Archive for the ‘Research’ Category

How a Bear Can Define the Holidays

December 8th, 2009

As you all know, I am a huge fan of Starbucks, not because their coffee is great or their food is better than local places, but because Starbucks has become an American institution that defines the calendar year.
Take the holidays for instance.  Starbucks makes the following changes:
A) They decorate their stores with garland, lights, ornaments, [...]

How Smartphones Have Personalities

November 17th, 2009

Today, I stopped by my local Verizon Wireless store to check out the Motorola Droid.  I will tell you that it looks better on paper and in pictures than it does in real life.
I then looked at the Blackberry Storm2 for comparison.  While it looks really cool, it sings to a different tune that many [...]

Balance, Don't Forget It!

October 23rd, 2009

Balance is one of those things that I think a lot of people go through life without. It applies to just about everything and can be hard to achieve. In fact, we often forget to look for the balance in every situation.
Here are some examples:
1) Horseback Riding – The rider must balance their weight on [...]

Immersion, The Good, Bad and the Ugly!

October 20th, 2009

Immersion is the concept of surrounding yourself with a given subject to concentrate on learning it.
The GOOD
The good is that immersion is a very efficient way of learning something. You can jam pack a lot of information in a very narrow window of time. Picking up the basics of a new language or skill is [...]

Confidence In Metrics

October 8th, 2009

Metrics are the individual numbers that relate to other numbers that tell a story. Often, these are the numbers that people of all levels of the company use to make decisions.
If a company has a firm grasp of their metrics, fully understand their engine, and have reporting in the right places, there can be some [...]

Components of a Comfortable Office

September 23rd, 2009

As I begin considering a home office remodel, I have been looking at pictures of offices.  If a picture appeals to me, I try and figure out why.
Here are some of the things I’ve noticed:
1) Dark hardwood desk and cabinetry.
2) Clutter Free (indicates sufficient storage)
3) No Visible Accessories (printers, staplers, etc are hidden)
4) One to [...]

Need Intelligent Software

September 13th, 2009

Today on Seth Godin’s blog, Seth posted a bit of a rant titled The End of Dumb Software. Seth brings up some great points about access Notes and the logic behind 2 am meetings.   Perhaps it has become time for software to be a little more intelligent and user friendly.  I am surprised that a [...]

YouTube Is For More Than Laughs

September 8th, 2009

When I saw this article by Medical News Today, I did a classic double take of the headline:
Clues To Brain Injury Symptom From YouTube Videos
When I talk about patterns and collecting data, finding new, cheap, and creative sources of data is often what separates the truly remarkable from the ordinary research projects.   Conducting brain injury [...]