Hi – thank you for emailing me.

When your email arrived, I was doing one of the following: celebrating
Christmas with my family, bringing in the New Year with friends,
getting married to my favourite person in the world, flying across the
planet, navigating the Indian transport system, riding a camel around
the Arabian desert or looking for jaguars in the Belizean jungle.

Needless to say, I won’t be able to reply to your email. My apologies.

Come think of it, all the above activities can be fun  – with one exception.  Which one?

Cool video by SAP, promoting the concept of in-memory computing.

If only their UI was as cute as their videos

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

P.S. Ah, that FTC disclosure.. I did some business with the Queen .. way back.

The best CRM system can’t help you if your sales / marketing team is clueless.  Here’s a ridiculous email I’ve just received.  Name removed to protect the (not-so) innocent

X. Y. kindly requests a meeting

Hi Zoli,

In celebrating our 40th anniversary, I’ve been given the privilege to manage the relationship between your organization and Communispond. When you have a moment, please take a look at the information below. Kindly let me know if it’s out of date, and the best way to reach you. I wish to be respectful of your time and patience.

Is your organization prepared with the communication tools and behaviors (presenting, selling, coaching, persuading, etc) to achieve greater success in 2010? I would like to hear your thoughts and ideas on any communication challenges you anticipate, and see if we can help. Please let me know if you’d be willing to meet with me – either conference call or face to face. l greatly appreciate your consideration.

Warm Regards,
X. Y.

What’s wrong with this email campaign?  A few things… where should I even start?

Obsolete data: we all know this is a disease that plagues many (CRM) systems, but this one is extreme.  The data shown on this business card never existed in such combination, but bits and pieces did.  Yes, I participated in SAP’s International Consultant Training – exactly 20 years ago, so they must have picked it up from a very-very ancient resume. (It also means I understand Charlie’s joke…).  Yes, I did work at SAP America, when they were a tiny outfit with 70+ employees, and the Newton Square HQ listed above was not even a dream.

Data errors do happen – but how on Earth could they dump 20-year old, pre-CRM, pre-ERP, pre-everything data into a CRM system?

Now let’s focus on content.  The title, specifically.  That’s the marketer’s opportunity to grab attention – or lose it.  Time is money, and most of us don’t have a lot to waste – why on Earth would I want to meet a stranger without any previous contact or knowing the intent?

You just don’t send out an initial contact request asking for a purpose-less meeting.

Anyway – this email is in its well-deserved place in my Spam folder and Communispond is flagged as mindless marketers. But hey, it was good for a rant.  In return, free advice to them: you don’t need Salesforce.com.  It won’t help you.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

However, after the successful reboot the system wanted to install a device driver to my monitor.  I thought it was a bit weird (has it not just done it?), but clicked OK, let it search for the driver.  Searching in Windows Update, that is… WTF?

After  a few minutes I decided to check Vista update history: it turns out that the driver update for my HP w2207 display failed to install.  Clicking on all the “help” links led to generic useless nonsense – business as usual…

Continue reading…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine’s version of “America’s Got Talent.” She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and “sand painting” skills to interpret Germany’s invasion and occupation of Ukraine during WWII.

Guest blogger Melissa Snow of Shared Hope International discusses their new public awareness campaign to address child trafficking in street prostitution in Washington, DC.  Child sex trafficking happens all over our nation’s capitol, sometimes only steps from the White House and blocks from a symbol of the end of slavery — the Lincoln Memorial

It is a shocking article, and if indeed is true, then raising awareness is the right thing to do.  But the author stepped over the line with the photo she is using for illustration:

Photo by Ed Yourdon via Flickr

There is nothing wrong in using Flickr images with a Creative Commons licence, and the owner of the photo, Ed Yourdon is properly accredited.

But this is not just an image.  It’s a real girl, a living person with a face and name, who is quite recognizable by her family, friends, adversaries.  Using her in this article places her in the wrong context, implying that she is an (unwilling) child prostitute.   The author has no information about her, and Ed, who took the picture makes it clear he thinks it is the wrong context in a comment to the article.

The sad irony of the matter is that the author is clearly passionate about fighting childrens’ abuse – yet using this image in this context is a case of abuse in itself.

Yes, Cancer Dude, Jeffrey Walker, businessman, musician, artist, family-man @radiowalker who fought and beat cancer so many times had one too many battles to fight, and he lost this last one.  Last night he passed away.

I can’t find words to write. Bloggers’ block, big time.  But he described his battle and inspired so many in his own posts:

Cancer 2.0: the Killer App

What I learned from Cancer 2.0

Living with Cancer in Silicon Valley

Living with Cancer in Silicon Valley II: Survival Tips from a Hardened Cancer Dude

and some of my earlier posts:

Cancer Dude Will Win Again

Jeffrey’s Seven: Cancer Dude Back Online

Jeffrey’s gone. Here’s an excerpt from his wife, Jessy’s email, very much in Jeffrey’s spirit:

Jeffrey loved blogging and he loved reading the responses even more. He was awed by the outpouring of love.  Going in to his surgeries, he read all the postings written and it gave him strength.

Let’s give him strength again. I know that somehow, he will see your comments on his blog.  Its a wonderful way to reach out to us too, his family.

Let’s say our final Good Bye to Jeffrey over on his blog.

And listen to him play one more time. During the last struggle, between two chemo treatments he played guitar at the  Stanford University Relay for Life:

Update:  I thought I’d let another guitar player say the final Good Bye: Only the Good Ones Die Young.

And now, here they are again – at least in the form of an interactive game, due out next month.

The preview does not do justice to it, after all you can only passively watch it, while the real The Beatles: Rock Band will allow players to sing and play interactively with the Fab Four.  The game was developed by Apple Corp, which is not to be confused with that other entity in the business of making of iPods and iPhones and all sorts of Mac-things.

Read more @ Nick Carr’s  Rough Type, Crave and The New York Times.

And now, here’s your  Ticket To Ride.