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CJ & VY (I shot this last month at the Titans vs. Bills game.)
[A note to fans of CJ and East Carolina University. I apologize for my late-night blogging and for including the word "State" in the name of your fine university. I should fact-check this blog better (but why start now?). We are all of one accord: CJ is great.]
(Note: Before I launch into this sports-related post, here’s a reminder for those who don’t regularly read this blog: While I confess to hero-worshiping certain athletes, such worship is limited to their accomplishments within the boundary lines of their chosen field, court, course, etc. I’ve learned (haven’t we all?) to pigeon-hole my admiration for accomplishments of human beings. When it comes to athletes, even the swiftest of feet can be made of clay.)
On the day my “home team,” the Tennessee Titans lost the sixth of its first six games of this year’s season, a game that also holds the record for the being the worst routing of a football team in modern NFL history, , I wrote the following:
“This year, I’m learning what it’s like to be a fan of an NFL team that has bad coaching, no team leadership and no soul. I’m learning what it’s like to be a fan of a team that sucks. And not just any sucking — but sucking of Titanic proportions.”
As I wrote that day, I really hated everything about that team. From head coach on down, they were a bunch of losers.
But the reason I love sports, and especially the NFL, is this: the difference between the best and worst in the league is not really raw talent — it’s what coaches and players can do with their raw talent verses what coaches and players on the other team can do with their’s.
Those times I love sports the best are the rare occasions when a team that sucked in September turns into a team that soars in December. Like this year’s Titans.
Today, a team that has no resemblance, except the uniforms, to the 0-6 team hit the .500 mark. The 0-6 team set records for being incredibly bad. The 7-1 team has set records for being incredibly good. The 0-6 team had a quarterback who seemed lackluster and uninspiring. The 7-1 team is led by another quarterback who was written off two months ago, but who is now looking like a shoe-in for “come-back player of the year.”
This year’s Titans season has two stories, either of which is reason enough for me to love it more than ever.
1. The VY Story: We’re talking classic movie sports drama with this one. Here’s the plot:
At the beginning of last year’s (2008) season, an incredible athlete, Vince Young (VY), who has dominated every league he’s played in since middle school, hears his first fan “boos” and is devastated by the experience. He suffers a crisis of confidence that balloons into a full blown “situation” during which friends and family call 911 with warnings that he is suicidal. He is relieved from his starting position and his backup wins 13 games straight. Young’s career is written off by everyone who knows anything about football (except team owner Bud Adams). During the summer, the father-figure in Vince Young’s life, Steve McNair, is killed in a bizarre murder-suicide that leads Young to reexamine his life — and commit anew to his career. Still, no one believes he’s got what it takes to come back. Alas, after his team starts the season 0-6, the team’s owner practically orders the head coach, who has written Young off, to give him one last chance.
The story plays out from there like every movie sports drama since Knute Rockne, All American.
If the Titans make it to the playoffs (an extremely long shot, but statistically possible), Vince Young will have provided the plot for one of the greatest sports dramas of all time: adversity, breakdown, murder, inspiration, redemption, victory. I’m buying a box of Kleenex just thinking of it.
2. The CJ Story: I love it when athletes become so famous they are known by their initials — and the Titans have two such players this year, in addition to VY, they have CJ, Chris Johnson. Here’s his story: A speedster running back from East Carolina University is passed over by many teams in the NFL draft until the 24th pick in the first round, the Titans, select him. Last year, his rookie season, despite “sharing” running back duties with another player, he has a rookie of the year season (except a quarterback for another team actually wins the award). Now, in his second season, CJ becomes the most loved Fantasy League player of all time (well, at least by those who have him on their fantasy teams) while in pursuit of some incredible rushing records. Besides that, his running style complements the versatility of VY, making them a threatening pair.
With both VY and CJ, the 2009 Titans Team is a team of redemption, if not destiny. And it is a team with stories that provide a deep well of metaphors regarding the ability to come back from failure.
For example, the team was up by 18 points when the Miami Dolphins came roaring back during a fourth quarter surge (due, in no small part, to the game-ending injury of Titans linebacker Keith Bullock) that tied the game in the final moments — sending it to overtime. In overtime, the Titans win, continuing their still extremely long-shot at a playoff birth.
Sure, statistically it’s possible: this year’s Titans may make it to the playoffs. But no matter what, the team that played during the second half of the 2009 season will be one of my favorite Titans teams ever.
