Performance Zen

Author: spierzchala

  • Blogging is your Mental Workout

    Good news: Blogging is good for the brain! [here]
    Original blog posting here.
    Of course, the way I have been feeling lately…I think I have hit the wall.

  • Another great MSIE 7 commentary

    Standblog tells Microsoft the same thing that I did: stick to the standards. [here]

  • Ummm…MSN using PHP and MySQL?

    Interesting screenshot from Brazil….

    Ummmm…it’s your dog food…
    Courtesy of C|Net.

    My sources tell me that this is a result of a third-party provider feeding content into this page. However, it is the optics (a phrase popular in BC politics) of the situation that makes this looks not so good for MSN.

  • Geek News on Auto-Link

    Hmmm…Geek News has a very “open kimono” response to Google on the AutoLink function, raising all of the issues we have had on the back of our minds. [here]
    The one about compensation for clicks that drive traffic to Google sites is a good one; like AdSense in reverse.
    Maybe it’s time for a few key sites to block the GoogleBot. I wonder what would happen if large sites that are already well-known just stopped allowing Google to index them….
    Just a thought…

  • On Talent on the Scarcity of Real Talent

    Hank Stringer from On Talent has a great post about the growing scarcity of talent, and the importance of rejected job offers. [here]
    I have stated before that this seems like a no-brainer for a company. If you are going after true talent, and they are rejecting you, do you have a rejection debrief that you put these candidates through? What are they telling you is the main reason they went with Company Y instead of your firm?
    Salary? Benefits? Work Environment? Technology?
    The industry I work in is mature and, I would say, mainstream. I miss the days when I worked with a company that was so far out in front that the customers had to be dragged along; now the customers are the ones doing the dragging.
    I can see some waves out there, but having ridden (been ridden by?) one bubble, I am not leaping into another. There are a lot of cool Internet and tech things out there, but I need the passion.
    Hank, I think that the key to those offer rejects may be passion. Will these new hires be a cog; or are they being brought on to lead a company into uncharted territory.
    I hate maps.

  • New stupid attacking domains

    Gotta love these: genaholincorporated.com
    Thankfully the b2evo spam filters crush their comment and trackback spam.
    However, had to add them to the filter script I run every minute to clean out extraneous hits. Luckily the bots have a unique browser string!
    May your bots melt in the 10th Level of Hell.

  • Diminishing Slashdot Effect

    I have been thinking about this as well lately, and it was interesting to see it actually posted online this morning: Is Slashdot the driver of Buzz that it once was? [here]
    I would be tempted to say that the impact of the Technorati, and uber-linking and trackback phenomena are more important to Buzz now then Slashdot. Slashdot was the go-to place for hip and cool news about the world of geeks. Now, blogs and the associated tools do the same job.
    Will Slashdot fade away? Not likely. The more important question is whether it will evolve. What could Slashdot do to make it more relevant to the blog-focused techophiles?

  • New CEO

    My company brought the new CEO online yesterday. This is an interesting time…be interesting to hear her outline and execute on her vision.
    Time to re-fill the tub o’ popcorn and hunker down.

  • Head stuck in the sand…

    I am glad to see the 4th Estate re-invigorated and challenged to go get the story again. Since the end of the Nixon debacle, the media has been slowly sliding into the lazy habits of the well-fed and pampered. Now that the barbarians are pounding at the gates (an analogy I will not use again), the media is being forced to find stories.

    Their will be an increase in partisanship and subjectivity. However, if you look at the long history of the media, this is not new. It’s just that there is a generation who has seen the rise of a relatively independent media, followed by it’s slide into debauchery and depravity.

    I gained my knowledge of the behaviour of the media from the writings of Hunter S Thompson. Some will say that this is a bad source, but I learned about the pyramid, and other journalistic terms while wading through his vitriol and disdain for the mediocre.

    For me, the newspaper is simply a bulletin board. It tells me about happenings, but rarely takes the time to do much else. The question is: what is the newspaper’s market? What is the niche that they are serving?

    I can get all of the stories in the newspaper on-line. In fact, not just from one newspaper. And with blogs and feeds, I can get more detail than I have ever imagined, or am able to process.

    So, I ask the newspaper “writers” and “editors”, why should I pick up your paper? Beyond the portability of your product, an advantage that is diminishing by the second, is there a sound economic reason for newpapers to continue to exist.
    I am sure that there are deeper thinkers than I, who have considered this, and have deep philosophical thoughts on this. But, how do you convince me and my ilk, the iPod-wearing, laptop-toting, instantly-gratifiable leading edge to buy your product?
    What makes a newspaper sexy? What about a newspaper makes me want to pick one up on a daily basis?

    Answering that “I am not your target market” is no longer viable. Joe Lunchbucket wants his scores now to track his pools. Reviews are plentiful, and targeted; the local critic no longer can control a market. Recipes and home ideas? Please!
    Is there a reason, beyond the persistence of memory, for newspapers to exist as physical entities in the digital age?

  • Norway

    I want to visit Norway before I die.