Sports Illustrated Features: Andy Ferrara & Lionel Messi

Two very compelling pieces from the May 31 issue of Sports Illustrated.

The first was written by David Epstein about West Point cadet Andy Ferrera.  Titled "Spikes on the Ground", the piece details Ferrara's collegiate track career and forthcoming military service upon graduation. 

He comes across in the Epstein piece as a leader of men (one of only four cadet regimental commanders at West Point), but also someone with a remarkable family background.  Three brothers before him entered the military and he's gone through the heartbreak of having older brother Matthew Ferrera killed in action in Afghanistan Nov of 2007.

It's moving to read of someone who deals with such loss and moves forward with an incredibly difficult path... with Andy Ferrara's statement from Epstein's article being "just because my brother died, doesn't mean I don't have to serve."

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The second article from this SI that stood out to me was written by one of my favorite writers, S.L. Price.  "Lionel Messi: The World At His Feet" is about the F.C. Barcelona and Argentina National Team football (leading into the World Cup next month, I'll use the global name for the sport) star.  Messi the player makes for an interesting subject given his widely noted status as best player in the world, but the context around him makes for some pretty remarkable reading. 

As Price describes Messi... loved in Spain, but viewed with some combination of detachment and demanding expectation in his native Argentina.  Add to that a large personality conflict with his coach/brilliant former player/trainwreck Diego Maradona... there's a lot there of interesting to chew on. 
In the article, a 2007 Messi goal is written of and as the below clip shows, it's pretty amazing:

"The No-Cry Potty Training Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley

Just finished "The No-Cry Potty Training Solution" about... yep, potty training.

It's very different than the other books reviewed here, but I did read it and want to keep track of the highlights so will do so here.


The author, Elizabeth Pantley (website here), also wrote "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" which my wife and I found to be very helpful... and which we heard about either through "The Baby Book" by Dr. William Sears or from a talk on sleep by Dawn Fry (website here).


Anyhoo... here's the highlights I took from the book (not necessarily in the order the book had them)...


Concepts to remember:
- Potty training is only going to work when both the child and parents are ready for it
- Takes 3 to 9 months to complete the process to where there are not accidents
- Will be toilet training setbacks
- Many kids use nighttime diapers for a year or so after daytime potty training
- Potty training is different than anything related to bed wetting... which is a physiological thing that self corrects eventually


Safety suggestions:
- Install child safe covers on outlets
- Teach kids about hot and cold water from faucet
- Store electrical stuff out of reach
- Put all medication elsewhere
- Install ground fault circuit interrupters on outlets


Getting ready suggestions:
- Use cloth training pants rather than pull ups
- If you use pull ups, use ones with a liner that kids can feel moisture on
- If using a child toilet seat (which goes on a regular toilet seat), make sure you've got a light step stool to get up there... as well as any needed stool for hand washing
- Can buy a folding seat adaptor for when on trips
- Give fiber rich food and avoid junk food
- Have available diaper wipes for the first poop wipe... can use toilet paper after that

Process suggestions:
- Go potty in the morning and before bed... as well as 10 to 30 minutes after a full meal
- Can set a timer for potty reminders every two hours
- Fine to sit there for a while, both should and needs to be a relaxing time
- Make sure that hand washing is part of the process
- Best to have as little clothing as possible when learning
- If your child wants to keep pooping in their diaper, have them do so in the bathroom

 Enabling suggestions:
- Don't ask, use a positive suggestion like "let's go sit on the potty now"
- Try to make it fun (games, songs, stories, sticker books, posters, prizes)
- Specific examples of this would be a potty prize treasure box with gift wrapped items to open or a song of all the steps involved

So... all in all, I'd say Pantley wrote another really helpful book about a topic that one doesn't think about much unless they have kids at the age in question, then it's a big deal.

Joe Posnanski - A Volumous Portfolio of Words

Good writing, interesting topics... excellent things both to post about, but another facet of writing that's become a big deal with the advent of the whole "New Media" thing is the vehicle used for said writing.

While newspapers, magazines and hard copy books are still very much around, now you've also got traditional media websites, wikis, blogs and twitter that can serve as ways one can communicate via the written word.

I find good writing to be the most interesting thing, but it's cool to see writers that use multiple media to communicate said good writing to their audience.  I'm sure there's others as well, but a good example of this type of solid new media author is Joe Posnanski of Sports Illustrated.

I say Sports Illustrated because that's where I came across his stuff, but here's what I've seen from Posnanski online...

CNNSI archive:

twitter feed:

personal blog:

Man, that's a lot of (solid) writing for one guy to put online (with a cool example of how at least the twitter feeds lead into online features linked to here). 

Combine that with Posnanski's articles in the print version of Sports Illustrated as well as his books... impressive stuff. 

May 24 Time Magazine: Roots of Empathy, Personal Branding, Elena Kagan & Lost

A lot of interesting stuff from the May 24 issue of Time (cover image below).

First was "At Center Court: Can Kagan Be a Consensus Builder?"  by Jeffrey Rosen.  What struck me about this profile of Obama's Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, was how darn smart she must be.  An academic background of Princeton and Oxford followed by Harvard Law... and then Professor and Dean of the Harvard Law School, she's no dummy.