This post, in what I’d say if I were wearing my editor’s cap, “buries the lede.” But hey, this is my blog and rambling before getting to the point is part of what I do and who I am.
Last night, I attended an impressive event at Nashville’s Schemerhorn Symphony Center. (Frankly, any event in the Schemerhorn is going to be impressive — what an incredible building.) The event was an inaugural awards gala hosted by the Nashville Technology Council, an affiliate organization of the Nashville area Chamber of Commerce whose stated purpose is “to help the Middle Tennessee technology community succeed.”
I’ll admit that, despite Hammock Inc. being a member of the organization since its inception, I’ve thought — as it should be — it has been primarily focused on what has traditionally been considered “the technology industry” in Nashville. What is that? Well visit this “Techville” map and you’ll get a sense of the companies that employ 25,000 individuals in tech-related jobs. Much of this industry is the type of work that serves the needs of Nashville’s better known industries and institutions: Information Technology services related to healthcare, education, music, publishing, automotive and traditional corporate technology and information-management and infrastructure needs.
As an individual, I’ve never really thought of myself as being a technology-industry person. Certainly, I’ve always adopted technology early for running businesses (bleeding edge, as they call it) and for creating the types of media Hammock is known for — not just magazines, as we were developing what was then called “interactive multimedia” for clients like Northern Telecom in the late 80s, for example — which is even before Hammock Inc. go started.
I’ve also, as an accidental geek and aggressive user of technology, identified more with those “outside” the tech mainstream: the open-source, start-up, indie developer, blogger, disintermediating, disruptive, free-lance, BarCamp, “unconference” digital community which tends not to think of itself as being defined by traditional geographic boundaries (unless one lives within 30 miles of San Jose).
In the past few years, the Nashville Technology Council has made a concerted effort to reach out more to this “other technology community” in the Nashville area. It has supported — without trying to take over — a wide array of tech-related grassroots efforts (i.e. Barcamps) and recently helped launch the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, for example. But other, behind the scenes efforts by people like Tod Fetherling, a veteran of tech startups who is now CEO of the council, are helping broaden the mission of the organization.
(Okay, so here is where I get to the lede.)
Therefore, I was happy to see that along with big corporate type awards like CIO of the Year and Technology Organization of the Year (both won by HCA) and “Green” innovator of the year (Nissan USA), among the ten awards, there were categories for students (won by Hank Carter, a student at Belmont University) and startups (won by CredenceHealth) and, interestingly, for a blogger/social media person.
And, more interestingly still, the recipient was me. (Two friends, Kate O’Neill of [meta] marketer and Dave Delaney, social media wrangler at Griffin Technology and creator of such things as Geek Breakfast were also finalists and either should have won.)
I feel incredibly honored to win. But more than a little surprised.
First (as I said on Twitter last night), for me, winning an award for blogging is like winning an award for brushing my teeth — it’s just something I do. I’ve never even thought of blogging as writing. (Which is probably obvious.) Unlike when I write, there’s little “crafting” of what I share here. Elsewhere, I write columns that go through a dozen edited versions before being printed or released. But here, it’s completely extemporaneous and improvisational. This is about as me as it gets. So that makes “winning an award” for what I do here and on Twitter and elsewhere very surprising and appreciated.
Coolest “trophy” ever.
Second, and most importantly, this is a personal blog. Yes, sometimes I write about business and technology, but I don’t have a niche other than the niche of stuff interesting to me. Such an editorial focus is one I would never recommend to a client — ever. Had I picked an editorial focus when starting this blog, it would have a better name and, likely, it would be long-gone by now, as I doubt I would still have something to say about one topic after ten years.
This blog, in other words, is more like a columnist’s blog than a reporter’s blog. The only niche it serves are those people who may be interested in my random observations. (i.e., 10-12 people). Only some of those observations are related to Nashville. And only some of them are about technology.
So, therefore, I would think I’d be the last blogger/social media person to win an award from the Nashville Technology Council.
So I’m really surprised, and extremely appreciative.
And I’m also really blown away, as the “trophy” is a personalized electric guitar from a Nashville-based “technology” company: Gibson. (Photos to come.)
See also:
•A great Flickr set from the ceremony via Miiacom.
•VentureNashville.com recap of the awards.
