battlestar galactica | californication | cricket am | criminal minds | csi: crime scene investigation | csi: new york | dragons'den | lost | michael palin's new europe | natural world | panorama | ross kemp on gangs | spooks | studio 60 on the sunset strip | the daily show with jon stewart | top gear
2007 > 1. snowboarding @ kicking horse: golden, canada, jan 20-29 | 2. snowboarding in bansko: bulgaria, mar 23-27 | 3. easter break in lake garda and verona: italy, apr 4-8 | 4. snowboarding @ breckenridge: colorado, usa, apr 14-21 | 5. business trip to lisbon: portugal, may 22-24 | 6. salix cc overseas tour: sweden, june 28-july 2 | 7. business trip to lisbon: portugal, oct 9-11 | 8. weekend in brussels: belgium, oct 19-21 | 9. business trip to athens: greece, nov 5-7 | 10. business trip to
new york: united states, nov 9-14 |
11. snowboarding in val thorens: france, november 29-december 3 | 12. snowboarding in lake tahoe: united states, december 26 - january 5
2006 > 1. snowboarding @ kicking horse: golden, canada, jan 21 - feb 4 | 2. business trip to zürich: switzerland, march 1-2 | 3. chelsea arts club ice cricket tour: tallinn, estoni,: 2-5 march | 4. snowboarding in alpe d'huez : vaujany, france, march 10-13 | 5. snowboarding in alpe d'huez : vaujany, france, april 14-18 | 6. business trip: helsinki, finland, april 19-20 | 7. salix cricket club overseas tour to cote d'azur: france, april 21-24 | 8. weekend in sicily: italy, april 28-may 2 | 9. business trip: brussels, belgium, may 9-11 | 10. weekend in pisa and florence: italy, july 27-30 | 11. weekend in split: croatia, september 8-12 | 12. stockhom weekend: sweden, 19-22 october | 13. weekend in pula and opatija: croatia, 18-21 november | 14. snowboarding in val thorens: france, december 1-4
2005 > 1. Snowboarding in Geilo: Norway, January 21-23 | 2. Snowboarding @ Kicking Horse: Canada, February 5-19 | 3. Snowboarding in Les Arcs: France, February 25-27 | 4. Rome on Business: Italy, March 10-19 | 5. Paris Weekend: France, April 7-10 | 6. Snowboarding @ Zermatt: April 22-25 | 7. Vienna Weekend: Italy, 30 April - 2 May | 8. Business Trip to Crete, Greece: 17-21 May | 9. Chelsea Arts Club Cricket Tour: Cornwall, May 28-30 | 10. Chelsea Arts Club Cricket Tour: Wiltshire, June 4-6 | 11. Business Trip to Utrecht, Holland: July 4-5 | 12. Business Trip to Reykjavik, Iceland: July 6-7 | 13. Marstrand Weekend, Sweden: July 22-25 | 14. Tim & Meri's Wedding: USA, August 29 - September 11 | 15. Ljubljana Weekend, Slovenia: October 7-9 | 16. Val Thorens Snowboarding: France, December 2-5 | 17. Vaujany snowboarding: France, December 29 - January 2
2004 > 1. Chelsea Arts Club Cricket Tour: Malta, February 19-23 | 2. Snowboarding @ Kickinghorse: Canada, March 13-27 | 3. Snowboarding @ Zermatt: April 23-25 | 4. Queen's Day Festival: Holland, April 29-May 3 | 5. ECR Conference: Brussels, May 25-26 | 6. Chelsea Arts Club Cricket Tour: Cornwall, May 29-31 | 7. Tricon Company Visit: Traun, Austria, June 22-23 | 8. SAP Confernce: St. Leon Rot, Germany, June 28-29 | 9. Roskilde Festival: Denmark, July 1-4 | 10. Malmo Festival: Sweden, August 13-20 | 11. Budapest Weekend: Hungary, September 23-26 | 12. CIES Conference: Paris, October 6-8 | 13. JTI Company Visit: Luxembourg / Germany, October 14 | 14. IATA Conference: Geneva, November 17-18 | 15. Amsterdam Weekend: Holland, November 19-21 | 16. Val Thorens Snowboarding: France, December 2-5
2007 > england vs. india 1st test day 2 @ the lord's cricket ground, london: friday, 20 july | england vs. india 3rd test day 3 @ the oval, london: saturday, 11 aug | england vs. india 6th odi @ the oval, london: saturday, 5 sept | underworld @ the roundhouse, camden, london: wednesday, 17 oct
2006 > england vs. sri lanka 1st test day 3 @ the lord's cricket ground, london: saturday, 13 may | natwest series cricket england vs. sri lanka @ the lord's cricket ground, london: saturday, 17 june | pakistan vs. international xi charity twenty20 match @ the brit oval, london: tuesday, 10 july | red hot chili peppers @ earl's court, london: saturday, 15 july | red hot chili peppers @ earl's court, london: tuesday, 18 july | southwest four festival @ clapham common: saturday, 26 august