Second was the the James Poniewozik piece "Preparing for Life After Lost."  Even if I didn't like the show (which I do quite a bit), I'd be interested as I find compelling stuff that falls into the "game changer" category.  As described in this story, Lost fits this bill with the way that it upended popular convention by being a complicated serial drama... and one that then ends on top rather than dragging out past it's prime.

Third was "How to Deprogram Bullies: Teaching Kindness 101."  Very interesting concept here about bringing mothers and babies into school classrooms to help teach a concept labeled Roots of Empathy (ROE).  One of the fundamental notions of the program is that people who victimize others often have been victims themselves... and can get a lot out of watching the frustration of a cute and protection needing infant.

Finally, I noted the Joel Stein last page column "Love Me, Love My Brand, Says the Sultan of Snark™."  It didn't necessarily have much gravitas for me until the part about one's personal brand being important because "if you don't give your brand some thought, you become the guy whose funeral is all about how much he loved the Mets." 

Perhaps this was just intended as a throwaway line, but it resonated with me from the perspective of people considering what they'll be known for.  It's not a knock on sports of course, but rather it's the idea of what one leaves behind for others.

South Africa Story from BusinessWeek

Pretty compelling story from the May 17-23 issue of BusinessWeek.

Written by Ken Walls, "South Africa: A Big Bounce from the World Cup" is all about the largest economy on the continent leading into it's time on the world stage starting June 11.  What struck me about the piece is both how fraught with risk / opportunity the event is for South Africa and the description of the place itself.

In terms of beauty, Walls writes of Cape Town within South Africa as being a city like San Francisco, but with the towers of Yosemite there as well.  The overall concept of the country is also terribly interesting in that you have a place that used to be something completely different during the times of apartheid, but is now finding it's way with two different races figuring out how to make it all work as a country.

Really the place sounds amazing to me and makes me think of the descriptions of it (both the land and the apartheid-era conflict) from the excellent Bryce Courtenay (author website here) books "The Power of One" and "Tandia". 

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A couple of other short pieces of interest to me from an older issue (Apr 26-May 2) of BW...

- "New Legal Protections for Social Entrepreneurs" is about how states are beginning to allow public corporations the choice to register as "benefit corporations"... granting them a level of exception from the public company mandate of all actions needing to be solely towards the goal of shareholder value.  Very interesting concept that seems to make sense both from allowing people to decide how to run operations and investors to opt in or out of that.

- "Innovator: Fred Brooks" is about the 79-year-old computer scientist and technology executive and his new book "The Design of Design"... sounds like a good read.

Sports Illustrated Stories - Dallas Braden Perfect Game & Genes Impacting Sports

Two different pieces from the May 17 issue of Sports Illustrated that stood out to me... neither for what I thought was necessarily great writing, but both with very interesting content.

The cover story was "Happy Mother's Day" about the 19th Perfect Game in Major League history... thrown by Dallas Braden.  Written by Tom Verducci, the story chronicles the trials and tribulations that Braden has been through and how they led up to his masterpiece performance.  Such a great narrative around the performance with it being on Mother's Day / Breast Cancer Awareness Day and in front of his grandmother who raised him after his single mom passed away from cancer.

Below is the clip from Comcast Sports Net Bay Area:



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From the same May 17 issue was "Sports Genes" by David Epstein about how genetic markers can and do influence athletic performance.  What was terribly interesting about this piece to me wasn't so much from the perspective of what's known now about genes and their impact on sports, but what the future holds.  With performance enhancing drugs or the possibility of their use being so prevalent in many sports, gene therapy takes the idea of artificial enhancement to a new level. 

Oil Spill Cover Story from Time

Interesting cover story from the May 17 issue of Time Magazine.

Titled "The Far-Ranging Costs of the Mess in the Gulf", the piece by Bryan Walsh examines the recent oil spill resulting from an explosion on and subsequent sinking of an offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Walsh paints a pretty fascinating picture on a number of different fronts.  First was the loss of 11 lives in the rig explosion and now environmental and economic impact from the resulting oil gushing from burst pipes to the ocean surface.  Then you had both the response of the responsible for the mess oil giant BP and the Coast Guard... acting on direction from the White House and other governmental agencies.

From the perspective of BP, it's interesting to read how their primary plan is to do something that's never really been done in basically putting a big cap over the spill.  From a policy perspective, the spill has already been used by various agenda carrying parties as reasons "offshore drilling is bad", "the administration is bad" and even better... "offshore drilling is good, as long as it's not off my particular shore."

In addition to detailing the event and ramifications of it, Walsh also includes in his story recommendations around energy policy and open discussion of what he terms the "ok, but not in my backyard" approach to unpleasant (and potentially devastating as this example shows) things such as offshore drilling.

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Also from this issue of Time was the interesting last page piece "How a Cancer-Stricken Dad Chose a Council of Successors" by Nancy Gibbs.  About author Bruce Feiler (known for his book "Walking the Bible"), the story details Feiler's response to a rare and aggressive cancer diagnosis.  Rather than retreating, he reaches out to those he respects with the idea of them agreeing to serve as father figures for his twin toddler girls.