In the early days of this blog, I wrote a lot about my NFL home team, the Tennessee Titans. Being a fan is part of who I am. And, frankly, it’s always been easy to be a fan of the Titans because even in their bad years, I comprehended why they were bad. Salary cap issues, I understood. Injuries, I understood. But even in the bad years, the decisions of Coach Jeff Fisher, while I didn’t always agree with him, I always respected.
That was before this year. And today. This year, I’m learning what it’s like to be a fan of an NFL team that has bad coaching, no team leadership and no soul. I’m learning what it’s like to be a fan of a team that sucks. And not just any sucking — but sucking of Titanic proportions.
The Titans are 0-6 and today received the worst beating in modern NFL history, losing 59-0 to the New England Patriots.
Without a doubt, it had to be the second-most humiliating game in the Titans-Oilers franchise history. The most humiliating award goes to the 1992 Oilers, who played in a game that will forever be called The Comeback, an AFC playoff game in which the Oilers were beating the Bills 35-3 in the third quarter, and lost 41-38. (I’ll remind Patriots fans that seven years later, the Bills had to experience the agony of defeat in another playoff game.)
Sure, today’s game was in the snow. And there were injuries. And whatever and whatever. But 59-0? In the NFL? This team is not only bad. It is breaking record in badness.
I will continue cheering for my home team. I will continue to be a fan. I will still wear my blue and keep believing. I will still go to the games, even if I’m the only one sitting in my section. But it sure would be nice to have players and coaches who seemed willing to try something, anything to not embarrass themselves.
(One sidenote of dubious note: At least they were wearing a throw-back Oilers jersey today, and not a Titans uniform. Someday in the distant future, when they are showing highlights of the worst teams ever in the NFL, this year’s Titans will appear to be the Oilers.)
Bonus link 1: The Tennessean’s David Climer – Suddenly, Fisher’s on hot seat.
Bonus link 2: Mike Florio of NBC Sports’ ProFootball Talk, says it all:
“The Tennessee Titans had been called the best 0-2 team in league history.
And the best 0-3 team in league history.
And the best 0-4 team in league history.
And the best 0-5 team in league history.
They’re now simply a crappy 0-6 team that has by all appearances given up after an embarrassing 59-0 whitewashing on the white field at Foxborough.”
On Saturday, if you are attending Barcamp Nashville, sign up for my session called Wiki 101: How to Use Wikis to Do Just About Everything, scheduled for 2:30 p.m. (Rejected titles included: “Wikis are way more cool than Twitter” and “Wkis & SEO: Your secret map to world domination.”)
How good will the session be? In the video on the right, Steve Jobs predicts it will be incredible, amazing and great. By attending it, you could learn such exciting things as:
*Why wikis could be the best model for your corporate website.
*Why a Wikipedia entry nearly always shows up on a Google search.
*Why wikis are a better way of covering breaking news than traditional news writing.
*Why wikis are better knowledge-management platforms that “knowledge-management” platforms.
*The secret life of a Wikipedia entry.
*How Wikipedia is #1 music site on the web.
*5 ways to create your own wiki.
On the other hand, if the people attending the session want to talk about something else, I’m up for that also. Heck, it’s a barcamp and you may want to talk about bars, or something.
I don’t know the exact time of my session, but I’m hoping it’s not 1 p.m., because I’m scheduled to get a haircut then. However, the session schedule
My session has been scheduled for 2:30. See the Barcamp Nashville session page for a complete list of sessions and times.
Did I mention it’s going to be incredible, amazing and great? Barcamp, that is.
Oh, and the wiki session even has a Twitter tag: #bcn09wikis.
Flickr has long had a feature called “sets” that allows a user to organize groupings of photos in any way the photographer wants to share them. Flickr recently added another feature that, at first, seems to be the same thing — but the new feature allows users to collect, annotate and display their favorite photos taken by other Flickr users. These “galleries” allow anyone to curate up to 15 photos — none of which can be their own. As an example of what you can do with such a gallery, I’ve curated a gallery of some of my favorite night-time Nashville photos found on Flickr. Another example of something you can do: If several friends are photographing the same event, it’s a great way to display a “best of” collection. (Note: a user can opt-out of allowing any of their photos to be displayed in such galleries.) 
My friend, the novelist Alice Randall, is profiled in an “At Home” feature in Thursday’s New York Times (D-1). The online version has already been posted and features a wonderful slideshow of photographs of the home of Alice and her husband, David Ewing, by Josh Anderson. Alice’s new book, Rebel Yell is coming out next month and I hope you’ll be seeing lots of publicity related to it in the coming weeks.
