For me, a clear sign that you are an old person is when you start avoiding or preventing change. I have this belief since my early twenties when I joined the workforce and saw some very pathetic examples of co-workers that would do anything and everything to keep things the same.
By then, I had decided I would fight becoming old (of the mind) by accepting and going after change. From the simple things to the big things. From trying a different route to work every once in a while, to changing car, house, lifestyle. Just to try it.
We certainly cannot prevent becoming physically old (although research will improve our life expectancy and life quality significantly over the next decades), but we absolutely can prevent from becoming old mentally.
Are you old?
Here are a few signs:
You park at the same parking space every morning.
You have a routine for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
You buy the same brand of sliced bread every time.
You want to buy a TV that will last 10 or more years.
You wish they would make TVs today as they used to 10 years ago.
You don't try any new Web service because "the way I do for the last 10 years is just fine".
You don't try new foods or order always the same thing at a restaurant;
You have a 30-year mortgage at your house and you think you'll be there for 30 years.
You don't travel or you don't like to travel.
This is not a "yes" or "no" kind of thing. There is a scale and everyone is somewhere on that scale. It's a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is someone that proactively work to avoid any change, 3 is somebody that avoid changes, 5 is someone that accept some changes, but not others, 7 is someone that accept all changes and proactively works towards some changes, and 10 is someone that has commitment issues and change is all there is.
Anyone knows a website that does Geo-tagging? Flickr, perhaps? Zooomr? Every photo sharing service? Wrong. They call it geo-tagging, but it's not. They are just attaching a Lat-Long number to a picture and that is it.
I believe the new service provided by Yahoo Internet Location Platform (and soon to be copied by Google and MSN) is about to change the way we think about Geo-Tagging.
Think about this scenario. I upload my Europe trip pictures to Flickr and put all of them on the map (or I used a camera that has GPS coordinates). Now I want to see the pictures on a map... Easy! Now I want to see all pictures in "Paris". Gulp! I can't, because the damn geo-tagging doesn't convert those Lat-Long numbers into named locations.
I tried to implement Geo-Tagging for Sampa in 2006, but never finished the feature after 6 weeks of development. The reality is that Geo-Tagging done right is much, much harder than writing 10 lines of Javascript and putting it on a Google Map.
Locations as we think about them are regions (polygons) that overlap each other, they have hierarchy, multiple names, convert to map coordinates and to names. Paris is a region, so is France, so is Europe. But Paris is also a name of a city in Texas, and Paris in France might have a nickname ("city of lights"). How do you handle that? And how do you handle where the picture was taken versus of what it was taken? I might be in Manhattan, but if I took a picture of Brooklin, what is the geo-tag?
Ready for more? What if I want to geo-tag my house, give it the coordinate and call it "House"? That geo-tag is specific to me only, and that should be ok.
So far, I have not seen any service that "got it", but I think we are about to change a corner on web 2.0 "geo-tagging" technology and I'm very excited about it.
Did you notice how much complaint every person does every day? We complain about politicians, the economoy, products that don't work, overpriced gasoline, UIs that are "stupid", our lack of time, lack of money...
Are most of the people like that or just most of the people around me that are like that?
As a society have we changed and become more critical and bitter about our lives or it has been like that since Plato?
[I woke up at 5:30 AM so my brain is in some strange mode]
I've got quite a few friends that keep asking me what I think of MBA School in the context if they should attend it. First of, I don't have an MBA so it's not 100% clear what value people get of this degree. However, I do have several things to point out.
The most common kind of friend asking me that is the technical guy/gal. Usually a Developer, Tester or Program Manager that wants to expand his opportunities by attending an MBA School.
Here is a question back to you: Would you go to learn Micro-biology if you want to be a Chef?
My point is, if you are thinking about getting an MBA you have to consider that you want to have a career in business management, not continue your technical career path.
I've got quite a few friends who did attend MBA school, to go back or continue on their technical job as a developer (e.g.). You spend 2-3 years of your life, tens of thousands of dollars for what? So you know how to read a balance sheet?
We don't have any MBAs at Sampa, but one of our "helpers" is a former Director at Microsoft with an MBA degree. He consolidated my belief that the value of an MBA is two-fold: First, you learn about important business concepts that even if you don't use it, you know they exist and know where to find more about it. Second, you learn how to name things!
That's right, one of the things I like the most about talking w/ MBAs (or people that have years of business management experience) is that they have name for things that was hard for me to verbalize before.
As time goes by, I learn more and more and I can fluently use the MBA's terminology as in Conversion, SG&A, NRE, Churn, CAC, LTV, ROI, Decay, Cohort, Capex, Opex, COGS, etc.
I guess my point is that you should get an MBA if you are the kind of person who learns more at a classroom *and* you're ready to leave your current job to pursue a full-time management gig.
I just got out of the phone with a Comcast representative that told me in all these words: "DirecTV steals from their customers. Would you have business with a company that steals from you?"
That beauty and a few more like that was what a Comcast customer service representative was telling me over the phone when I called to either cancel my service or negotiate a bundle package for my new house.
John, the guy that motivated this blog post, lost it after he realized that the overall package that Verizon Bundle is offering on their website is much cheaper than what Comcast Triple Play. Once he realized the price was much different, he decided to appeal to many things, including a lot of things that don't matter much:
"You'll have two bills". It's all automatic debt for me.
"You'll have to sign a contract". I don't plan on switching services every six months.
"They will charge you a full month payment when you subscribe". Ok, so they will charge me $100 on my first month instead of $30.
"Their Internet price doesn't include the $6.50 for the ISP". Right, so instead of paying $94.97 I'll have to pay $101.47. That's still $60 less than Comcast.
"They will increase the price by $35 after 3 months". That's right, they will charge $136.47 which is $24 less than Comcast.
So, John turned to his how to screw a customer book and start rambling on how DirecTV steal from the customer, why would I do business with somebody that steal from me, etc.
After all is said and done I sent an email to Comcast through their website complaining about John and within the hour got a response from Ervia D. apologizing for the occurrence.
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(and soon to be copied by Google and MSN) is about to change the way we think about Geo-Tagging.
October, 2007