It's a slightly different approach, but makes me think of that taken by Randy Pausch with his book "The Last Lecture" (reviewed here).  Both meaningful actions taken with others in mind.
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Gareth Thomas Profile from Sports Illustrated

Really powerful feature story from the May 3 issue of Sports Illustrated.

From Senior writer Gary Smith, "Gareth Thomas: The Only Openly Gay Male Athlete" tells a story that is statistically almost impossible to believe.  Of all the competitors in all the professional sporting leagues around the world, only one has openly come out. 

Knowing that there must be many more gay pro athletes, it seems that it would be an enormous inspiration should others step forward as Thomas has.  The story by Smith at times leans a bit towards melodrama, but is written in a style to captivate and certainly covers an important topic.

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Also from Sports Illustrated, but this time from the May 10 issue, was a memoriam piece on longtime SI writer Ron Fimrite.  Interesting stuff about someone who sounds to also be quite the lyrical writer... with a "makes me want to read" description about his 1983 piece about "The Play" from Cal vs Stanford titled "The Anatomy Of A Miracle".

"The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Recently finished "The Big Short" by Berkeley-based author Michael Lewis and felt it was an excellent read.



I was interested in this book after previously reading by Lewis "The Blind Side" (yep, that one), "Moneyball", "The New New Thing" and "Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood". Good books all with the most recent review linked to here.

"The Big Short" is ostensibly about a handful of people that got rich betting against the financial hubris that preceded the real estate crash at the end of the '90s, but it's also about the mechanisms that made them wealthy.

Lewis writes about a highly complex financial system that's designed to be... highly complex and "above the common man", but does I'd say as good a job as could be done explain all the instruments of the financial industry around subprime mortgages.

Mortgage backed securities, Collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), credit default swaps... all of them tools that were created to either continue riding the wave of rising home values or to bet against that prospect. Where the individuals Lewis features made their money was by basically betting that consumer home loans would have higher incidences of default than predicted by those selling the CDOs and credit default swaps.

The way it all worked as described by Lewis was pretty fascinating in that you had rating agencies like Moody's and Standard and Poor's responsible for setting the values of the credit default swaps on pretty much arbitrary or made up terms. Even worse than the ratings agencies were the financial institutions packaging the loan bunches and continually manipulating the contents to make the loan pools appear less likely to have defaults than they actually were.

The whole thing is described by Lewis as being a crazy system designed by people who figured it would go up forever. However, it didn't and the few contrarians who (to borrow a phrase) "saw the emperor had no clothes" got very wealthy very fast.

All in all, the Lewis book is entertaining and as easy reading as possibly could be given the high finance topic.

Highly recommended...

100 Most Influential People List from Time

Interesting stuff written about some really interesting people in the Time Magazine "100 Most Influential People in the World" list for 2010... as featured in the May 10 issue.



Linked to below aren't the ones that stood out to me as most influential (note the omission of President Barack Obama), but rather the ones whose story struck me as particularly interesting and/or entertaining.

- President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil profiled by filmmaker Michael Moore. Incredible to me that Brazil will be making the dual splash (hopefully positive) of hosting first the 2014 World Cup and then 2016 Summer Olympics.

- Admiral Mike Mullen Chairman Joint Chiefs profiled by Joe Klein. An important guy that I recently posted about being on the cover of Fast Company.

Performing artist Lady Gaga by Cyndi Lauper. As is written about in great detail in this Esquire piece, someone in the mold of Madonna at the height of her fame who's been able to transcend performance and package themselves as the product.

Actor Neil Patrick Harris by fanboy darling Joss Whedon. A seemingly super cool guy (based on this Joel Klein piece from Time).

Singer/songwriter Prince by not even near Prince's level singer/songwriter Usher. Another artist like Lady Gaga who made themselves a persona. Additionally... the genius behind the song Purple Rain.

Surgeon, writer and policy advisor Atul Gawande by Tom Daschle. The author of three insightful books... last of which I reviewed here.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs by artist Jeff Koons. Piece contains an interesting comparison of consumer product and art.

Pandora founder Tim Westergren by novelist Kurt Andersen. A missive by an excellent writer about a guy who created just an excellent service.
Ivory Coast soccer star Didier Drogba by Eben Harrell. Can't wait for the World Cup to begin next month...

US Military Chief Master Sergeant Tony Travis by Sully Sullenberger. A guy called into post-earthquake Haiti that took control of the wreckage that was the airport and immediately got aid flowing in.

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There was certainly some great and influential people from this issue I didn't include above (and I'm sure are also great and influential people that Time left off the list), but this was quite a cross-section of interesting folk that in many cases had very compelling stuff written about them.

Supreme Court Piece by David Von Drehle

Really good piece from Time titled "Who Will Get Steven's Seat?" about the Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and his pending retirement from the bench.

Similar to Charles Pierce's "The Genuine Point Guard" on Steve Nash (which I posted about here), this David Von Drehle story on Stevens combines excellent writing and 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.