When I say Alice is “my friend,” I don’t mean the “I’ve met her and we kinda know each other” kind of friend. I mean the real kind of friend you have who is so close that our on-going heated arguments are no threat to our closeness. In other words, like the kind of friendship you have with a sibling. We have shared many adventures and hopes and fears and laughter and even a few tears. And many of them have taken place where these photos were taken. I’ll admit, however, the photos are so beautifully — and perfectly — shot, the homeyness of Alice and David’s home doesn’t come through in quite the same way I’ve experienced it through years of sharing life’s journey with kids and lots and lots of friends.
I’m proud of Alice and I love her very much. She’s a special member of my family of choice. Now, go order her book. ; )
Since I’ve complained for several years about the stumbles in using new-media by my local newspaper, the Gannett-owned Tennessean.com, I feel compelled to provide a shout-out this morning to their blog, Titans Insider. As I’ve long said on this blog, the best writing in the Tennessean, and most local newspapers, can be found on the sports pages. I’ll explain why (and it’s important) in another post one day, however, it’s especially true at the Tennessean.
The Titans Insider blog is giving the sports staff an additional platform to display why they are the leading source of insightful and informed knowledge, not just the kind of ranting one often is subjected to on talk-radio and social-media when the topic is sports.
Another kudo to the Tennessean: They’re trying hard with Twitter also. Who knows? Maybe they’ll get there.
(Standard note in these kind of posts: My complaints with the Tennessean have never been with journalists, but with the clueless people for whom they work.)
P.S. Unfortunately the Titans lost in overtime. I think they displayed, however, that they have the potential to be playing well into January.
The SEC adopts Ahmadinejad
social media policy.
The St. Petersburg Times is reporting that the Southeastern Conference has sent its 12 schools (including my across-the-street neighbor, Vanderbilt) a new media policy that, in effect, bans fans from posting Facebook updates, Twitter tweets, photos on Flickr, video on YouTube while in the stands.
I’ve re-read the article a couple of times thinking it’s impossible that I’m reading the correctly. But, yes, that’s what it says.
According to the article:
“A league spokesman said this policy was meant to try to keep as many eyeballs as possible on ESPN and CBS — which are paying the SEC $3 billion for the broadcast rights to the league’s games over the next 15 years — and also on the SEC Digital Network — the league’s own entity that’s scheduled to debut on SECSports.com.”
I then looked at the calendar, and no, it’s not April 1.
So, there’s only one conclusion: Like the Associated Press, the SEC is nuts.
Without going into all of the obvious reasons why Tweeting and photo-sharing benefit ESPN and the SEC, I’ll list just a few off-the-top-of-my-head reasons this policy is nuts, along with some questions that have me scratching my head:
1. Except for Vanderbilt, all of these schools are state-run, tax supported institutions. They aren’t NFL teams owned by private individuals.
2. Every SEC stadium, except for Vanderbilt’s, has been financed by tax-payers.
3. Every SEC university has a law school with professors who would love to test this policy.
4. The role of a university should not be to criminalize its students for loving their team enough to share it with the world.
5. Does ESPN (and its owners, Walt Disney (80%) and Hearst (20%)) really want to ban college students and fans from using Twitter at football games to, uh, get people to tune in? Has the SEC even asked ESPN?
6. Do the President’s of SEC schools really want to tell their students, alumni and sports contributors that free speech ends at the gates of the stadium?
Bonus: Jack Lail: The SEC is out of its league.
A big thanks to Dave Delaney, social media coordinator at Nashville-based Griffin Technology, who last night organized what I guess can be called the “beta version” of a new idea of his called Tool Talk.
In 2007, Dave started an informal monthly geek meet-up (eat-up?) here in Nashville called Geek Breakfast (there’s one tomorrow) that became the inspiration for similar gatherings for early-rising geeks in cities around the world. The monthly Geek Breakfasts here in Nashville now have about 60 people who attend each month. There are always different people, the breakfasts have no agenda but meeting other geeks — they’re just a time to get together with other people who speak geek.
Tool Talks are envisioned (as I perceive them) as a simple salon type gathering where a small group (eight was the limit Dave set last night and I think it was a perfect size) can spend a couple of hours talking about the tech tools they “live in.” As anyone knows, there are new web applications, websites, plug-ins, gadgets and utilities that appear every day. For different sub-sets of geeks (developers, tech marketers, the GTD obsessed, people who manage 20+Twitter accounts and dilettantes like me), there are special tools we live in each day, but we’re constantly thinking we’re missing something despite having RSS newsreaders that have been fine-tuned to find the “shiny new stuff.”
