storyteller.

- "A Fraction of the Whole" by Steve Toltz. Whereas the books above by Franzen and Russo were recommended by Esquire readers, Toltz's book was actually highly trumpeted by Tom Chiarella in a Feb 2008 review. High praise indeed from Chiarella...

Time Magazine - Apr 13 Issue

Lots of interesting writing from the April 13 issue of Time Magazine (which was subtitled the "Special Environment Issue").

The most profound piece was titled "Why Are Army Recruiters Killing Themselves?". Written by Mark Thompson, it's a painful look at the pressures put on Army recruiters (particularly those out of the Army's Houston recruiting battalion) to "make mission" and meet recruiting numbers. A job characterized by 15-19 hour work days and belittlement by leadership... very messed up.

Another interesting story was by Michael Grunwald and titled "How Obama is Using the Science of Change". It looks at some of the social science behind the Obama campaign and office message, specifically how the field of behavioral economics is employed. Some of the examples put out were how get out the vote campaign efforts often promoted the idea of record turnouts to get people to "emulate their neighbors" and the more recent idea of opt-out 401K programs to encourage savings.

Also from the Grunwald article was mention of books written by some of the Obama advisers that made up what's referred to as his "behavioral dream team":

- "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness" by Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein

- "Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism" by George Akerlof & Robert Shiller

- "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions" by Dan Ariely

CC Sabathia Profile from Sports Illustrated

Great piece in the 2009 Baseball Preview issue of Sports Illustrated on New York Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia.



Written by S.L. Price and titled "Big Love 'CC'" the piece gives a very nuanced portrait of a guy that many sports fans would only associate with his recently signed $161M free agent contract. In this, there were a lot of parallels to a blog post I did about a Lamar Odom profile... both show wealthy athletes who have a lot more layers of complexity than would be expected by the casual observer.

The story on Sabathia is longer than that on Odom and able to give more details into his life and family. Additionally, though, what makes it an excellent read is really good writing provided by S.L. Price.

Further work by Price can be found through a search of the CNNSI Vault archives or through reading (as I have) his book "Far Afield: A Sportswriting Odyssey". Chronicling his time living with his family as an expat in the French countryside, it's an interesting look at a lifestyle from an outsider perspective.

Time Magazine - Apr 6 Issue

There was a hodgepodge of insightful stuff from the latest issue of Time Magazine... some grouped together and some that might call for further reading.

In the grouped together category, two different commentaries had interesting views of President Barack Obama. In his "Obamathon: Is the President Overexposed?" piece, Time media writer James Poniewozik examined the recent flurry of media appearances by Obama... and resulting questions about whether it was too much.

The conclusion drawn (which is both logical and insightful) is that it's not excessive given the fragmented media culture in which we live and people's propensity to get their news information in snippets and soundbites. Obama is simply communicating to people how they want to be communicated with... meaning you gotta take all different approaches to reach all different people.

Also about President Obama, Joe Klein's "In the Arena" column discusses in detail a recent book titled "Power Rules" from former president of the Council of Foreign Relations Leslie H. Gelb. The title Gelb held doesn't mean much to me, but the book and it's views of power and diplomacy (a balancing act to be sure that we all hope Obama can master) sound fascinating.

Now that the stories with similar topics have been covered, it's on the two other stories I found of note from this issue (both of which follow Klein's example and make me interested in further reading)...

It's a fairly long piece, but the cover story by historian Kurt Andersen titled "The End of Excess: Is This Crisis Good for America?" is a compelling read that looks at America in each of the last few decades and how things led up to the economic collapse of the past six months. Beyond this, the piece examines the path forward and the positives that can be taken from this experience. Excellent writing contained within and it made me interested in Andersen's critically acclaimed historical novel "Heyday" about mid-19th century America.

The fourth story from this issue of Time that struck me was a short work titled "A Primer for Pessimists" by Alice Park. There's nothing earth-shattering in it, but it does contain the oft-stated notion that optimism can lead to greater success... and can be developed. Contained with the article is reference to two different books (both of which sound interesting) by Harvard Professor Tal Ben-Shahar... "Happier" and "The Pursuit of Perfect".

So... lots of stuff from this issue of Time, but it wouldn't be that hard to attach a story arc to it all. There's a crisis (Andersen), but we can come out of it (Andersen and Park). While we're doing that, we have to keep the world safe (Klein) and make sure people support how we're doing it (Poniewozik).

Geesh, couple of things to take care of there. Can't wait to see what Obama is going to do after lunch... ;)

IBM People Management Articles from BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek Magazine featured in it's March 23/30 issue a special report titled "Game-Changing Management Ideas". Under the topics of business landscape, growth, talent and partner management, the issue contained multiple short pieces about some transforming ideas in management today.



Under the talent management area, two particularly interesting articles were about IBM and it's approach towards developing people.

"The World is IBM's Classroom" is a piece that details Big Blue's program which relocates top management prospects to far-flung areas of the world to work in IBM teams on local humanitarian projects. The communities they work in benefit from the output of the projects and the team members benefit from the collaborative experience and good deed done.

Immediately following this article was a short piece titled "IBM Reinvents Mentoring, Via the Web" about a new corporate program where employees can post profiles and easily search and connect either as a mentor or someone seeking guidance to an appropriate match.

