Posts Categorized Business

I Thought Everybody Knew Powerpoint Is Evil?

In Business, Government, Miscellaneous on Apr-27-2010 with
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I can’t stand PowerPoint(PPT). It just isn’t an effective way to present complex data. Now it seems the military has clued into this basic fact.

“PowerPoint makes us stupid,” Gen. James N. Mattis of the Marine Corps, the Joint Forces commander, said this month at a military conference in North Carolina. (He spoke without PowerPoint.) Brig. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who banned PowerPoint presentations when he led the successful effort to secure the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar in 2005, followed up at the same conference by likening PowerPoint to an internal threat.

“It’s dangerous because it can create the illusion of understanding and the illusion of control,” General McMaster said in a telephone interview afterward. “Some problems in the world are not bullet-izable.”

In General McMaster’s view, PowerPoint’s worst offense is not a chart like the spaghetti graphic, which was first uncovered by NBC’s Richard Engel, but rigid lists of bullet points (in, say, a presentation on a conflict’s causes) that take no account of interconnected political, economic and ethnic forces. “If you divorce war from all of that, it becomes a targeting exercise,” General McMaster said.

Commanders say that behind all the PowerPoint jokes are serious concerns that the program stifles discussion, critical thinking and thoughtful decision-making. Not least, it ties up junior officers—referred to as PowerPoint Rangers—in the daily preparation of slides, be it for a Joint Staff meeting in Washington or for a platoon leader’s pre-mission combat briefing in a remote pocket of Afghanistan.

You’d think somebody in the Department of Defense would have read or at least heard of Edward Tufte and his well known opinion on the use of PPT. Or at least picked up one of his books on the visual display of complex information, cause this is a chart used in one of their presentations.

I mean WTF is going on?

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

In Books, Business on Apr-7-2010 with
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I’m only about 75 pages into The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, but it is every bit as good as Moneyball, Liar’s Poker, and almost as good as the The New New Thing. I just really like the way he tells a story.

What Is In Reform For Small Businesses?

In Business, Politics on Mar-23-2010 with
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Something pretty darn important that started with Obama’s signing of the bill:

SMALL BUSINESS TAX CREDITS—Offers tax credits to small businesses to make employee coverage more affordable. Tax credits of up to 35 percent of premiums will be immediately available. Effective beginning for calendar year 2010. (Beginning in 2014, small business tax credits will cover 50 percent of premiums.)

The Google Story Told In Video

In Business, Technology, Video on Nov-19-2009 with
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Google Offers Free Holiday Wi-Fi At Airports

In Business, Technology on Nov-10-2009 with
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What a great idea. Google with working with a number of access providers to offer free Internet access at 47 airports this holiday season until January 15.

Marketing The Olympics To Chicagoans

In Business, Marketing on Oct-5-2009 with
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Jason Fried of 37signals, a Chicago resident, and small business owner has an interesting and spot on take on why the city saw local public opinion erode for hosting the 2016 Olympics.

As as Chicagoan, I’ve seen the campaign close up. A recent poll suggests Chicago citizens are about equally split on whether or not they want the games. The results show slippage from the 2-to-1 support found in an earlier Tribune poll in February.

I think this reveals a flaw in the local marketing of the games. And I think there’s a good lesson in all this: Chicago sold the features, not the benefits. Chicago didn’t tell its citizens why the games would be good for Chicago. Chicago didn’t lay out the lasting legacy of the games for the city. What’s really in it for us? Why should we really support it? What happens after they are over? 8 years of work for a few weeks of sunshine. Then what?

This is a bit of Friday-morning quarterbacking, but here’s what I would have loved to have seen: A campaign centered around Chicago 2017. Show us what the city will look like after the Olympics. Give us a reason to want the games for the decade after the games. Give us examples… If a kid’s 16 years old today, what will the city be like for her when she’s 26? How will the games make Chicago a better place for Chicagoans. Will it be a better place to grow up? Why? Will it be a better place to work? Why? Why would we want to put up with all the construction, traffic, congestion, and attention? Why will it all be worth it?

How The IBM ThinkPad Got Its Name

In Business, Technology on Oct-3-2009 with
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A researcher used this IBM promotional item to come up with the name for the ThinkPad laptop.

[Found via Kottke]

Inside Starbucks New Stealth Store

In Business on Sep-19-2009 with
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Not sure how I missed this, but Starbucks has opened a stealth store in Seattle called 15th Avenue E Coffee and Tea (more are planned). I can only guess they’re trying to not look like the McDonalds of coffee. You know, hip and not cookie cutter.

[Found via Good Ideas]

When Direct Marketing Goes Wrong

In Business, Marketing on Aug-13-2008 with
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I went out to get my mail yesterday and noticed an over-sized postcard mailer for Dollar General. The offer was they’d give me $5 off my next purchase of $20 or more. I though great, cause about once a week I get all my cat related items at Dollar General which usually totals around $20 dollars. Then I took a closer look and I realize I can only use it at a store that is located in another town, about 15 miles away.

Problem is I shop at a Dollar General store that is less than a mile away, been open for years. It is also located in the same town and even zip code of my mailing address, which of course they know or I never would have gotten the mailer in the first place. As somebody that has done millions and millions of direct mailers stuff like this, and that it happens in our high-tech world, just blows my mind.

A wasted opportunity to make me a more happy and loyal customer.

Video Game Revenue By Company

In Business, Gaming on Aug-6-2008 with
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I’d really like to have these revenue numbers minus the hardware aspect of things.