Creatures of Habit

I admit. I like established routines. For daily tasks at least. For example, I have an empty 1.5 hour block my schedule on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I usually spend that time finishing up homework in the library of Evans hall. I’m pretty familiar with Evans. I’ve had classes there before. I always enter through the same door – the right side door. Not sure why, but it’s just worked out that way. The last week and a half however, the door’s been under repair. There’s a nice white sheet of paper taped to the door saying it’s out of use. And what do I do time and time again? I ignore/don’t see the sign and try opening the door. So far I’m 3/3 the past Tues/Thurs/Tues. Accurate enough to be an NFL kicker.

Looking like a fool..

86/365.

Budget Cuts

So I have this peculiar habit when I use a drinking fountain to let the water run for a few seconds to clean off whatever residue was left by the person before me. Dumb. Pointless. Whatever. I’ve been doing it since I was about five so it’s stuck.

This time, when I went for a drink at the fountain on the 7th floor of Eshleman Hall, something strange happened. I heard a dripping noise. As if the water was flowing to a container for some reason. I step back, take a look, and lo and behold, so it was! I’m not sure if this is because of budget cuts and lack of staff or whatever, but I’m hoping this fountain is fixed soon.

85/365.

Superbowl 2010: A Study in Teamwork

This year’s Superbowl certainly lived up to the hype. It was an amazing display of high flying fireworks as two of the greatest quarterbacks of this era dueled each other in Miami. The result I felt didn’t so much as solidify one quarterback’s ability over another as much as it did emphasize that football is a team sport.

On one side you have Peyton Manning a brilliant tactical general who some are already calling the greatest ever to play the sport, 4 time NFL MVP seeking his second Super Bowl win. On the other you have Drew Brees, the undisputed leader of the team, that helped rebuild a shattered city in the wake of Katrina. In the end, for all his might, the league’s Golden Boy couldn’t prevail over America’s team as Saints cornerback Tracy Porter intercepts a Manning pass and runs it back for a touchdown.

But I wouldn’t fault Manning at all. Yes, he made the throw; it was perhaps the one poor throw he made all night, but this game wasn’t so much about Manning losing as it was about the Saints winning. Note the distinction: “Manning” instead of the “Colts”, the “Saints” instead of “Brees”.

The Saints came out as a team; they played their hearts out, believing that they were playing for something much greater than themselves – a city rebuilding, a city that hadn’t been blessed with its fair share of good fortune in a long time. They believed in themselves. They believed in their team, took some risky gambles and it paid off. On the flip side, the Colts had lost two key defensive players to injury, and could not stop the Saints offense. Manning felt like he had to make the plays and win the game for his team. So facing pressure from the Saints’ pass rush, he made a quick throw, and a few seconds later, the game was all but over.

Some are calling it destiny. I say it’s resilience, good preparation, and and unwavering belief in themselves, and in each other.

85/365.

Ribbon Hero

Looks like the latest upcoming hit game by Microsoft involves.. Office?!

Okay, it’s not being marketed as a hit game in the traditional sense of Rock Band or Call of Duty, but let’s face it – gaming’s not what it used to be. Gaming in the last decade was sitting in front of your console with headphones on coordinating an assault on Starcraft, or Counterstrike. Gaming in this decade is a lot more social. People interacting with each other instead of the machine. Think Wii or Mafia wars. Geared for the widespread audience. The average person doesn’t play games for the cutting edge graphics, or the high tech realism. It doesn’t matter to him whether he can see every pixel perfectly placed. He just wants to be better than his friends.

And Microsoft, of all companies, has realized that. At least, the visionaries behind Ribbon Hero has. All work and no play? Why not make work into a game? Ribbon Hero does just that. You can earn points by simply using the app. Each command in Office, e.g. bold, underline, etc gives you points. Another way is through completing challenges. From the Ribbon Hero site: “Ribbon Hero watches what features you do and don’t use, and then it recommends challenges for you to play, to hopefully expose you to new features.  The first time you complete a challenge, you’ll earn points. But then we want you to use those same features in the app (on another day) to prove you’ve mastered those features! You can max out a feature by using it twice, on two separate days – and only one of those times can you get points from playing the challenge.”

It even includes Facebook integration so you can publish your scores to your Newsfeed and let your friends know of your Office mastery. Now after reading this I’m pretty sure you’re in one of two categories.

1) Wow, that’s really cool! How do I get started? A: I think there’s a download link on the website, along with Office 2010 beta. I haven’t tried it myself yet because of technical issues with laptop.

2) That’s ridiculous. Who would want to use that? See, the beauty of social gaming is that as more people use it, the more momentum it gains. Think about it. Have you ever tried Mafia Wars, Farmville, or any of those Facebook games because a friend told you to? Or maybe that’s how you got started on Facebook in the first place – because all your friends were on it.

I think it’s a gamble by Microsoft, but I think it’s one that will see dividends. And it’s a step in the right direction by a company that isn’t traditionally known for innovation.

84/365.

Aching all over

When I started this blog, my goal was to live and breathe in the moment. Be more observant and chronicle my experiences here.

There’s no better example of being in the moment than in the heat of a highly contested sports match. It’s that feeling of being in the zone where time seems to slow down. When all that’s left in the world is you, your opponent, and the ball. Where you’re acutely aware of every microcentimeter of the court available to you. You don’t think. You don’t blink. You just react. It’s almost like you have super powers. You’re invincible. Playing your best game. Adrenaline keeping you from feeling any pain from sore muscles.