Admiral Mike Mullen Story from Fast Company

Some pretty interesting stuff from the May 2010 issue of Fast Company.

The cover story is a profile of Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Written by Jeff Chu, "Mullen on the Move" is an interesting look at the nation's top military officer. What comes across is a guy who combines together a huge work ethic (as evidenced by a snapshot of one day's schedule) with what appears to be an excellent grounding in his role and that of the U.S. Armed Forces.

In terms of his role, Mullen describes himself as being someone who doesn't necessarily do anything (in the sense that he doesn't make troop decisions), but does seek to advise well President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as his bosses. Beyond that, he comes across as a strong advocate of the military understanding and interacting with both business and the public. From dinners with CEOs to time on Jon Stewart and Facebook accounts, he does seem to be a guy that... gets it. As he says "I am resourced by the American taxpayer. I take great care with the stewardship of the money they pay for the national defense."

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Two other things of interest from this issue were this piece on IBM's World Community Grid (whereby spare computing power is used for large scale public good projects) and this on Susie Wee and touch efforts from HP. Tis' the thing of the future, that touch technology.

"The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande

Finished reading "The Checklist Manifesto" by noted surgeon Atul Gawande and found it to be a fairly interesting book.

Gawande is the author of two bestsellers that I enjoyed quite a bit, "Complications" and "Better"... both about his experiences as a doctor. Where "The Checklist Manifesto" diverged is that is covered not just medicine, but the wider-reaching concept of using a checklist in the pursuit of excellence. Fields discussed in the book range from aviation (where the checklist is perhaps most ingrained) to investing, building and yes... surgery.

While I found definite value in the checklist concept, I was more captivated by his prior two books in that they were all about a topic that he's dedicated his time to. Gawande is a good writer (contributes frequently to The New Yorker), though, and I'm interested in his National Magazine Award winning piece "The Cost Conundrum" (on health care expenditures in McAllen, TX) linked to from his website.

I'd recommend "The Checklist Manifesto" to anyone who either enjoyed Gawande's previous two books or is interested in the idea of peak performance and how to attain it in a given effort.

Ford in India & iPad for Work Pieces from BusinessWeek

Two interesting stories from the Apr 12 issue of BusinessWeek.



The first was titled "Alan Mulally's Asian Sales Call" and details how Ford Motor Co. and it's CEO have been focusing on expanding it's minimal 2-3% market share in India, China and surrounding countries. On the heels of other posts I've done on Ford lately, it really does seem the company is both making good moves and has a huge opportunity to grow.

The second was "The iPad, Your Newest Workplace Productivity Enhancer" about... yep, the iPad. The new boy wonder device from Apple has been pretty much everywhere lately including a recent cover story in Time linked to in this post, but what was interesting about this BW piece was the notion of the iPad for work. With someone like Marc Benioff of Salesforce making quotes about the iPad, perhaps it's applications (no double entendre intended) do go beyond entertainment to work functional.

Danger Around Us - Plastics & Bombs: from Time Magazine

A couple of interesting pieces from Time lately about two very different threats to public health...

The first was "Environmental Toxins" from the Apr 12 issue... which also contained the iPad and Apple stories I posted on and linked to here.

The toxins piece is by Bryan Walsh and all about the chemicals in plastics and other products we purchase. What it immediately brought to mind for me was my blog post from Feb 2009 on the BPA chemical component in shatterproof plastic (such as yep... baby bottles). The linked to BusinessWeek piece "The Real Story Behind Bisphenol A" was one of the more disconcerting articles I've come across in the last few years of reading BW.

The subheading of this Time article is "chemicals in plastics and other products seem harmless, but mounting evidence links them to health problems — and Washington lacks the power to protect us." To that end, here's a quote in the piece from Walsh...

"If you want to market a new drug, you need to convince the FDA-in multiple tests, over the course of years-that it won't cause serious harm. If you want to sell a new pesticide, you need to prove the same thing. The burden of proof is on the manufacturers to make the grade, and government regulators are the final judge. But if you want to market a new chemical for use in a product-even one that will come into contact with children or pregnant women-it's up to the EPA to prove that it's unsafe, using whatever data are provided by the chemical company, with little power to ask for more."

Not much more to say than that.

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The second "danger around us" piece from Time was "Rescuing a Potential Nuke from the Chile Quake" out of the Apr 19 edition.

In it, Eben Harrell recounts a story of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) which is charged with seeking out and securing around the globe sufficient quantities of highly enriched uranium (HEU) to build a nuclear bomb. Specifically, representatives of the agency were in Santiago, Chile to take possession of around 40 lb. of HEU when the magnitude 8.8 quake hit.

From that point, it was quite a tale of speed and alternate action in getting the material and then getting it safely out of the country.

Equally interesting was Harrell's mention of how HEU became so widely disseminated through a mid-1950s program called Atoms for Peace. To whit... HEU was given out to countries that could both prove they would use it for peaceful research (into things like medical isotopes) and would submit to regular inspection of said potential bomb material.

Maybe a good idea, maybe not... but, certainly an interesting one.