Both programs offer an interesting approach that seems to make sense.

Fast Company 2009 "50 Most Innovative Companies" List

Interesting stuff from the March 2009 issue of Fast Company Magazine. With Jason Kilar of Hulu on the cover, the issue contains Fast Company's list of the "50 Most Innovative Companies" in the world.

Granted, a list such as this is compiled entirely at the discretion of Fast Company writers and staff, but in interesting nonetheless.

Some of what I found most interesting from the piece (with links to the FC write-ups!)...

* not that I don't find other companies from the list like Apple or Google to be interesting, but maybe I just now view their "innovativeness" as a given.

#1: Team Obama - pretty self-explanatory.

#3: Hulu - interesting in that it's the first example I've seen of someone making a professional video site (as opposed to YouTube whose content is largely populated by amateurs) work.

#5 & #7: Cisco Systems & Pure Digital Technologies (maker of the Flip video recorder) - I find each company interesting by itself... with Cisco's foray into the consumer and technology for sporting venue (yea, I made up the category name) markets and Pure Digital making an incredibly cool product with it's ultra simple and small camcorders. Now with the announcement of Cisco acquiring Pure Digital... that takes things a step further.

#9: Amazon - Amazon as a company appears to be at the forefront of two terribly innovative (and different) businesses. One is Cloud Computing where they rent out server space to other companies looking to store data and use Amazon computing power... putting them in the league of other tech heavyweights like Google, IBM and HP doing this. The second is with their Kindle electronic book reader... which looks like the best option anyone has put out to date for reading books electronically. The only solid competitor I've seen in this area is actually Apple, which offers various apps enabling the reading of books on the iPhone (which I posted about here).

#12: Hewlett-Packard - Particularly interesting to me with HP's focus on design (highlighted by the new Mini 1000 netbook computer) and touchscreen technology (highlighted by the Touchsmart PC).

#20: Zappos - From personal experience, it's a great place to locate hard to find shoes and a company that offers outstanding customer support.

Well, that's it for companies from the Top 50. There was also mention of some interesting companies that didn't quite make the aforementioned list:

- Ausra: solar energy
- Netflix: well, derr...
- Participant Media: Jeff Skoll's movie production company
- Twitter: microblogging
- Meebo: instant messaging across multiple platforms
- Ning: custom social networking
- Yelp: user-submitted reviews of businesses

Lamar Odom Story from Sports Illustrated

Even though I don't follow basketball very closely, I found really interesting the story on Lamar Odom in the latest Sports Illustrated pictured below.



Written by Lee Jenkins, "Another Sunny Day in Lamar's L.A." is about a guy who I remember as a highly-questionable "student-athlete" signing by the University of Rhode Island. It could well be that my view of Odom at the time was right on, but he's certainly been through a lot since then and has much more to him that I would have suspected.

Very nuanced and well-written portrait of an interesting guy.

"Keeping it Real" Writing from Esquire

Some interesting writing in the issue of Esquire Magazine... much of it around the general theme of identity / being true to yourself and yep, keeping it real.



The cover story by Tom Chiarella is about celebrity guy Ben Affleck... who also happens to be: a parent of two (yes, with a celebrity girl), an accomplished writer (if you recall "Good Will Hunting"), a pretty good actor (reference back to his monologues in "Boiler Room" and the aforementioned "Good Will Hunting") and an up and coming director (with "Gone Baby Gone" to his credit).

All of this being said, the Chiarella piece manages to convey how Affleck is often stuck in this "celebrity guy" role despite all accomplishments above and beyond that. It's an interesting read showing what someone in this position faces. If someone doesn't have time to read the piece itself, the story title of "Ben Affleck: A Smart, Talented Man Trapped in Lindsay Lohan's Life" conveys the point pretty well.

Additionally, this issue of Esquire contains a piece by my writing man-crush object of admiration, Chris Jones. The story titled "Jonathan Papelbon Grinds His Teeth" is a profile of the Red Sox closer that reveals the focus and downright anger that Papelbon channels to help him pitch so successfully.

Finally, there's another piece by Chris Jones that's much shorter and (using the results of google searches as a yardstick) gathering more attention than the one he did on Papelbon. Titled "My Vacation from Hate" it's about the return to competitive golf of Tiger Woods and how Jones enjoyed golf more without Woods around. This piece from the Detroit Free Press website quotes Jones' story at length, but doesn't quote Jones' sentence about how depressing it was writing this 2003 Esquire story on Woods. The statement made in this most recent piece is "there's no joy for me in anything Tiger Woods does"... likely referring to how Woods closes off his personal life from view (and the 2003 story was written even before marraige and kids for Tiger).

So... all this being said, you've got three different stories from this issue all tied together by the theme of keeping it real / dealing with the spotlight / being true to yourself / etc etc. In the case of Jonathan Papelbon, there's someone who basically sticks their chin out at the world and is brutally honest. With Tiger Woods, you've got someone who shields the world entirely and then with Ben Affleck you've got some sort of middle ground with a guy working hard to maintain a private life while at the same time live a human experience. Interesting stuff.

Health-Care Cover Story from Time

Really good (and depressing) story titled "The Health-Care Crisis Hits Home" from the March 16 issue of Time Magazine.