And then the next morning you wake up and think, who the hell ran me over last night. I need to make sure to play badminton with friends more before I graduate.

83/365.

Karma

I’m a big believer in karma. Not necessarily that things happen for a reason, more like things will balance out in the long run. Sure there are some truly blessed people that get every single lucky break, and others whose lives are really fucked up. But I think for most people, the ups and downs are a fact of life and you just deal with it.

I’ve struggled with getting into decal classes this semester – missed out on 4 of the ones I wanted, but finally got into 1 so I’m set credit-wise, and after some chaos with group formation, I’m set with a good group in my entrepreneurship class. You win some, you lose some.

I’m a big believer in optimism too.

82/365.

Anecdotes

In my thesis class today we discussed the importance of using hard data, statistically representatives samples rather than sparse interviews, or anecdotal evidence. Because in a scholarly paper, when you argue a point, it has to be based off of hard evidence.

Then the speaker in my poli sci class opened with a story of how he drove by a school during summer, normally lively with lush green grass, only to find it dead and barren, with padlocks, closed due to budget cuts. Very poignant, no? It’s interesting how we claim that facts are important, but a lot of the decisions we make as human beings individually, are not based more on emotion and gut feeling, rather than logic. I mean, we know the facts are out there, that perhaps the story being presented to us may not be reflective of the entire situation – could just be an isolated case. But we have emotions, we empathize and feel for the protagonist, and so we are swayed.

Ah, and then you have the nebulous corporation. Legal rights like a citizen, perhaps the ability to run for Congress, and yet utterly robotic and logic. A corporation has pretty basic interests – lower costs, increase revenue, increase profits, make shareholders happy. Sad story, eh who cares. So what if you’re dying of cancer, the treatment’s too expensive – we didn’t enter the insurance business to pay for all this stuff – we gotta make a living, you know!

81/365.

New Ventures

I had two interesting discussions today. The first, well wasn’t even a discussion. We had to present five new business ideas. Among a class of over 100 students, it was very interesting to see the diversity of ideas. Some were completely unoriginal, some had already been done, some were completely outlandish and futuristic, but a few seemed very well feasible – the lightbulb clicks on in your head when you see and it’s like “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The second discussion was in my college writing class where we shared a bunch of social media websites that we knew of/frequented. It became more and more just sharing websites that we thought were funny or cool, not so much social media in the traditional sense (now there’s an oxymoron – “traditional social media”), but social sharing sites nonetheless. Things like textsfromlastnight, postsecret, foursquare, etc. It got me thinking – there are so many of these sites out there, and none of them are particularly difficult to build, from a technical perspective, but they each have a huge audience because the idea is cool, it catches on. I think that’s going to be the key to my success in the engineering entrepreneurship class – focus on the use case, the business value, the social value, and build barriers to entry through branding, not through technology. Because let’s face – every technological barrier can be surmounted. Even if you have a patent, there are people out there that just don’t give a crap.

Let’s see where this goes.

80/365.

Musings on Corporate Twitter Accounts

So even though the law may treat corporations as if they’re actual people, I’m sure all of us recognize the difference when we’re listening to a CEO speak authentically and when we hear him say some carefully crafted PR line. But how should we treat a corporate Twitter account?

Sure there may be an individual at the end of the line managing the account, but it’s different when you read say, the White House’s Tweets, which are mostly updating on press releases, Obama quotes, etc. It’s an extension of the White House PR line. When Shaquille O’neal Tweets, you know it’s him on the other end, talking to you, cracking jokes and what not. So how does a corporation engender that human quality to their social media interactions? Granted, as the White House, you want to give the official line. But what about as a brand?

I’m really impressed with the way Cisco Systems compartmentalized their brand on Twitter. Take a look at the Cisco Systems account. It’s one of their many official Twitter handles (as a tech company, many of their employees have personal Twitter accounts). I love this line, “I am @John_Earnhardt and am your tourguide on our official Twitter feed.” It gives the disclaimer that yes, this is an official account and there will be PR stuff linked on it, new articles, new videos, etc. But it also gives him the freedom to interact with others in an authentic manner – congratulation people, thanking them for referrals, etc. It’s a good model to follow, if you’re a business.

79/365.

“I would use that!”

Remember the engineering entrepreneurship class I’m taking? We’re required to turn in a single slide with 5 ideas by then. I had a nice brainstorming session with my roommate just now and one idea that I came up with, I instantly knew was a winner when he said the magic words, “I would use that!”. Now to hit the grand slam, I’ve got to get someone to go beyond the initial statement and say “I would pay for that!”.

Note that I didn’t say, “I would pay to use that”, because in a lot of business models, the end user isn’t the one that directly pays for the service. Think about Facebook. No individual Facebook user has to pay a single cent to create a profile and connect with friends. But Facebook is a multi-billion dollar business, and that money comes from corporations that want to reach out to consumers, to the users, to engage customers, data mine, etc. Imagine how many people would abandon the site if Facebook started charging a user fee. Instead, we get to use the site for free, while the companies get charged for access. Here’s a much cruder analogy – it’s like how many nightclubs let women in for free while requiring men to pay a cover charge for access to the women.

I’m interested to see where this project takes me. Btw, I know I missed a few days. I’ve been pretty sick, but I’m 33.3% better now. Or something like that.

78/365.