"Have a Little Faith" by Mitch Albom

Recently finished “Have a Little Faith” by Mitch Albom and found it a nice read.

Albom is a Detroit-based sportswriter (website here) who also wrote the bestselling memoir of alltime, “Tuesdays With Morrie” about his time spent as an adult with his aging former college professor.

In a very similar vein, “Have a Little Faith” is about the time Albom spent with his lifelong Rabbi as well as a recently met pastor in poor inner-city Detroit. Through the tale of these Men of God (but, different Gods) and his interactions with them, Albom weaves a narrative of faith, hope and impact.

The faith part is summed up well by the Rabbi with "faith is about doing… you are how you act, not just how you believe” when speaking of the import of ritual in daily life. The hope part applies in great measure to the Detroit pastor who struggles to keep his hole in the roof and no heat inside Church operating as… a Church. The impact part could pertain to either the Rabbi or Pastor, but for me, I felt it applied best to Albom himself… and what came out of his local newspaper columns on the Church.

“Have a Little Faith” definitely has a religious component to it (and multiple religions at that) and for that reason and others may touch some readers more than others, but back to what was said at the beginning of this missive… it’s a nice read.

Steve Nash Profile from Sports Illustrated

Really good feature on Steve Nash in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.



The story is titled "The Genuine Point Guard" and interestingly (well, to me) was written by Charles Pierce. I first came across Pierce probably ten years ago via his book "Sports Guy" and have since seen him published (fairly regularly) in Esquire. Just a really good writer who penned the late 2008 essay "American Surprise: How Election Night Brought Us Home Again".

Back to the piece on Nash... what was so compelling about it was the rare combination of excellent writing about an interesting subject. I found particularly of note Pierce's description of Nash as "genuine" as opposed to "authentic". Authenticity is described as something packaged for the purpose of public favor, but genuine the much harder to find concept of someone who just is themself... and that being a good thing. Among other things, Nash founded the production company Meathawk... which is producing an upcoming ESPN movie on Terry Fox (that I posted about here with link to a Fast Company cover story on Nash.)

In Nash, there seems to be a really good guy who acts good without ulterior motives. An admirable concept that Pierce does a great job of bringing home to the reader through his usage of language and the meaning behind specific words.

In short, words they be might powerful things and are used really really well here by Pierce.

Apple iPad & New Media: from Time Magazine

Some really interesting writing from Time Magazine lately about the iPad, it's potential impact and the related area of journalism and new media.

To the iPad itself, the April 12 issue gave us a cover image of Steve Jobs and mention of two stories within the pages (but, more later on this idea of "pages").



First was "The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again?", a fanboy piece penned by novelist and screenwriter Stephen Fry and second was "Do We Need the iPad? A TIME Review" by Lev Grossman.

Grossman wrote a number of nice things about the iPad, but also noted that it's usage appears to be "lovely for consuming content, but not creating it"... which echoed what I've seen from writers such as Jeff Jarvis in his BuzzMachine post "iPad danger: app v. web, consumer v. creator."

Fry's essay takes a very different approach in that he writes of his visit to Apple headquarters to speak with Jobs and his lieutenants responsible for running various facets of company business. While not having anything that would contradict the idea of the iPad as being for content consumption, Fry presents a compelling vision of it being an elegant and personal device for it's intended purpose... allowing users an immersive user-friendly experience with the things they want to access on a computer (including, but not limited to: music, videos, pictures, games, books and websites).

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While the iPad itself is simply a device, the Editor's Letter from this April 12 issue gave a glimpse of at least the potential for it to change markets (in this case the field of Journalism). In "Ushering in a New Era", Richard Stengel writes of Time's efforts to get a version of the magazine available for the iPad.

In the same category of "Journalism: Where it's Been, Where it's Going" was an essay by Alan Brinkley from the April 19 issue of Time. "What Would Henry Luce Make of the Digital Age?" covered the co-founder and former head of Time Inc. and addressed how he might have approached the current business climate and rush to digital facing print media.

What media should do doesn't have an easy answer, but is a fascinating topic. In February of last year I linked to and wrote about the Walter Isaacson Time cover story "How to Save Your Newspaper" and also find interesting (and encouraging) people like the aforementioned Jeff Jarvis and his BuzzMachine blog (and teaching around Interactive/Entrepreneurial Journalism at the City University of New York Journalism School).

No way to tell where things with media will wind up, but ranging from the guys writing about and working on it to the new products coming up in the space (even if they're designed more for content consumption than creation), there's a lot of interesting stuff going on around this field of new media and user experience with media new and old.

Duke over Butler CNNSI Story

Compelling piece by Joe Posnanski on CNNSI. Titled "Magical game comes down to last shot and Duke earns greatness", it's all about the Duke NCAA basketball title.

Really, though... it's about the excitement of sports and how anything can happen. Very cool stuff.

Roy Halladay Profile from Sports Illustrated

Excellent cover story from the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.