Written by regular contributor Karen Tumulty, the story details the insurance troubles her brother has gone through after having a major medical condition. Being self-insured, Pat Tumulty would regularly buy six month policies... which was all well and good as long as he simply paid the premiums and never needed the insurance. After getting sick and filing a claim, he was proclaimed not covered because of his illness being a "pre-existing condition", even though it was the same Assurant Health company that covered him six months prior.

This is a terrible story about (I don't think it stretches to say) a terrible company, but the piece goes much further than one bad business and looks at health-care in the U.S., particularly for those underinsured like Pat Tumulty. Cited in the article was a 2005 Harvard study that looked at 1,700 personal bankruptcies declared and found that half of them were due to a medical problem... with three quarters of those people actually covered under some form of health insurance. The problem that occurs is for those who do work and do have coverage, those policies often wind up not amounting to much, but the income and coverage makes people not eligible for federal or state health coverage programs.

It's a big mess, with the biggest shame being people dealing with serious illness while at the same time trying to figure out how to pay to treat it.

"Healthy Aging" by Dr. Andrew Weil

Took me a little while to slog through it, but I just finished reading "Healthy Aging" by Dr. Andrew Weil.



I previously did a blog post about both Weil and Dr. Mehmet Oz so was interested in this book when I saw it at the library. As an aside, sometimes it's a hindrance to reading a particular author you're interested in when they have a number of books in print and you have to pick one. I this this was a good choice, though, as the book seemed to fully impart Weil's views on aging (in the first half of the book) along with his recommendations to try to age well (in the second half).

Some of the things I found most interesting from the book are noted below:

Chapter One - "Immortality": Interesting mention of cells in the human body and how they stop regenerating... with the exception of the only truly immortal cells, cancer cells.

Chapter Two - "Shangri-La and Fountains of Youth": Discusses various communities throughout the world that are known for having a longer living population. There tends to be some constants around diet in these areas, but an even more recurring thread is a pervading sense of community... as well as respect for the elderly and inclusion of them in daily lives.

Chapter Three - "Antiaging Medicine": Features Weil's view that most of the antiaging field is a sham. Also contains a sentiment from Weil that recurs throughout the book... the idea behind healthy aging is not necessarily to extend life, but rather to extend health so that quality of life remains high up until a rapid decline at death.

Chapters Five & Six - "The Denial of Aging" & "The Value of Aging": Both related to a point noted above from chapter 2... an examination of the notion that aging is a good thing as it can provide valuable experience to be passed on and can actually lead to improvement with age.

The second half of the book beyond this focuses more on specific recommendations to aid in healthy aging. Things get a bit bogged down with lots of detailed tips, but all appear good. They range from simple things like getting enough rest to foods that should be eaten as part of an anti-inflammatory diet.

Details around the diet and tons of other information can be found on Weil's website at http://www.drweil.com/ or the "healthy aging" microsite within it. Additionally, his book "8 Weeks to Optimum Health" sounds like an interesting read.

Finally, the conclusion of the book has a mention of ethical wills, a Jewish tradition that has been getting adopted by more and more people from all cultures. The idea is to create a document that passes along to your friends and family your feelings about what's important and what you want to pass on as a legacy.

This was I thought a really interesting idea and made me think of both Randy Pausch's "Last Lecture" (which I did a blog post about here) and what appeals to me about writing... this idea of creating something (sometimes profound, sometimes not at all, but I figure... if it's written, it's "created").

Crazy Bad ESPN writing

I know Eric Young likely isn't on ESPN for his writing ability, but... geesh.

Not quite the greatest writing contained within his Jonathan Papelbon-Manny Ramirez piece on the espn.com Baseball Tonight Clubhouse page.

My personal favorite sentence from the piece: "I don't agree with what Manny may or may not have done to leave the Red Sox."

Fiction Writing Notion

Not sure how entirely interesting this is to the average reader, but since I only know of four different people who regularly read this blog (and three are family), I'll go ahead and write this...

I did a post a few days ago titled "blog topics to date... & forward" and at it's conclusion I wrote of an interest in fiction writing, but the kind based based in reality (i.e. historical fiction).

Using that as a jumping off point, I began outlining (maybe I did actually learn something from the "Day of the Writer" seminars last week) and realized what I would like to write. I'm certainly making no guarantees of doing it, but I would like to do a fictional autobiography of myself.

Now... I fully recognize that an autobiography up to this point in my life may well not cover the most awe-inspiring stuff (certainly not as interesting as Buck's life in "Call of the Wild"), but... note the word fictional. This gives lots and lots of leeway on potential content.

Maybe it doesn't even need to focus on myself... who ever said that an autobiography has to be about the person writing it? Ok, maybe Webster's dictionary said it, but does that mean it has to be the case?

With this all stated, it's time for a "future details as events warrant" closing. Check.

"Call of the Wild" by Jack London

Man, technology is so cool. I just finished reading (well, rereading as I first came across the book probably 25 years ago) "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London on my iPhone.



I'll begin with the technology. I've had the 3G iPhone since last Summer and heard about books being available to read via phone from this BusinessWeek story... which I then linked to in this larger blog post.
After doing a very simple search of the iPhone app store, I found and downloaded the "Classics" application (website of which can be found here).

For what I believe was no greater than $2.99 I received first 12 and now 18 different titles (with the increase coming via software updates at no additional charge). These titles range from "Gulliver's Travels" to "Robinson Crusoe" and "Call of the Wild" among others (listing can also be found at the "Classics" website linked above).

