Freehand by an 8 Year Old…

Not just any 8 year old. My neice, Camri drew this welcome home sign for her sister. I knew she was talented. But wow!

I Almost Went to the Lincoln Memorial Today…

President Obama visited the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday, one day after Congress had agreed on a budget that kept the government running. (Source: NY Times)

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Life of a startup at SXSW

At SXSW this year, I had the unique opportunity to understand “brand” from the perspective of a startup. I spent much of SXSW with two unique startups, Giftopera.com and Voyurl.com. Both of these are distinct products with quite different founders. Giftopera was founded by a developer I’ve known for years named Vineet Choudhary and his business partner Simon Tiemtore. It’s a group gifting application that, once built, will allow people to pool their money to buy a gift for a friend. Voyurl is founded by Adam Liebsohn who has seemingly scraped every dollar he has into the creation of Voyurl while maintaining a full-time job at an award-winning ad agency. Voyurl allows users to elect to be tracked as they move around the Internet with the trade off that they can then see their own stats and compare them with their friends’. The idea is to even the playing field against Google, Facebook and others who are tracking our online activity with every click. (more…)

What if David & Goliath Got Together?

Richard Canny is a very smart guy when it comes to cars and especially electric vehicles. He’s been a big cheese at Ford as well as CEO of Think, the funky EV company – he has been both David and Goliath.

So when he writes that the smaller electric vehicle companies and the big car manufacturers should consider going into partnership together we should take notice.

We’ve recently seen Modec go under, and soon Londoners won’t be able to buy the G-Whiz anymore. It would be a crying shame if the most pioneering EV brands failed for lack of muscle. 

Collaboration – not competition – is fast emerging as the default business operating system for those brands that are shaping the future. I don’t mean collaboration with consumers (like BMW’s new car share scheme) but producer collaboration (like Vattenfall and Volvo) - what we might call ‘upstream collaboration’ – sharing smarts, technology, r&d to forge new businesses and create new categories.

And when the collaborators are David and Goliath the potential is huge – Tesla + Daimler, AOL + Huffington,Green and Blacks + Cadbury, Unilever + Ben & Jerry’s, Will.i.am + Intel, Aardman + Sony, and not forgettingVice + WPP (the latter conjuring images of Sir Martin Sorrell at a rave).

It’s the new way of doing business.

Source: Wolf Olins

Caught My Eye

Life Experience

I have to admit, I find myself checking for the new Amanda Diva album every day for the last week or so. She has a real unique sound and flava. If you haven’t heard of her yet, I predict you will soon!

…oh, Amanda, If you’re still looking to have your website header re-made, hit me up!

Enjoy one of her most recent videos (ManChild) after the jump… (more…)

Caught My Eye

The Maine Labor Mural Projection Bombing On The Capital

A few weeks after Maine Governor Paul LePage requested removal of a mural depicting the history of workers movement from the state’s labor department lobby; an unknown person (YouTube user: BrokeFix) posted this video to YouTube. BrokeFix wrote: ”We put this video up to remind our peers that you have a voice, as soon as you choose to use it. If your government takes a symbol away and tries to hide history, you can make the truth resonate a thousand times stronger with your own 2 hands.”

I’m a fan of this social, artistic expression; it’s very creative and non-violent. Nice work!

Derek Jeter’s Swinging Years

Derek Jeter is one of my favorite athletes, mostly because my dad speaks so highly of him (my dad’s a huge baseball fan). I surprised my dad last year with really good seats to see Jeter and the Yankees, in Baltimore. My dad was as happy as I’ve seen him in a really long time. After the game he told me, “you made an old man happy” (I’ll never forget that).

Anyway, the real point of this post is Derek, a real class act – he’s been tested and proven. Personally, I really admire his professionalism, particularly the way he separates his personal life from his private life.

GQ has a great cover story on Mr. Jeter in their latest issue. Check it out after the jump.

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Goodbye Mr. Schmidt

Eric Schmidt Steps Down As CEO: Larry Page, Google Co-Founder, To Take Over…

In a move that has shocked the tech world, Google has announced that it will be replacing its CEO.

Effective April 4 of this year, Google co-founder Larry Page will become CEO, taking over for Eric Schmidt, who has been the company’s chief executive since 2001. Schmidt will stay on as the company’s executive chairman.

Schmidt, who was initially hired as CEO to provide more “mature” leadership, joked about the management shake-up onTwitter, tweeting, “Day-to-day adult supervision no longer needed!” (Source: Huffingtonpost.com)

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