Written by Tom Verducci, "What Makes Roy Run" is a detailed profile of new Phillies ace Roy Halladay. I found myself drawn to the story of Halladay for the same reason I found compelling this SI story on Sidney Crosby (which I posted on here)... it chronicles a gifted athlete who works perhaps harder than anyone else to become even better.

So much to be said for someone that couples together work and skill... and it would be so easy to just be content with being near, but not at the top of the game.

Ford Motor Cool Tech Story from Fast Company

I wouldn't have had this view a few years ago, but if I were buying a car right now, me thinks I'd buy a Ford. Coming together Toyota's imploding quality, Ford being the only US automaker to not take huge bailout dollars and their very cool innovation... that's good stuff.

On the innovation front, the April issue of Fast Company featured the most excellent "How Ford’s Sync Technology Will Turn It Into America’s Most Surprising Consumer Electronics Company" from Paul Hochman.

A sidebar piece was all about the Sync communications platform from Ford. Copied directly from this "A Look at the Next Generation of Ford Sync" is the instrument panel on one of the new models with the forthcoming MyFord Touch user interface.



So great... car design that mimics and incorporates the best of consumer technology. From the story I really liked this featured quote from Ford Motor CEO Alan Mulally...

"It's cool to connect. But it's past cool. It's a reason to buy. We're going to be the coolest, most useful app you've ever had."

And to answer the question in advance, Mulally is quoted elsewhere in the story as saying "we won't do it unless it lets you keep your eyes on the road and hands on the wheel."

This combines with other mention in the piece of how the open system aspect of the Sync system has influenced other areas of automotive development (related to this June 2009 blog post about the company)... very compelling.
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Also from this issue of Fast Company was a pretty interesting story from Ellen McGirt titled "How Adam Carolla Became a Podcast Superstar".

Podcasting has been around for a while, but stories like this along with the companion piece about available podcasts show that it's starting to reach mainstream status.

Time Magazine Cover Story on Jobs... & Job Ruminations

Solid Time Magazine cover story by Barbara Kiviat titled "The Workforce: Where Will the New Jobs Come From?".



All about the economy and how eventual real growth will have to be in the form of newly created jobs (and job categories), I particularly found of note the ending of the piece (below) and what it make me consider.

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"If the key characteristics of the American economy are flexibility and forward motion, then we would all be better off if people felt more support — both financial and social — to invest in their education, switch jobs and industries and venture out to start new firms.

Establishing job creation as a discrete goal is a misleading enterprise. Beyond cyclic swings in demand, what we're really talking about creating is not jobs but ideas and technologies and more efficient ways of producing and selling goods and services."
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I've always felt that career success is a complicated recipe which incorporates the following ingredients (probably among others):

1. hard work
2. ability/proficiency

3. knowing what you want to do and actually doing it
4. being in the right place at the right time

5. being in a place where the first two things above matter and the second two are possible

Of this list, hard work and ability should (hopefully) be required things (but, sadly... aren't always).

Knowing what you want to do and actually doing it is hugely important because for many, that doesn't describe their work situation. When you hear stories about people who came up from the bottom floor of something, they in many cases were fortunate enough to know early on that thing was what they wanted, so they could start working on it early in their career when most everyone is on the bottom floor. Where it gets tougher (but, not impossible) is for people who don't know early on what they want to do... and don't have the same flexibility to start at the bottom of a field.

The fourth one is just as it's written... being in the right place at the right time is where many people have that big leap forward in their careers. If you combine effort and ability towards a goal that really matters to you, that right place at right time break "should" eventually come.

This is where the fifth career ingredient comes into play. There's a lot of different types of companies and work opportunities out there. Many of them are going to reward the first two, have the types of positions that let people let people who know their area of interest work in it and then have those chance to shine and advance... but, not all.


So, to tie back full circle to the Kiviat piece and quoted section at the end of it... I agree completely with her statement about people being willing to take career leaps, whether those be at a job role, company or industry level.

Working hard and becoming proficient at something is all good and well, but it should be at an activity that someone wants to do and in a place that provides rewards and opportunities to move forward.

Can be scary to move out of something comfortable that doesn't allow for this, but sometimes... it's just plain needed.

NCAA Basketball Tourney SI Article

Excellent piece from this week's Sports Illustrated on the NCAA Basketball Tournament.



From Tim Layden, "High Stakes" is all about March Madness and the ramifications of what can happen out of the tournament... with reference to some great past storylines in Bryce Drew and Valparaiso from 1998 and George Mason 2006.

For me personally, though, I think of Tyus Edney going coast to coast to win an early round game en route to a UCLA Championship and the #16 seed Princeton Tigers almost taking down Georgetown in a first round matchup. In the not quite as amazing, but still memorable category were the games I saw this last weekend with Michigan State taking down Maryland at the buzzer and Northern Iowa beating #1 seed Kansas.

One great thing about the tournament is each memorable game can stand on it's own as exciting, but then you never know what will follow and just how much that win can mean... i.e. UCLA wouldn't have advanced out of the early rounds to later win the title if not for that Tyus Edney bucket.

Even if someone's not a huge basketball fan, it's compelling writing from Layden about something with a lot of human drama.