In terms of usability, I have nothing but high marks to give... it's very easy to read the text and the user interface is designed so that you see the page turning every time you glide you finger across the screen to move forward. Super cool stuff and a very nice thing to have available... especially if you're in line somewhere or waiting for any period of time.

To the book itself... it really is a powerful read that I think should be experienced by first and foremost any kid in school, but also by adults. The reason for this is portrays such a different world than most people experience. Told through the experiences of a dog (see, that's different to begin with), the book tells a tale of the Alaska Gold Rush and... a hard life. When I say hard, I don't simply mean difficult, but rather a life requiring resiliency and self-sufficiency to survive.

Interspersed with that, though, is also a story of both love and that of a journey. The love story told in "Call of the Wild" portrays an incredibly powerful bond between dog and owner. At the same time (and running for a longer period throughout the book), there's the tale of the journey that the lead character Buck travels. Through his portrayed experiences, he becomes something new and different that is part of his heritage (an illusion to the whole "call of the wild" idea).

I suppose the story has more meaning for me as a dog owner (particularly as a Husky owner), but it's a very descriptively written story which moves forward briskly (quite a fast read). In terms of "big theme" elements... it has quite a few: high drama, love, coming of age, fighting for survival.

Did I mention I liked it?

Blog Topics To Date... & Forward

I've been thinking more and more about both what type of writing I want to do. With the way my brain works, that thinking screams out for me to look at what type of writing I've done.

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So... I started posting early July of last year and in these last 8 months have done... around 120 different posts.
What this means: Well, I guess that I went from wishing in June of last year that I was writing to having done a blog post (otherwise known as "writing") every two days on average. Pretty happy with that.

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Getting into the details of what exactly I wrote about, here's what I found:

31 book review posts (25 from non-fiction and 6 from fiction books).

89 remaining posts that fall under the following topic areas:
- 34 posts: Business
- 9 posts : Entertainment
- 10 posts: Life (kind of a catch-all category to be sure)
- 16 posts: Politics
- 8 posts: Sports
- 12 posts: Writing

What this means: Two things jump out to me. One is that I find important the idea of reading books (and then having an opinion about said tomes) and two is that I find at least some aspects of business to be interesting.

Yes... I can also really like something that's "pure art", but me thinks there's also stuff of note in the business world (you know... the one in which lots of people make the money that pays living expenses).

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Taking a different view of the 89 posts that aren't book reviews... here's the sources they come from / reference / link to:
- 23 posts: Time Magazine
- 14 posts: BusinessWeek
- 9 posts: Sports Illustrated
- 7 posts: Fast Company
- 6 posts: Esquire
- 30 posts: other... includes websites, television shows, my own ramblings and a few other publications.

What this means: Not entirely sure, but I'm gonna go with the idea that I like the magazines I subscribe to. One of the great things about the whole worldly-wide interwebnet information superhighway is that it gives tons and tons of material (like for instance... this blog), but one of the problems is... same as the aforementioned great thing.

With so much material out there, it's nice to have magazines (or websites if you prefer) that you expect to have good stuff contained within. What I find is that often the stuff I read serves as a jumping off point to go find out more... both on the web and... to the point of the reading books mention, to actually seek out and read books referenced from a magazine article.

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Trying to now take this information and tie it back to the point of the post... I'm pretty happy with both the type and content of writing (and reading) I've done with this blog thus far and will likely continue it.

What I am toying with, though, is the idea of writing fiction (perhaps based in reality in the vein of an Erik Larson), but I'll have to both chew on that to try to figure out how it may incorporate into the blog and... oh yeah... you know... actually start writing it.

Future details as appropriate...

"Day of the Writer" Cinequest Film Festival Event

I attended the "Day of the Writer" event yesterday in downtown San Jose and... some extremely interesting stuff. It was put on by the Cinequest Film Festival and featured four different events throughout the course of the day.

1. A seminar with Professor Hal Ackerman of the UCLA screenwriting program.
2. Another seminar... this one with Professor Richard Walker, from the same UCLA program.
3. A panel discussion with four accomplished screenwriters talking about their work.
4. A moderated Q&A session with "Juno" screenwriter Diablo Cody.

Yep... a pretty good value for the $20 ticket price.

The dominant theme that I took from the day was was something said in one way or another by multiple speakers... writers write. The idea being that for someone to consider themselves a writer, they simply have to put pen to paper (or hands to keyboard) and do it. Where the success comes from (keeping in mind that whole thing about talent helping) is from repeating the writing process over and over.

There were variations on this theme to be sure with some people focused more on the writing schedule that you stick to and some on just getting the words out whenever, but all seemed to echo this notion that you just have to keep writing consistently.

With this said, below are some of what I felt were the more interesting things from each speaker:


Hal Ackerman: author of “Write Screenplays that Sell: The Ackerman Way"

A really friendly seeming and engaging guy who hit probably harder than any other speaker this notion of creating a writing schedule and sticking to it. As others noted, you're not always going to create great work during that time (heck, you may not write much of anything), but you're committing to it.

