Randy Pausch got a role in upcoming Star Trek movie
A few months ago, I (along with most of the rest of the blogosphere) was “moved by Randy Pausch’s last lecture”:http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2007/09/30/randy-pausch.php at Carneige Mellon. Pausch, you may recall, has a terminal diagnosis from an aggressive cancer, and has just a few months left.
Not surprisingly, many people were moved by his lecture. Here’s “the transcript”:http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/Randy/pauschlastlecturetranscript.pdf, it’s [...]
Randy Pausch
Not really sure that there are words that would do justice to Randy Pausch’s “Last Lecture”, given “at Carneige Mellon”:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=362421849901825950&hl=en recently. Randy’s “home page”:http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~pausch/ has a number of links to recent media coverage, but here’s the short version: he’s 47 years old, a legend in computer science (particularly in video game design and virtual reality), [...]
Memo to Intuit PR
Listening to “this piece on NPR”:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9658216 yesterday, I had one reaction to Intuit’s spokesperson’s claims that Intuit’s problem of handling tax filings on the evening of 4/17 was the fault, in the words of Harry Pforzheimer, of “late” filers and “procrastinators”.
Hey, Intuit: here’s a few other words I’d use: “customers” and “on time”. As in, [...]
Ask the wizard
One of the gifts of working in a small company is the opportunity to interact with every aspect of the business. Not only is it rare for someone to look at a different part of the company and remark “That’s not my job”, but if the culture’s right, it’s actually frowned upon. I like that [...]
Is this being blogged?
Fascinating conversation “over at Andrea Weckerle’s blog”:http://andreaweckerlecopywriting.typepad.com/new_millennium_pr/2006/08/goodwill_employ.html about the firing of a Goodwill worker. Andrea not only reports the orginal story, but followed up and spoke with several people at Goodwill. Subsequently, a number of concerned Goodwill customers forwarded a link to her blog through Goodwill’s corporate site, resulting in a discussion of the matter [...]
Props to Lenovo
Less than two hours after “my post on Tuesday”:http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2006/05/08/like_clockwork.php about my laptop dying, I had a phone call from “David Churbuck”:http://www.churbuck.com/wordpress/index.php, who’s the global head of web marketing for Lenovo. I’m always amazed when I hear that people read my blog — I suppose I shouldn’t be, given the business I’m in — and when [...]
San Francisco to ban video cameras
OK, San Francisco isn’t actually banning video cameras. But perhaps there should be an IQ test before obtaining one. Remember the 49ers “video debacle”:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/06/01/MNdisclaimer01.DTL this summer? (If not, there’s some background from Cyberjournalist.net “here”:http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/002681.php.)
With that fresh in their minds, you’d think that San Franciscans would be a bit gunshy about pulling a similar stunt, just [...]
Vice chairman of GM on his blog: We’re playing for keeps
Love the new “Fast Lane blog”:http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/archives/2005/01/quick_missive_f_1.html by GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz:
bq. _Given the industry’s somewhat spotty record of taking concept cars to production intact, your concerns are understandable. … [T]he Sky, of course, isn’t a concept car at all. That is the full, no-excuses, what-you-see-is-what-you-get production vehicle. We’re playing for keeps._
Now _that’s_ an authentic [...]
Heroism, pure and simple
Jason Dunham is a hero. “This story”:http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB108543666009520024-INjfINglaB3nJ2raYKIaKqAm4,00.html from Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal is a remarkable work of journalism. It’s a story of dedication, duty, honor, courage, and loss. It’s about a man who may be the first Medal of Honor recipient in more than 11 years.
And it’s about the brutal choices that war forces us [...]
It’s gotta be… the towels?
I wrote the other night about Mark Cuban’s post on “success and motivation”:http://www.rklau.com/tins/archives/2004/04/23/motivation.php. Interestingly, his post was titled “Part 1.” Tonight he followed up with “part 2″:http://www.blogmaverick.com/entry/4622841295227252/, and shows that his business strategy can be summed up in one word:
_Towels._
That’s right, towels. (If you don’t see the connection, read part 2 again, then read “this [...]