2005 > alanis morissette @ carling academy brixton, london: thursday, april 21 | chemical brothers @ carling academy brixton, london: thursday, may 26 | tsunami appeal cricket match at lord's cricket ground, london: tuesday 14 june | u2 at twickenham stadium, london: saturday 18 june | middlesex vs. surrey twenty20 cricket match at lord's cricket ground, london: tuesday 23 june | surrey vs. middlesex twenty20 cricket match at the oval cricket ground, london: tuesday 28 june | r.e.m. in hyde park, london: saturday 16 july | south west four festival in clapham common, london: saturday 27 august | get loaded in the park festival in clapham common, london: saturday 27 august | chemical brothers @ carling academy brixton, london: saturday, december 10 | fat boy slim @ carling academy brixton, london: saturday, december 17
I'm using Twitter for almost daily updates, typically sharing an eclectic collection of thought-provoking articles or brief commentary on topics which take my fancy. The commentary won't be about what I ate for breakfast or the colour of my underwear (sorry).
I have 2 streams syndicated here: The @circlesquared Twitter stream is for my comments on professional 'interests', while the @kulworld stream is used mostly for comments on my personal 'passions'.
A psychologist observes 500 drinkers at Walkabout and categorises them into 8 personality types by how they hold their drinks: the flirt, the gossip, fun lover, wallflower, the ice-queen, the playboy, Jack-the-lad and browbeater. Humorous. Posted on: Friday, May 29, 2009 | permalink
Only in America? Or is it?
Launching in September 2009, The U.S. takes sports marketing to the next level with... the Lingerie Football League: full contact American football, with women wearing helmets, pads and not much else. Times's Own Slot has a run down.
Given the UK is often fond of blind-borrowing U.S. sporting concepts (to wit: Twenty20 entertainment, including cheerleaders and half-time shows), will it be a surprise when a variant is launched in the UK soon? Lingerie Premier League (of soccer) anyone? Sponsored by the Sun?
I'm looking forward to the cricket season. For England cricket, it is a loaded Summer, with the best of the old and the new: the Ashes and the Twenty20 World Cup. There aren't any other major sporting distractions either: no football World Cup, no Olympics.
As Mike Atherton says in the Times, let's hope the England & Wales Cricket Board takes the opportunity to erase the feeling that "the game [is] being driven not by a safe pair of hands but by a teenage joyrider under the influence of a wild cocktail of drugs".
I've just uploaded some photos from the latest trip to Kicking Horse to Facebook. We didn't get much new snow, but the conditions were fine. There were loads of beautiful, blue sky days on offer, as you'll see from the photos. Here's a slideshow of the photos:
We even fooled around taking some videos from our small point-and-shoot digital cameras. The quality isn't the best, but we had fun riding fast with cameras rolling. Tom then did some quick work on his Mac to create this simple video.
I noticed that there are a lot of videos of Kicking Horse on YouTube. Take a look at the Related Videos column on thisvideo page.
Next time we may have to take along a camcorder...
Posted on: Saturday, February 21, 2009 | permalink
British snowboarders: TNG
All this snow in the UK... will it encourage the next generation of British snowboarders, I wondered the other day.
Then I came across this article in the FT about British pro-riders, many of whom started out on dry slopes or mole hills in Scotland. One, Jenny Jones, did not get on real snow until she was 18. She recently won gold at the Winter X Games, a prestigious competition held this year in Aspen, Colorado.(Check out the amazing ride and front size 270 in this video).