Tying into the prior stated concept of "writers write", Ackerman told an anecdote about how he wanted to call his screenwriting book "Take Vienna" (as opposed to the title that he attributed to the book's publishers). The story behind this was from Napoleon Bonaparte who when asked his military strategy replied somewhat incredulously... "if the goal is to take the city of Vienna, then the strategy is... take Vienna!" As Ackerman related... nothing gets written if you don’t write it, and what makes you a writer is the physical act of writing.

Ackerman also imparted some of what I'll call high-level wisdom through his story of meeting George Burns at a party and the comedian asking “What do you do?” and then upon hearing that Ackerman was a writer, following that up with “Do you love what you do?” Ackerman then being able to respond "yes, I really do"... that's good stuff.

Was also some pretty good technical type advice from Ackerman:
- Desire: when you start writing something, don’t worry about theme, instead think about what the desire of the character is... what does the character want?... what are they willing to do?... how will they get it?

- Intimacy trumps morality: if they audience connects with a character (often through experience or the objective of the character), what they do isn’t as important… they can still be rooted for.

- The 3 act movie: end of act 1 – sea change event, end of act 2 – something horrible, end of act 3 – it all goes down.

- Inevitability: what to shoot for, as opposed to predictability.


Richard Walker: also a professor (and screenwriting author) from UCLA

Had some interesting things to say as well. Some of his ideas are listed below:

- You must write your own personal story… told an anecdote about George Lucas and his father (with whom he had a difficult relationship) influencing the story of Star Wars.

- All we have in life is time… and the clock is ticking so we have to decide how to use it.

- Integration of a story means absolutely everything moves forward the character and expands your knowledge of him.

- Be wary in writing of using “discussions” to reveal plot. Have to think about how people really interact (isn’t sitting around talking about their motivations).

1. Suck for bucks – should try to reach as big an audience as possible.
2. Sex and violence are good – remember that it’s dramatic art.
3. Lie through your teeth – it’s not a true story.


Panel Discussion featuring:
(1) Executive producer of Fringe and Everybody Hates Chris.
(2) Writer of both the book and screenplay for 1906… being made by Pixar.
(3) Writer of “The Machinist”.
(4) Writer on George Lucas Clone Wars TV show.

Lots of random interesting things from the panel discussion:

- You have to learn to write well… it’s a craft.

- Clone Wars guy started after he didn't like his 9-5 job and enrolled in a short-story program at Stanford.

- Research can be a good way to start writing.

- Exec producer screenwriter writes from 12:00-3:00AM.

- The minutiae of life is not high drama.

- Importance of the writing schedule… eventually stuff will come.

- Outlining as a critical part of writing.

- All different types of writers. Among the four panelists, three described themselves as 1. A bleeder writer, 2. A component writer & 3. A vomit writer.

- Should read “Writers at Work” from the Paris Review.

- If you sit in a chair for an amount of time, you’re a writer.

- Should be confident in your voice… from the writer of “1906”.


Diablo Cody

Super super cool. She came across as down to earth, friendly and very grateful for the success that she's had. Probably more than anyone else she provided evidence of the fact that if you're doing good work (in her case, it was writing a blog), it's actually possible for someone influential to notice it... and there's your big break.

Her appearance was a "moderated" Q&A discussion with the audience and Lew Hunter, the Chairman Emeritus and Professor of Screenwriting at UCLA. I use the quotes because... well, because it was a bizarre often rambling moderation. That said, the appearance was excellent.

Below are some of the random things I noted from her talk:

- Author of “Candy Girl” prior to "Juno" and has "Jennifer's Body" coming out this fall.

- Wrote “Juno” w/o outlining or taking a screenwriting class… just bought a script in a bookstore and followed that.

- Highly recommends blogging… it’s a way to get eyeballs w/o rejection. Just hit publish.

- Posts regularly to Twitter and does a column for Entertainment Weekly.

- Loves John Irving.

- You just have to write daily… it may not be good, but it’s done.


All in all, an excellent day with some really good content.

"God Save the Fan" by Will Leitch

Just finished reading "God Save the Fan" by http://www.deadspin.com/ founding editor Will Leitch. Pretty interesting read from a guy who built an enormous website around the types of sports stories not traditionally covered in the mainstream media.



Leitch's website with links to his work and current writing for New York Magazine can be found here and (as his website also features) "God Save the Fan" is just his most recent book, with several others, including the Young Adult book "Catch" coming prior). Back to the book at hand, though... it's an entertaining read that gives the author's view on sports through the prism of it's major entities: the players, the owners, the media and most importantly, the fans.

The fundamental point that Leitch makes throughout the book is that sports are simply games that provide an escape from everyday life for the fans who watch them. The commentators who ascribe huge meaning to events and attempt to generate epic controversy can get in the way of that basic escape and enjoyment.

Maybe it's expanding on this and maybe it's digressing from it a bit, but below are some of the more interesting things I took from the book (yep... in order from start to finish):

Introduction: Features an anecdote about the "pre-everyone finding out about the dogfighting" Michael Vick. At the time he was hugely popular and heavily promoted by ESPN and other major sports entities. Though it was posted on http://www.thesmokinggun.com/, nobody seemed to care that Vick was being accused of giving a girl herpes... and then seeking medical treatment under the most excellent name "Ron Mexico". Good stuff.