Going beyond this piece again, if the below clip isn't human drama, I don't know what is...

BusinessWeek Magazine: Mar 22/29 Issue

Three articles of note I found in the latest issue of BusinessWeek... all with a common theme that I'll call hubris about money.

The most interesting was the last I came across... a review of the new Michael Lewis book "The Big Short". Being a fan of the handful of Lewis books I've read (most recent reviewed here), I'm always curious about new stuff by him and based on the BW review, this sounds fascinating. The idea is a chronicling of several individuals who made boatloads of money predicting the real estate crash of 1998. Specifically, they shorted some of the high-risk mortgage securities out there and flew in the face of conventional wisdom at the time... which assumed everyone would continue getting rich forever off real estate.

It certainly didn't help me at the time (since I still bought a house at the 2005 peak of the market), but I recall thinking about what would happen if home values actually were to go down... and be down when people's exotic low fixed rate loans adjusted to significantly higher conventional loans. Well, these guys did think about that and made themselves rich from it.

I'll now have to actually read the book to say any more, but the review itself is an indicator that it should be good.

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In the same category of books and people assuming perpetual riches was an excerpt from the Harry Markopolos book "No One Would Listen". All about the author's experiences with those close to and making money (or so they thought) in Bernard Madoff's Ponzi scheme, it's pretty compelling reading. Even if it didn't make sense upon examination, people wouldn't question the source of money that they thought Madoff was making them.

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Finally from this issue was the short piece "Can Manchester United Kick Its Debt Habit?" Simple summary would be... rich guys thought they'd get richer by borrowing huge sums of money and then began to get crushed under the debt payments.

Hmmm... seems to relate a bit to the other two articles linked to here, doesn't it?

"White Fang" by Jack London

Recently finished "White Fang" by Jack London and found it to be a good read.



Having previously used the "Classics" app on my iPhone to read "Call of the Wild" by London (which I reviewed here), I used the Amazon Kindle Reader app on my phone to read this one. Really didn't see much difference at all in the user interface or experience with the Kindle Reader app as opposed to Classics... both solid.

To "White Fang" itself... I definitely enjoyed "Call of the Wild" more as it simply seemed to have more action packed into a tighter space, but still did like this book. Particularly the ending I enjoyed in that it showed how multiple events over a long period of time can all come together to influence a moment. Also, London as a writer definitely is one of those people that I read and wonder how the heck they can write so well...

Author Websites

Following up on the heels of my blog post on tags or labels noted, I wanted to create a new label category for posts with an "author website" linked to within.

This certainly doesn't mean that each site will be tremendously interesting as I know at least a few are there just to help sell the book and don't have much else on or from the author. On the flip side... I know there's also at least a few that have lots of content from the writer and should make for compelling reading.

It will of course be searchable via the tag cloud on the blog now that I've put this new lablel onto the given posts, but just for giggles, I've listed out below those authors I've reviewed who do have a site I linked to (with the site hyperlinked on his or her name and then the review post itself also linked):


From January-March 2010 blog posts:

- John Grisham - "Ford County" reviewed here

- Malcolm Gladwell - "What the Dog Saw" reviewed here

- Chris Brogan - "Trust Agents" reviewed here



From 2009 blog posts:

- Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner - "Superfreakonomics" reviewed here

- David Kord Murray - "Borrowing Brilliance" reviewed here

- Alain de Botton - "The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work" reviewed here

- Kurt Andersen - "Reset: Financial Crisis" reviewed here

- Scott Rosenberg - "Say Everything: Blogging" reviewed here

- Lee Gutkind - "Keep it Real: Creative Nonfiction" reviewed here

- John Grogan - "The Longest Trip Home" reviewed here

- Stephenie Meyer - "Eclipse" reviewed here

- Jeff Jarvis - "What Would Google Do?" reviewed here

- Dr. Andrew Weil - "Healthy Aging" reviewed here

- Will Leitch - "God Save the Fan" reviewed here

- Dave Bidini - "Tropic of Hockey" reviewed here

- Doris Kearns Goodwin - "Team of Rivals" reviewed here



From July-December 2008 blog posts:

- Jason Peter - "Hero of the Underground" reviewed here

- Mark Jenkins - "The Hard Way" reviewed here

- Randy Pausch - "Last Lecture" reviewed here

- Tom Vanderbilt - "Traffic" reviewed here

- Curtis Sittenfeld - "American Wife" reviewed here

- Sarah Lacy - "Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good" reviewed here

- Jason Roberts - "A Sense of the World" reviewed here

- Garth Stein - "The Art of Racing in the Rain" reviewed here

- Stefan Fatsis - "A Few Seconds of Panic" reviewed here

- J.K. Rowling - "Harry Potter" series reviewed here

- Max Barry - "Company" reviewed here

- Eric Weiner - "The Geography of Bliss" reviewed here

"Tom Hanks: Historian" Cover Story from Time

Excellent cover story from the Mar 15 issue of Time Magazine.