Last night, all of those who gathered were long-time bloggers and web developers of one type or another. In addition to Dave (@davedelaney) and me, last night’s talk included:
to “O’Neill” & “[meta]marketer”
Kate O’Neill ([meta]marketer, @kateo)
Chris Ennis (Function Interactive / Nashmash, @dotrage)
Mitch Canter (Studio Nashvegas, @studionashvegas)
Allison Groves (Sitening, / SheWrites, @allisongroves )
Chuck Bryant (Border Jump, @chuckbryant)
Eric Schuff (Tennessean.com, @ericshuff)
Dave has a recording of our two-hour chat, complete with loud restaurant sounds. While I can’t imagine anyone listening to it, Dave’s post includes a list of all the “tools” each one of us mentioned. Some of the tools have been around a while, but others are still in invitation-only beta.
By being “open” (Dave envisions it as first come, first served) but limited, the Tool Talks are guaranteed to always attract a different, but motivated group. And by making them a “what I use” rather than “what I sell” or “what I’m working on” focus, the whole “pitch” dynamic is absent. If there are more than eight who want to attend, there’s nothing about the idea that can’t be cloned in many ways — brown-bag lunches, company lunch and learns, industry specific (i.e., music industry) Tool Talks.
The point is to gather up a small group to share what’s working for you and hearing what others are passionately using themselves.
What a great, simple idea.
I’m also extremely amazed that he was able to post notes from it afterwards.)
In Tennessee, a state senator resigned late yesterday in the final stage in a political scandal scenario that has become such a cliche that I developed a nine-step, fill-in-the-blanks version of it two years ago:
1. Politician _______s.
2. Rumors circulate that politician ________s.
3. Politician denies rumors.
4. Politician caught _____ing.
5. Politician says, “I did not _____, it was a misunderstanding.”
6. Politician blames media and bloggers.
7. Past partners, victims or witnesses show up to prove politician _______s all the time.
8. Politician admits he’s __________ed.
9. Politician apologizes to his family and to those who trusted him, blames it on alcohol and enters rehab.
(Please note: every scandal has its nuance — the nine-steps are merely a “framework” for ridicule and not a scientific formula.)
In this current Tennessee case, the state senator’s resignation came at the end of a boilerplate scandal: “family values lawmaker gets blackmailed by boyfriend of the intern with whom the lawmaker is having an affair.” (I apologize if I got some of the specifics of the scandal wrong in that description, as I make it a practice to tune out all but the beginnings and ends of any “news” related to lawmakers and interns, blackmail or hikes along the Appalachian Trail.)
I mention this resignation only to note how he followed step #6 even after the resignation, but then caught himself in recognition of the irony of blaming “the media and bloggers” in the context of a confessional. From the Nashville Scene, here’s a quote from the resigning senator’s on a radio talk show:
“I think a lot of people express frustration with the changing professionalism of journalism. That is, journalists used to have to verify sources and verify information before they put it out there. I guess with the blogosphere and just more people being engaged and the advent of the Internet, people get on the Internet or the airwaves or whatever and just say whatever, and I think they need to be more cognizant of they way they treated …
At that point, the lawmaker apparently recognized how ironic he was beginning to sound.
One last thing — a prediction.
The next politician who resigns will include “Twitter” in his list of things to blame.
Later: Upon reflection, I’ve decided to suggest to lawmakers they skip trying to keep up all the different web-based channels of expression they should blame and just blame “the media and every damn fool with a computer or an iPhone.”
My son, 2006
Former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair died today. Those who have read this blog know that I have written about Steve as long as this blog has been around. A Google custom search of the term “Steve McNair” on RexBlog.com has ten pages of search results.
I never actually met Steve, but my Titans season tickets used to be on the row behind his mother and family. I’m thinking about her right now. She is a wonderful person and it was always a joy to cheer along with the large group of McNairs who would travel from Mississippi to Nashville for the games during the years he played for the Titans.