Part 1: Players
- Leitch makes the point that the steroid controvery is a touch silly given that it's portrayed as such a crime and yet taking cortisone shots described as athletes simply paying the price.
- NBA star Gilbert Arenas is trumpeted as being the perfect pro athlete for fans to relate to because... he's a bit loony and speaks of sports as being a diversionary entertainment for the fans rather than being something of enormous import that it's not.

Part 2: Owners
- Observation about how fans often side with owners over players in cases of salary disputes. The surmised reason why is that fans can see themselves as being management more than they can imagine being pro athletes. This is tied closely to the fact that people think they could be general managers "if just given the chance".
- Mention of the college football website http://www.everydayshouldbesaturday.com/

Part 3: Media (and why it can be lame)
- Leitch's college experience reporting with Michigan basketball player Robert "Tractor" Traylor. The phrase "because he can" comes to mind... and the story is enough to push anyone away from wanting to be a sports reporter.
- The ESPN empire and it's various foibles... some amusing and relatively harmless (especially for the fellas) and some more disconcerting. Especially how ESPN influences through it's coverage choices.
- The Carl Monday saga. Too nuanced and fantastic to fully describe here so the wikipedia reference will have to do. Having seen it, I highly recommend The Daily Show with Jon Stewart report on Carl Monday.
- The idea of a "sports media expert". C'mon... please. Hence, the blogs...

Part 4: Fans
- Again... it should be about being entertained (or distracted and entertained as the case may be). Everything else... well, to borrow a phrase, it's just noise (or Dick Vitale / Stephen A. Smith / Skip Bayless shouting).

Good book. Entertaining for a sports fan.

Customer Service Special Report from BusinessWeek

The March 2 issue of BusinessWeek featured it's annual ranking of the top performing companies in the all-important area of customer service.



The list itself was interesting (with online retailer Amazon at #1), but there was lot of associated pieces of note. These ranged from the special report introductory article to the feature piece on Amazon and a host of other vignettes that can be found at this special report jumping off page from the BusinessWeek site.

I previously posted about customer service here in reference to the 2008 special report from BusinessWeek and find this to be such a hugely important thing for companies needing to compete harder than ever for every customer... and every customer dollar.

Barack Obama's Budget & Speech to Congress

Really enjoyed Joe Klein's "Obama's Speech: A Tonal Masterpiece" from the latest Time Magazine. Solid stuff and the speech it references (particularly the final minute of the speech) is below...



Also, this 3 minute video of Obama several days later introducing his first budget is worth listening to...



Really good stuff.

"Triangle" by David Von Drehle

Just finished reading "Triangle" by David Von Drehle and found it to be an excellent work of historical writing.






I've previously enjoyed quite a bit Von Drehle's writing for Time Magazine... which sent me off in search of books written by him. What I found in "Triangle" was a detailed look at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire of 1911 that left 146 Garment Industry workers dead.


What Von Drehle does with the book (subtitled "The Fire That Changed America") is paint both a portrait of the lives lost in this disaster, but also one of how that loss was not in vain. I find it terribly interesting when a writer can take an event and provide the context for that and then show it's ramifications in a larger picture. This is exactly what's accomplished here as Von Drehle starts by profiling the working lives of those who would have perished in the fire and then goes from there.


The Garment Industry grew rapidly around this time with it's ranks being filled by under paid and over worked immigrants from Europe. At the time of the fire, there had been efforts to improve the lot of these workers (most of whom lived crammed into tenement buildings in New York City), but things didn't really start to get better until after the tragedy. One would like to think that the loss of life wasn't required, but Von Drehle shows how in this situation, it combined together with efforts already undertaken (and with extraordinary individuals) to improve employee working conditions.


In fact, "Triangle" shows how the fire was in many ways the catalyst pushing forward progressive ideas as an alternative to the previous approach of the Tammany Hall regime that controlled New York politics. These progressive ideas would be later championed by FDR and become the bedrock of the Democratic party in America.


The other thing that "Triangle" does on a much more micro level is provide a face to those who perished in this tragedy. Very interesting stuff and for those who are interested in history, it's certainly worth the time to read.

Kate Winslet Cover Story from Time Magazine

Very compelling piece in the latest Time Magazine on Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet.



Written by Mark Harris, it's titled "Best Actress: Kate Winslet's Moment" and paints a very nuanced picture of the "Titanic" leading lady... who has now won a Best Actress Academy Award for her "through the ages" portrayal of a former Concentration Camp guard in "The Reader". I've never given a huge amount of thought to Winslet or her skills as an actress, but found interesting the views of herself in the movie industry as detailed by Harris.

Also from this issue of Time was mention of the Jim Carrey narrated film "Under The Sea 3D"... sounds really cool.

Company-Employee Relationship

Interesting commentary piece by Nancy Gibbs from the Feb 16 issue of Time Magazine. Titled "Married to the Job" it features Gibb's views on the delicate balance between companies and employees in difficult economic times. It's a short read, but pretty compelling... especially for those who work in large corporations.

Related to the topic of corporations and how they interact with employees... in it's Feb 16 issue, BusinessWeek did a book review of "Everything I Know About Business I Learned at McDonald's: The 7 Leadership Principles that Drive Break Out Success" by Paul Facella. I didn't necessarily find myself compelled to seek out and read the book, but was interested in the employee appreciation practices attributed to McDonald's. The phrase that stood out to me from the review was "at McDonald's, praise is always given in public and always heartfelt."

