NPR is using Flickr to add a little social-media mojo to a story it broadcast this afternoon on All Things Considered. It’s a simple hack that any news organization could use. They’ve set up a Flickr group called “Industriosphere” to accompany a story called, “When Traffic Lights Make Us Stop and Think” about how man-made things work. (I said it was NPR.) Listeners were invited to add photos to the Flickr group’s pool.

Technorati Tags: flickr, npr, socia media

Dear Vince Young,

Please accept my apologies. I’ve just done something a hardcore home-team football fan like me should never do — and because of that, I missed one of the greatest rookie QB feats of all time and you leading the Titans in a historic come-from-behind victory (the opposite of the franchise’s historic come-from-behind loss). I was at the game and for the first two quarters, things were going so painfully bad for the Titans, I got bored and started looking for things to take my mind off the game — you know, stuff like taking photos of spectators with really bad mullet haircuts. During half-time, completely fed up with how pathetic you and the other Titans were playing, I left the game in disgust. I couldn’t stand watching you lose 21-0. Man, what a dumb decision I made to leave.

After arriving home, I flipped on the TV during the 4th quarter and it was still 21-0, but you were driving the team down the field, so I decided to stay tuned. In the last seven minutes of the game, you dragged the Titans across the goal for 24 points to win the game. You are an amazing quarterback. It was an amazing win. Heck, even Pacman Jones grabbed an intersection to help turn the game around.

Since apparently, you are going to revive the whole Music City miracle thing, I’ve decided to revive my never-give-up fanatic thing — and never leave early again. Gee, I may even go dig out that blue face-paint that I put away a few years ago. Who knows, maybe I’ll even revive the Pacman Fan club? Naaaah.

Your fan,

Rex

In this Business Week article about Kodak’s CEO Antonio M. Perez wanting to “remake the company” (yet again), the author inserts a sentence, “Kodak’s Perez dreams of replicating Apple’s success.” For over 25 years, I’ve read a steady flow of business articles about Apple. It amuses me that such coverage swings from “Apple is the model of failure” to “Apple is the model of success.”

I’ll leave it up to others to decide if Apple is a model of success (i.e., the ability to recreate itself and make market-altering products) or failure (i.e., to live up to its potential).

In the meantime, however, I’d suggest business writers — and business graduate school professors — to stop using Apple as a comparison model for business success or failure. Understanding Apple is not a “business school” subject — rather its one for schools of philosophy, literature or, perhaps, theology. You see, the customers (and I am one) who make Apple what it is don’t purchase products. They (we) accept and enter a myth — a cult. Joining in that myth is not about operating some software or hardware, it’s more like living in Narnia. Unless Kodak has a CEO or MBA-types who can create Narnia, they have no chance of replicating Apple’s success…or failure.