Technorati Tags: humor

Stanford B-School professor, author* and great blogger Bob Sutton has just posted a list of business (and life) principles I think I’ll get tattoo’d somewhere.

Just a few highlights:

6. Getting a little power can turn you into an insensitive self-centered jerk.

7. Avoid pompous jerks whenever possible. They not only can make you feel bad about yourself, chances are that you will eventually start acting like them.

8. The best test of a person’s character is how he or she treats those with less power.

9. Err on the side of optimism and positive energy in all things.

*Link to my Amazon.com affiliate store.

Technorati Tags: management

I’m a fan of Jimmy Wales and Wikipedia (when used correctly) and I’m a strong believer in what I would term editorial-based or human-assisted search to augment algorithmic-based search (Google, et al). However, the Sunday Times’ headline, “Founder of Wikipedia plans search engine to rival Google,” sounds about as likely as Google or Yahoo! announcing they are going to launch a wiki that will rival Wikipedia. But, hey: good luck to ‘em all.

*Wikirhea (or wikiria): A term I just made up that refers to non-stop, endless news about wikis.

Technorati Tags: wikipedia, wikiria, wikis

Years ago, I heard of a Japanese company that was offering cell-phone based “humming search.” I thought it was a crazy idea at the time, but over the years, whenever I hear a song and wonder, “what’s the name of that?” I also wonder whether or not that technology ever made it to the U.S. (Fortunately, the 19 and the 16 year olds and I make a potent “what’s that tune?” force — we love her, but let’s just say the mom of the household has other talents.)

This morning on Weekend Edition, I heard Scott Simon interview the folks behind Nayio.com’s humming search tool (hsearch.nayio.com).

Concept sounds great but when I clicked over to it, I discovered it doesn’t work in the browsers I use. According to Adam Pash at Life Hacker, it requires the ActiveX plugin, so Internet Explorer was the only browser he could get it to work in. As a Mac user, my no-longer-supported Internet Explorer program is quite old and dusty so I rarely crank it up. I didn’t even try to see if it could beat my in-house team.

Rafe Needleman at WebWare got his Julliard-trained wife to help him test the service and it only worked 30 pecent of the time. If you do get a positive answer, the service will deliver you to Napster when you can purchase versions of the recording.

I think the idea is great, however, I think it’s more efficient to call up my kids and say, “what’s the name of that song that goes….”