It's a simple concept, but... there can't always be raises, promotions or bonuses given, but there can be appreciation and respect shown to employees. In the long-run this is going to help achieve success more than a different approach.

HP Mention in Shaun White Fast Company Article

I wrote previously on Hewlett-Packard with a post on various and sundry media mentions back in July of last year and then a December post about positive things in the HP PC business and recently came across a few interesting and related HP references.

The Fast Company Magazine Feb 2009 issue cover story on snowboarder/skateboarder Shaun White details White's activities with various companies looking to sell in the markets he connects most with. One of the more visible partnerships White has is with Hewlett-Packard and in the Fast Company piece, HP Marketing VP David Roman comments on how White was the subject of the first HP "hands" commercial.

The idea behind the campaign is that celebrities describe how they use their personal computers as an extension of themselves... while using their hands (and very cool ad production) to tell the story. This focus on computer functionality as an expression of personality can also be found in HP's new mini-note netbook (detailed in this BusinessWeek article) with the exterior graphics from fashion designer Vivienne Tam.

Interesting stuff.

Fast Company Investigative Piece on BPA in Plastics

Terribly interesting (and frightening) article in the Feb 2009 issue of Fast Company Magazine about the chemical BPA and it's impact. The piece titled "The Real Story Behind Bisphenol A" looks at both the effects of BPA with constant exposure and how those effects are denied by the industry producing it.

In short, BPA is produced in the U.S. by five different companies and is an enormous business with the chemical serving as a core ingredient in hundreds of different products that need to be shatterproof. This plastic or plastic-like output serves as the core ingredient in everything from cell phone parts to... baby bottles. This last item in particular is where things get a bit dicey. BPA has been shown to be harmful to the reproductive system and potentially cancer causing if exposed to repeatedly... especially for those with weakened or not fully developed immune systems.

Where things cross over from bad to worse is with the narrative around BPA from the companies making it. While one purely arbitrary research study after another shows BPA to be a harmful ingredient in products, industry-funded studies proclaim that all is well. Oh yeah, the U.S. regulatory arms charged with oversight of something like this have to date decided that the industry-funded studies are the ones to go with. Despite much more stringent regulation of BPA (particularly in products used by infants) in Europe as well as Canada, it's pretty much up to consumers to try to seek out non-BPA-containing products for their kids. Those products are definitely out there, but you have to work to find them. Good times.

Pierre Omidyar and Social Entrepreneurship

I wrote in August of last year a blog post about Jeff Skoll... the former eBay founder who has since founded Particpate Media and the Skoll Foundation. So, it seemed only right to do a post about the other eBay founder (really the guy who was there before Skoll, Pierre Omidyar.

Both Skoll and Omidyar have been pioneers in and advocates of the field of Social Entrepreneurship, the sometime for-profit, sometimes non-profit category of business that benefits disadvantaged people. Skoll's efforts are written about in the linked blog post and Omidyar's can be found through the organization he started... the Omidyar Network.

Additonally, lots of interesting mentions of Omidyar can be found through the below search results...

- Omidyar search results on the BusinessWeek site.

- Omidyar search results on the Fast Company site.

"New Moon" by Stephenie Meyer

Just finished reading "New Moon"... the second book from Stephenie Meyer's four-part "Twilight" series.



The book picks up where "Twilight" left off with Bella (human) dating Edward (vampire). From Stephenie Meyer's official website, here's a key passage from the first chapter...

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"Shoot," I muttered when the paper sliced my finger; I pulled it out to examine the damage. A single drop of blood oozed from the tiny cut.

It all happened very quickly then.

Edward threw himself at me, flinging me back across the table...

I tumbled down to the floor by the piano, with my arms thrown out instinctively to catch my fall, into the jagged shards of glass. I felt the searing, stinging pain that ran from my wrist to the crease inside my elbow.

Dazed and disoriented, I looked up from the bright red blood pulsing out of my arm—into the fevered eyes of the six suddenly ravenous vampires.
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So... an intriguing beginning to the book for all who enjoyed part one of the series (myself included), but as a whole it seemed like the story fell short.

There was definitely some interesting development of characters (notably Jacob Black, Bella's friend) and storylines, but sometimes things seemed to get a bit muddled. The consequence of this for me was either hard to follow action or abrupt drops in story threads.

The other criticism I would have is that the writing got weepy (lots of "can't live if living is without you") and felt like it should be set to a Taylor Swift high-school ballad. That said, the books aren't really written for my demographic so I shouldn't quibble here.

All of this said, I did really enjoy book one of the series (particularly the first half) and am terribly impressed by a writer who came out of nowhere with a great first book (story of that here) as well as someone who gets a lot of people reading (i.e. J.K. Rowling). "New Moon" as a book probably isn't the greatest piece of writing ever done (or even the greatest Stephenie Meyer writing), but does have some interesting development to Bella's story as part of the series.

If someone liked "Twilight" and wants to continue the saga, it's certainly not a bad use of time to read "New Moon" as a prelude to "Eclipse" and then the conclusion book... "Breaking Dawn".

Written Content Pricing & Delivery - from Time Magazine

Couple of interesting articles in the Feb 16 issue of Time around online news content... focusing both on the financial viability of the companies that publish it (online and in print) and on the delivery mechanism of that content.

