TowelBarHuman

Finally….Apple defends itself. There really isn’t...

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:02:00 -0500

Finally….Apple defends itself. There really isn’t anything else to say.

This is Puma’s new shoe box. “Clever Little...

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 13:34:11 -0500

This is Puma’s new shoe box. “Clever Little Bag” 21 months in the making.

I love it when a company takes a very standard piece of their everyday business and asks: “how can we make this better?”.

It would be easy for Puma to not worry about the shoebox. I’m sure a lot of people think they have much more important things to worry about. “It’s a shoe box. How can it be better? Don’t fix it, it isn’t broken.” I can just hear these words coming out of a Puma executive’s mouth. An executive who is bound in tradition and probably holding back the company more then helping.

But what separates a good company from a great company is rethinking the very things we take for granted on a daily basis and then working to make them better.

There is no reason why the shoebox can’t be 100 times better and it’s super cool to see Puma taking steps to make this happen.

This is the most famous email ever sent. The year was...

Mon, 12 Apr 2010 12:41:35 -0500

This is the most famous email ever sent. The year was 1994.

Started multiple industries
It’s named after food
Was sent to 6,000 very lucky people
It was called internet marketing…still is by some agencies
Thanks to Gmail, I rarely see them anymore

I present to you the first SPAM email. Sent by a husband and wife team of Attorneys that did immigration law.

I’d argue as important as the trans-continental railroad, the Manhattan Project and P Zone combined!

I’ve been visiting Drudge since the early days. I’m...

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 12:01:51 -0500

I’ve been visiting Drudge since the early days. I’m not certain, but I believe it was 1997 or so….

In the old days, I leveraged the link aggregation part of the site. Bookmarks in browsers weren’t as manageable as they are today, nor were your account profile settings saved from machine to machine on the U of Iowa campus. Drudge came in handy.

What’s crazy, is that I still check daily. I’m not sure why some days.

At the end of the day you have to take a lot of his written headlines and links with a grain of salt, but it becomes comical at times. Like the above….

Here’s to hoping that people don’t just read Drudge and watch Fox news.

Falling behind....

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 11:10:56 -0500

Falling behind....:

Reading about how the US lacks even the basic knowledge about High-Speed Trains makes me sad.

Nearly 150 years after American railroads brought in thousands of Chinese laborers to build rail lines across the West, China is poised once again to play a role in American rail construction. But this time, it would be an entirely different role: supplying the technology, equipment and engineers to build high-speed rail lines.

We all are to be blamed for this. How did we allow this to happen? Why aren’t we on the cutting edge of this technology? Is it Big Oil? Ford? GM? Government lack of investment?

We need to catch up and do so quickly.

I love me a burger....

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 10:54:11 -0500

I love me a burger....:

I love 5 Guys Burgers. The In & Out of the Midwest.

I also love their philosophy “Sell a really good, juicy burger on a fresh bun. Make perfect French fries. Don’t cut corners.”

Doing something awesome is usually pretty simple, conceptually-wise. Most of the time we mess it up by making it much more difficult for any number of reasons.

Five Guys has 4 core products on their menu; burgers, dogs, fries and soda. That’s it!

A perfect example of “more isn’t better”.

Facebook Profile Picture - NO KIDS PLEASE

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:07:59 -0500

What’s up with people on Facebook who put a picture of their child as their profile picture?

If this is a Facebook profile of lil’ Johnny Snotnose, it’s totally cool to have little Johnny’s picture as the profile.
However if the Facebook Profile is for Mrs. Suzy Snotnose, please put a picture of yourself with your kid, or heaven forbid post a picture of JUST you!

You’re not being selfish for putting up a picture of youself as your profile. That’s actualy what profile picture means.
I realize that your child is a HUGE part of your life, but putting a personal picture up doesn’t dehumanize him/her. Trust me on this.

Kleenex box brilliance

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:15:15 -0500

As I got to the end of my Kleenex box, I was reminded how simple the most briliant things in life can be.

This particular brilliance can be found in the cheapest of Kleenex boxes. The boxes that you’ll find at your office, or in a hotel/motel.

When you get down to the last 5 or so tissues, the color changes from white to brown. Amazing, right?! There is ZERO suprise when you run out! I love it!

I can only think what feedback the worker or executive got when he/she suggested this. I had to seem like a completely insane idea at the time!

I love it and it’s freaking brilliant.

Facebook Friend Spam?

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:16:16 -0500

If I am your friend on Facebook, do me and everyone else a favor, and don’t send out blast messages about your blog, website, etc.

The polite thing would be to post the link on your wall, put a little comment with it as well. When you send everyone a message you’re clogging my inbox.

This is called Spam. Nobody likes it, and people are probably talking behind your back about how annoying you are.

Plus, if I really wanted to be alerted in real-time to your posts and updates, I’d add you to my RSS Feed.

Thanks.

Seriously….worst product web page EVER

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:24:23 -0500

Seriously….worst product web page EVER

Worst Product Page EVER

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 19:23:06 -0500

I want a Kindle 2. I’ve held one, and I’m pretty sure it’s the coolest things I’ve ever touched since I held the 3G iPhone for the first time.

It’s that cool, and I can promise you that everyone is going to have one of these things in the next 2-3 years.

It’s going to be all the rage. People are even going to start reading again.

However…..

The Kindle 2 product page is probably the worst product web page I’ve seen in a really long time. After 10 minutes of scrolling and reading, I realized I was barely a 10th of a way through the page!

Why does Amazon think they need to cram everything there is to know about the Kindle 2 on to one SINGLE page?! According to my count, over 11,000 words! On one web page!!!

I was so frustrated I left the page. I’m seriously pissed off right now.

I mean, I’m sure I’ll go back and read through the entire page, but they aren’t making it easy, and that sucks.

Plus, if they put that little thought into the product page, how much thought are they putting into this $360 book reader?

Bacon....

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:42:32 -0600

I’m starting to really hate the pub that bacon is receiving lately.

All of a sudden, bacon is so awesome.

“Look at me, I have bacon background on my computer, bacon magnets on my fridge, I just bought this bacon cookbook at Border’s, my daughter got a new bacon plushie, ohhhh….did you see Matt Lauer eating bacon on the Today Show.”

Please stop

You’re not cool if you tell people “how much you looooove bacon, and everything is better with bacon on it”.

Please just stop.

We know….we know, you love bacon. Well, duh! EVERYBODY f’ing loves bacon!

-Come back to me when you have to order a side of bacon everywhere you go, and you have certain way you want your bacon cooked (rare, crispy, wet)
-We can talk, if you wake up on a Saturday and cook a pound of bacon and eat it in one setting.
-If you think bacon smell on your sweatshirt smells better than a campfire or freshly cut grass, we can now be bacon friends.

Otherwise, stop being a bacon poser.