Last September, I posted an excerpt from a book called Tales from the Titans Sideline by Jim Wyatt that includes an item about what has to be the craziest “fan thing” thing I’ve ever done. It grew out of my frustration with some booing of Steve among Titans fans during the first games of the 1999 season — games the team were winning but games in which the offensive plan was, in a word, boring. Along with some colleagues, I rented one of those banner-flying planes to circle the Titans practice field displaying the message: “Fly high, Steve — your fans.” Not because of the banner, but a nice follow up, nonetheless: That year, the Titans made it to the Super Bowl and Steve McNair’s performance in it is considered one of the most memorable in Super Bowl history.
There was something about McNair, the player, and his quiet determination on the field that made me shelve any pretense of being a mature, grown-up man when the topic turned to him. When the subject of Steve McNair or Eddie George come up, I’m about 12-years old.
But the grownup in me makes me understand that hero football players, in real life, are people with frailties — that and week-after-week of having NFL and other professional athletes prove it over and over. So I keep my hero-worship of athletes on the field and court.
Being a grownup also suggests to me that as details emerge about the circumstances of his death, there may be some I do not want to hear.
But the me who is that fan in the stands cheering on Steve — that me is very sad right now.
That me will always remember him flying high.
My friend, Nick Bradbury, writes about the discontinuation of HomeSite, an HTML editing software he developed before most people ever heard of HTML. He created the software in 1995 and sold it in 1997, so it has been a while since he’s been involved with the product. (After a few sales and corporate consolidations, the software ended up at Adobe.) Nonetheless, the announcement by Adobe provided Nick with the opportunity to reflect on the early days of the software’s development and how he depended greatly on the users of the product to shape it — something else he helped pioneer.
I especially like this quote:
“Sometimes in this blog I’ve made disparaging remarks about HomeSite, but that’s not because I disliked it. It’s just that it’s hard to look at something you created so long ago without seeing all the mistakes that you’ve learned not to make since then. I’m actually very proud of HomeSite, and very thankful that it enabled me to quit my job and work at home. And, funny enough, HomeSite is also what paid for the home I’m living in now.
I’ve never used HomeSite. Heck, I’ve never even used Windows. But I’m grateful for the software. Why? Because when Nick quit his job and started working at home, he decided that home would be in Nashville — making him the Jack White of web software developers.
The best feature of the experimental Google Maps City Tours may now be the “remove” button. But with some time and tweaks, this could be a great sight seeing — or business planning — tool.
Via Seach Engine Land and Steve Rubel comes word of a new Google Labs experimental project called City Tours (http://citytours.googlelabs.com/search). And by “experimental,” Google Labs really means experimental, as in it’s not ready for prime time and it may not become a real product. As I’ve written before, Google tries things all the time that don’t work and which they then discard — that’s a big part of why they are so successful.
Given some time to let the features evolve, I believe this could be an incredibly helpful tool — and not just for sight-seeing, but as a valuable logistics tool for certain kinds of businesses.
In essence, it mashes up several features already found in Google Maps: Google Maps advanced search features that most people never discover (i.e., map search queries like “category:”Museums” loc: Nashville), the personalization of “my maps,” the ability to override Google maps’ suggested directions by moving push-pins, data from walking directions and ratings and review data. City Tour takes all those mashed up features and presents them in a metaphor that results in what could be a helpful way to plan an itinerary of a multi-day of sight-seeing in any city. You start by merely typing in the name of a city or you can search for a specific address.
Because my hometown of Nashville is a tourist destination for many (locals, however, consider it a badge of honor to claim they’ve never visited many of the places tourists come to see), I decided I’d check out the default suggestions of a search of Nashville. Other than jumping in the car to drive out to something near the Opryland Hotel called the Willie Nelson and Friends General Store and Museum, I can understand why the default locations were selected. However, there is a means to override anything the map suggests (Add/Remove sights), so the default sites are merely placeholders. (I assume the sites recommended may change as the ratings data users contribute “vote up” or “vote down” specific locations.)
But this is a work in progress — early in the work’s progress: the “experimental”-ness of City Tours can be seen if you try to add a visit to one of Nashville’s museums that’s actually worth a visit — the Hermitage, home of President Andrew Jackson, the map assumes you’re referring to the Hermitage Hotel, home of the best restroom in America. (Hint: search for Hermitage Museum to get the real Hermitage.)
