For some reason I’ve been paying attention lately to how people sign their e-mails and thought I’d throw out a few thoughts. I’d be particularly interested to hear from people on the strangest sign-offs they’ve received. Below is a list of some of the more common sign-offs along with my take on what they really mean. Cheers! – I’m cool! Best – I don’t want to be locked into a specific sign-off – please interpret as you wish (best wishes, best regards, best cheers, etc.) All the best – When “Best” simply isn’t good enough Ciao! – I’m cool! and trying to act foreign Sincerely – I took this really great business writing class in high school Thanks – I…
Archives / March, 2006
Spring Break Reading
I hit a critical point on the vacation curve and last week took off to Mexico with my family for a respite. This one was a real break – no phone, no e-mail, no business contact of any kind. Along with relaxing on the beach and building sand castles with my daughter (mostly for the purpose of knocking them down right away), I was able to get quite a bit of reading time in. With that in mind I wanted to pass along two of these titles in case you’re looking to add to your reading list. The first is Jeffrey Sachs’ The End of Poverty. Sachs is an economist who has advised a number of developing nations on macroeconomic…
smartfeed
NewsGator jumped deeper into the mobile app world with its recent purchase of mobile podcatcher smartfeed along with its companion mobile reader, smartread. They also hired the smartfeed/read creator, Kevin Crawley, to head NewsGator’s mobile product development. It’s a great move by NewsGator to extend their vision of ‘any time, any place, any device’. Greg Reinacker covered the key points about why we did this on his blog, and Kevin added some more background color in his, so I won’t repeat it here. The thing I like most about this story is how Kevin came to be hooked up with NewsGator – particularly relevant to a series of side-bar conversations I’ve been having recently on the value of VC blogs…
Baby loves disco!
Let’s face it – disco is a universally loved form of music (well . . . almost). This is certainly true of the under-6 demographic. I witnessed this phenomenon first hand last weekend as several hundred kids and their parents descended on the Boulder Theatre to rock out to the sweet beats and floating falsetto of the Bee Gees, Diana Ross and other 70’s greats. I can promise you that you have not experienced disco until you’ve seen a mass of kids rocking out, complete with bubble machine, lights and disco ball. I think our two year old had almost as fun as my wife and I did <g>
Why NOLs should be transferable
Dad stopped by the other day on his way back from a meeting and we were kicking around some ideas. One of the things that he brought up that I’d been toying around with as well was the notion of enabling companies to sell their NOLs. I think this is an outstanding idea – both at the state and the federal level. I don’t really want to get into it here, but you should assume a priori that I believe that NOLs should also be more transferable in acquisitions as well. That’s a related topic for sure but here I’d just like to address the ability of companies to literally sell their NOLs to the highest bidder. Let my address…
It’s just technology
I was on a panel presentation about blogging and RSS at the Boulder Software Club recently along with Walker Fenton from NewsGator and Howard Kaushansky from Umbria. Very fun time (hey – what VC doesn’t enjoy an opportunity to share their opinion); plus I got two beers out of Brad for managing to say “fuck” twice – both completely in context I might add. What struck me most during the presentation is how much more power the technology which is RSS has when you explain it in terms of what it does rather than what it is. RSS is pretty meaningless beyond a relative small group of techies and frankly no one really cares about the underlying technology – they…
Linking around 3/6
A few links for today that you might find interesting: Here’s a great presentation by Dick Hardt, CEO of Sxip Identity from OSCON 2005. Very fun if you have a few minutes and a nice example of how not to bore people with your presentation. (thanks to Ryan for the link) Since I was digging on MBAs the other day, I thought I should link over to a more thoughtful piece on alternatives to getting an MBA by Rajesh Setty who, other than having a great last name, also has a few relevant things to say about the topic. (from Lorne) Have more money than time (or perhaps good sense)? Here’s the exercise machine for you.
The respect of a cousin
The following is an article that was published in The Jewish Week. It’s of particular interest because it came to me by way of a Pakastani-born muslim friend who currently lives in Dubai (with the subject that included “Please reprint/forward this where you can”). The Respect Of A Cousin After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s 12 caricatures of the prophet Muhammad were republished in European newspapers, riots erupted in Damascus, Gaza, Beirut and elsewhere throughout the Muslim world. The violence is an extreme manifestation of the deep hurt felt by virtually all Muslims. As we condemn the violence on the streets, perhaps we should take a moment to understand the hurt in the hearts of the great majority of Muslims who…
Birthday wishes
Birthday wishes to Ben Casnocha who turns 18 today. Ben sent an e-mail out last week asking a bunch of folks for their advice about life at that age. I’m afraid my response was a little late to make it into his post with some of the material he received. Here was my 2c (extra points for the haiku): always have more fun by enjoying what you do it’s all the journey Two things that I wish someone told me when I was 18: you can never travel too much – especially when you are young (I should have taken time off to do this) you are never delaying living your life – you are living it every moment of…
Going Bald
One of my most memorable experiences from when I was an investment banker in New York (and one of the things that really turned me off from banking, now that I think about it) happened one year at our team holiday party. One of the associates I worked with was going bald . . . all except for one spot on the very front of his head, which he refused to cut off despite it looking ridiculous – a wispy clump of hair in the middle of his otherwise bald forehead. We made endless fun of this hair over the years and that night, after much drinking, the group took up a pool to try to get him to shave…