Titled "How Tom Hanks Became America's Historian in Chief" the story is about... that. Really interesting stuff detailing Hanks' big and small screen ventures about our nation's history with "The Pacific" starting Mar 14 on HBO following on the heels of: "Saving Private Ryan", "Bank of Brothers", "John Adams", "Apollo 13" and "Charlie Wilson's War".

The article itself is an interesting read as Hanks speaks of some of his more well liked historical writers such as Doris Kearns Goodwin, Stephen Ambrose and David McCullough.

One other piece of the story I found interesting was mention of Hanks obtaining the rights to the Vincent Bugliosi book "Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy". From the prosecutor of Charles Manson, it's a debunking of the various conspiracy theories surrounding Lee Harvey Oswald and whether he acted alone.

Spring Training Stories from Time & CNNSI

Man, I do so love this time of year in sports...

You've got hockey starting to get really interesting leading into the NHL playoffs and MLB Spring Training has officially sprung. The time two months from now with baseball past it's "playing in the snow" phase and hockey fully into the Stanley Cup playoffs is great as well, but what this current time has is... anticipation.

Two different pieces I recently came across that really encapsulate this idea for me. The first was David Von Drehle's (extremely short) Time Magazine piece "The Moment" about Spring Training and promise of the future. Love the way Von Drehle can describe so well with so few words on a page...

The second piece was from CNNSI and by Joe Posnanski... he of the frequently written to Joe Blog. Titled "Chapman justifies hype in debut", it's about Cincinnati Reds lefty Aroldis Chapman, but more than that... it's about this same idea of how every Spring, each team has an equal shot at glory that year. Even beyond that, Chapman represents the idea of a previously unknown talent stepping up in the Spring to show would could be possible.

Maybe Chapman will wind up in the Hall of Fame, maybe he won't and maybe the Reds will win a pennant (more than likely not), but for sports fans who love the great and unexpected story, it's fun to think about.

BusinessWeek Career/Business Pieces - Mar 15 issue

Some pretty interesting stuff from the Mar 15 issue of BusinessWeek... much of it around a common theme.



The first story that struck me as interesting was "What I Learned from My Dad"... a commentary by Peter Buffett following the much larger profile of his uber-investor father, Warren Buffett. The piece is actually excerpted from his forthcoming book "Life Is What You Make It: Find Your Own Path to Fulfillment" and tells the interesting tale of how the younger Buffett was staked with a roughly $90K inheritance at age 21... and used the money to fund making a go of it in the music field he loved.

Immediately following that in this BW issue was "And Google Begat..." about the Angel investing (no, not these kind of Angels) done by current and former Googlers. Pretty interesting stuff about the "next generation" impact Google wealth is having by helping fund tech startups such as Twitter, Tesla Motors and a host of smaller unknown (but, probably not always) ventures. The story was also noteworthy to me with mention of Truckee, CA based ex-Google guy Chris Sacca (his blog here). Granted, the town is what I noticed, but it was cool to read how Sacca came across one of his investments after posting a message on his Twitter account one Friday night asking if any startups were working late.

Finally, from this issue I liked "The Road to Reinvention" about career changes following personal setbacks. Specifically the one that got me (out of three vignettes) was that about Todd Morris... a 30 something tech sales guy who had an interest in a product category (security and surveillance gadgets), didn't see anyone dominating the field and up and created a now successful company, BrickHouse Security) in that space. Gotta be something to that idea of building a business around something you think valuable, but not already out there.

Three stories... one theme. Two guesses... that's right, building a career/investing in a business around something that interests you. Solid.

Fast Company Magazine - Feb 2010 issue

Couple of things of interest of the Feb 2010 issue of Fast Company Magazine...



The first was from the cover story on Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash. Rather than the entirety of the story, what struck me was mention around his off the court involvements.

One of Nash's business ventures is a film production company, Meathawk, and it's first documentary is an ESPN 30 for 30 project on Canadian hero Terry Fox. The movie is titled "Into the Wind" and will chronicle the run across Canada that Fox made to raise money for cancer research after losing a leg to the disease. While Fox passed away in 1981, his legend has carried on to the point that his mother was a featured participant of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies.

No ESPN air date yet for the documentary, but I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Looking into details on "Into the Wind" led me to read further about the 30 for 30 documentary project. The main website features this Bill Simmons essay on 30 for 30 along with a listing of the features. Among these is "Kings Ransom" about Wayne Gretzky going from the Edmonton Oilers to the LA Kings. Directed by Peter Berg, this movie aired fall 2009 on ESPN and appears to be shown next April 25 on ESPN Classic.

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Completely unrelated to Steve Nash, Terry Fox, ESPN or Wayne Gretzky... I also found of note from this Fast Company issue mention of the "weblog about the liberal arts 2.0" Kottke.org from blogger Jason Kottke.

Customer Service Rankings from BusinessWeek

In what has now being an annual event, BusinessWeek in the Mar 1 issued published their "Special Report on Customer Service".

Within the report, there's a feature on the typically highly ranked and 2010 #2 for Customer Service company USAA.

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Related to the Politics Frozen blog post from a week ago and also from this issue of BW was the Charlie Rose interview "Evan Bayh: Why He's Sick of Washington". Just a shame what's become of politics these days...