The first piece is by Walter Isaacson, formerly a managing editor of Time Magazine, and details his views on how to make this whole financially viable thing work. The cover story titled "How to Save Your Newspaper" espouses an idea that Apple has made ubiquitous through it's iTunes Music Store... micro-payments.

It's an interesting idea in that it drills down further from the idea of online subscriptions (which are usually on a monthly basis) and questions why content couldn't be received on a micro-basis (with costs that could be anywhere upwards from a penny). This would enable the organizations that create that content to remain open for business and in essence, keep the industry alive. Isaacson's assertion is that even though it would be different than the current mostly-free model around web news content, the idea of paying Apple $.99 per song on iTunes likely seemed revolutionary to those getting content free on Napster.

The second piece around written content from this issue of Time focuses not on the type of content itself, but rather on the delivery mechanism. Whether it be a newspaper, magazine, book or other printed material, there's efforts from multiple companies to figure out the best type of mobile electronic reader for that content, and to deliver that. This is the topic covered in the story "The Race for a Better Read" which looks at both current handheld offerings and what the future may hold.

The best known option out there is the "Kindle" handheld reader from Amazon, but competition will be likely coming in the future. Some companies to keep an eye on would be the Silicon Valley startup Plastic Logic (which is being led by a former HP manager I've met) or Apple if they (as rumored) get into the market with a larger version of the iTouch. Also mentioned in the article is the Adobe AIR software program that serves as a platform for material to to be written onto.

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Not necessarily related to this topic, but two other things of interest I recently found from Time...

The book "How We Decide" by Jonah Lehrer is about the psychology of how consumers make purchase decisions and reviewed in the same Feb 16 Time issue.

From http://www.time.com/ is a listing with detailed descriptions on Time's 50 Best Websites of 2008. Interesting stuff.

"What Would Google Do?" Book Excerpt from Feb 9 BusinessWeek

Very thought provoking excerpt from Jeff Jarvis' "What Would Google Do?" in the February 9th issue of BusinessWeek.




Jarvis is the author of the Internet and media website http://www.buzzmachine.com/ and his book looks at some of the lessons of Google success that could be adapted to other companies and industries. A general theme that's examined is the idea of open-source innovation and product development and the book excerpt (that can be found here) is about how open-source could be utilized by the beleaguered Big Three automakers.

The excerpt is interesting in it's examples of what Ford, Chrysler and GM could (but, likely won't) do to utilize consumer feedback in the design and features of new autos. In addition, Jarvis writes about the concepts of both community and personalization... and how much could be done to more closely connect consumers with their cars. There are steps in these areas already being taken by both BMW and Toyota's Scion brand and Jarvis describes how this could be taken further following this "Google model" of development.

Kenny Moore Profile in the Oregon Quarterly

Very interesting profile on writer and former Olympic distance runner Kenny Moore in the Summer 2008 issue of "Oregon Quarterly" magazine. Moore was featured in the alumni publication due to his receiving first an undergraduate and then a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the U of O in 1966 and 1972 respectively.

The "Oregon Quarterly" website can be found here, but the path to the article itself is a bit more circuitous... the Oregon Library has the entire issue archived here and then piece itself, titled "Intertwining Ovals" by Todd Schwartz, is on page 40 of the pdf file.

With that long and winding route now laid out... the story is a fascinating look at Moore and his life first as an athlete and then a writer. Of particular interest are the anecdotes about how his career writing for Sports Illustrated came about... showing how opportunities can often present themselves in odd and unexpected ways.

Moore wrote for SI until 1995 and a compilation of his work there can be found through a search of the CNNSI Vault. Additionally, information on both Moore and his writing can be found on the author's website.

John Gardner "Personal Renewal" Speech

I first came across John Gardner from a March 1994 article titled "Meaning: Something You Build Into Your Life" that he wrote for "Stanford Magazine". Given to me by my parents, the piece is about the themes of human potential, character and commitment (other themes as well, but I reckon these three are weighty enough to suffice as a description).

I've not seen this exact article in electronic form ("Stanford Magazine" is archived online back to 1996), but did find a section of the PBS website devoted to Gardner, his life and his work. Part of the site is a speech that he gave in 1990 titled "Personal Renewal" containing many of both the same concepts and exact language later reprinted in the aforementioned magazine article.

Gardner's speech is reprinted here and some of the more profound highlights are below...

"If we are conscious of the danger of going to seed, we can resort to countervailing measures. At almost any age. You don't need to run down like an unwound clock. And if your clock is unwound, you can wind it up again. You can stay alive in every sense of the word until you fail physically. I know some pretty successful people who feel that that just isn't possible for them, that life has trapped them. But they don't really know that. Life takes unexpected turns."

"The things you learn in maturity aren't simple things such as acquiring information and skills. You learn not to engage in self-destructive behavior. You learn not to burn up energy in anxiety. You discover how to manage your tensions, if you have any, which you do. You learn that self-pity and resentment are among the most toxic of drugs. You find that the world loves talent, but pays off on character."

"I'm not talking about anything as narrow as ambition. After all, ambition eventually wears out and probably should. But you can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, "Be interested," Everyone wants to be interesting -- but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep a sense of curiosity. Discover new things. Care. Risk failure. Reach out."

"Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account."

Very cool stuff...