More importantly, by changing some metaphors related to what one can use a map like this for — in this case, it’s a vacation planning tool — this type of tool could evolve into a delivery planning tool for business that could provide a low cost (or free) alternative to super-expensive logistics systems certain delivery-intensive businesses need. Take some of the same set of features and call it “small business delivery planning map” and you’d have a hacked (but obviously, greatly simplified) version of the routing instructions a UPS delivery person is handed each day (actually, it’s on a computer in the truck) that, reportedly, is so efficient, it minimizes left hand turns in order to save gas and drive-time.
With a few tweaks, this could be an incredibly helpful — and extremely valuable (time=money) tool for helping small service businesses that dispatch workers (i.e., repair service companies, deliveries) plan their workers intenerary. It won’t challenge UPS and others who sell high-end systems for certain types of companies, but it could be a killer application for a fleet of 3-4 trucks — or larger.
In the mean time, the experimental version could be fun to play with in planning a trip — and even more fun for locals to criticize for what the default version suggests, or doesn’t.
If you’re in the Nashville “geek” community or would like to see a debate over whether or not Nashville even has a geek community, check out the comment thread on this Venture Nashville blog post (the blog is part of Milt Capp’s VentureNashville.com).
The “conversation” all started in a typical way: a well-known and respected Nashville unix administrator turned entrepreneur gets $2 million funding from a west coast venture fund for his startup, and moves to Portland — the one in Oregon, not Tennessee. Actually, there’s nothing remotely typical about that story.
Anyway, some parting observations he made about the geek scene (or lack thereof) in Nashville proves that diplomacy isn’t required to be an incredible unix developer — but the conversation it kicked off is a great one to continue (as I think I’ve heard a version of it for over a decade).
Frankly, I’m glad when people from Nashville go anywhere to do anything.
It is Sunday in Tennessee. Since there are Sunday editions of many papers in the state, we’re now 38 or so hours into a curious lack of any coverage (in print or online) by local media attempting to verify where exactly in Tennessee Steve Jobs had a liver transplant two months ago, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. By now, reporters have checked sources and obviously, have come up blank in their attempts to verify the Wall Street Journal’s story. But the WSJ being the WSJ, it’s a rare editor of a local newspaper who would ever run a story saying, “We can’t verify what the WSJ is reporting eventhough we know personally all sorts of people who work at local hospitals and no one will confirm it.”
One of Steve Jobs’ local newspapers, The San Jose Mercury, like all newspapers, was forced to interview transplant surgeons who can only speculate about the surgery and why Jobs chose Tennessee. However, because the paper is treating the story as a “local” one, it’s worth noting what Lisa Krieger, one of its reporters, heard from longtime transplant surgeon Dr. Oscar Salvatierra of Stanford University’s School of Medicine, who speculated why Jobs traveled to Tennessee for the procedure, “It is likely not a wait-list issue but rather one of maintaining privacy. I would suspect he sought to stay away from the area in which he works, and where people know him.” (As a sidenote, the Mercury article reports a promising prognosis on the liver transplant treatment. But again, it notes: “Stanford University holds the nation’s best one-year survival statistics for liver-transplant recipients.”)
So, while there’s nothing really new that has come out in this story, the “handling” of it — how it was first reported and the way it has been managed since it was first released — is now under-going real-time analysis by some smart people who are worth taking note of.
The oddities of the original story
John Gruber does a point-by-point breakdown of the original Wall Street Journal article to display the many oddities it contains. He touches on the Tennessee questions the story raises, but does not answer. For example, the assumption that the procedure took place in Memphis has not yet been established as fact (the WSJ story does not say which city it took place in, but rumors have swirled about Jobs being in Memphis).
Still more smoke than fire
Joe Wilcox analyzed the “media manipulation tactics” of the story’s handling to deduce its purpose is to, he believes, prepare the market for an announcement that Steve Jobs isn’t coming back to work this month. This is a premise he first wrote about on June 5 when he implied that another Wall Street Journal article by Yukari Iwatani Kane and Joann Lublin (the same by-line team on Friday night’s story) was transparent media manipulation by Apple’s masters of such.
Rule 1
“Release bad news on a Friday night” is one of those anctient truisms of corporate communications that today seems to be accepted as a part of their profession’s Ten Commandments. This is one of those stories — obviously leaked by Apple insiders as part of a strategy approved personally by Jobs — that makes an Apple watcher like myself again marvel at how everything the company does, even manipulate the news, they do so with a mastery of engineering and design.
I have no doubt Steve Jobs was and is a very sick person. I hope and pray for his recovery.
But I don’t get the benefit of him handling this news in the same way Apple handles a product release.
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