My conclusion? Absolutely. Consider the number of parents who were home-bound over the last week or so due to the so-called "extreme snow event". They played in the freak snow with their kids, many introducing the future snow-bunnies and snow-dudes to white stuff for the first time. I think the next generation of British snowboarders are well on their way.
By the way, I have posted a few photos from my recent trip to St. Anton, Austria. We had amazing amounts of new snow and even a blue sky day to really enjoy the scenery, as the photos show.
Posted on: Saturday, February 07, 2009 | permalink
The Terrible Ten(?) most responsible for the economic tsunami
The Times has a pithy article on the 10 people most responsible for the recession. The former head of UK's Northern Rock, Adam Applegarth, as well as the "rocket scientists" who pioneered the collateralised debt obligations seem to be grave omissions.
It's amazing what Google tries to get away with. For 24 hours after its launch, the original End User Licensing Agreement for the new Chrome browser signed away rights to all of the user's content transmitted via Chrome over to Google. It read:
You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
Within 24 hours, Google had altered the EULA to:
You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services.
This is not the first time Google seemed to be behaving sneakily around privacy and content rights. A similar scenario played out at the launch of Google Docs, the online word processing and spreadsheet applications in 2007.
Google's explanation? It happened because of a copy-and-paste job: "Google re-uses swathes of its Universal Terms of Service across all its offerings 'in order to keep things simple for our users.'" Hmmm.
As a company that takes pride in releasing good quality software products (even in beta releases, as the current version of Chrome was), they must have some hardcore quality assurance processes. Either they don't have the same robustness on the legal side, or they just want to tease the world and assert their now-almighty power.
100 things we have learned from the Beijing Olympics
The Olympics have been a revelation in so many ways. This article from the Guardian mentions 100 things we have learned.
China asserted its management and governance skills (and near-unlimited resources and spending power) to put on an impeccable Games, clearly asserting its status to the world.
We also learned that Usain Bolt is a big cricket fan and that his hero is Australia's Matthew Hayden (who has promised send the human speeding bullet an autographed bat). We can only imagine what could have been had Usain taken up cricket and become a fast bowler for the suffering West Indies.
Britain surprised most -- not least the Aussies -- by demonstrating an unexpected level of sporting excellence and making the 4th place on the medals table, behind sporting superpowers China, the United States and Russia.
This bodes well for London 2012, which I am very excited about. It's probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to experience the Olympic spectacle in my city.
Let's hope the Team GB sporting authorities don't fall into the British trap of complacency after such a spectacular performance this time around. Remember what happened to the England cricket team after the 2005 Ashes?
I've been dreaming of a day when we could get rid of the wires needed to power laptops and other gadgets. That day is getting closer apparently, according to this article. It describes an experimental technology from Intel that uses a magnetic field and induction to broadcast up to 60 watts of power 2-3 feet.
The technology can be embedded in desks and shelves, and an appropriately-equipped device would charge itself without connecting to a wired power source. Now that our mobiles have Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity and our living rooms can have wireless networks and speakers, the days of the tangled wires seem to be numbered.
This development can bring about a step-change in consumer electronics. It also has eco-friendly ("green") implications, because the number of throw-away chargers heading to landfills could be cut significantly. On the negative side, are we ready to take on another source of potential radiation as well as signal interference?
Here's a polar opposite perspective on management, as a follow up to my previous post on Google: The outspoken founder of the popular photo sharing website Flickr, which was bought by Yahoo! in 2005, recently commented that Yahoo is a poorly managed, short-termist company which is more focused on quarterly financial reports rather than on innovation and staff morale.
Google has the luxury of free cash flow to not worry (too much) about quarterly results and focus on (and invest in) strategic plays.
On the other hand, a company focusing so much on financials and traditional management, would at the very least be expected to run its shareholder meetings properly, particularly when the board is under attack. Yahoo's recent "tabulation error" of shifting 200 million votes to the "for" column from the "against" column does not bode well for its financial or process controls.
Counting errors matter in business as well as in politics. Luckily, in business the management, and particularly the board, can be held directly responsible.
Simon Caulkin, the Management Editor of The Observer, has a piece titled "How to make $4bn without really managing" on Google's management practices. His main take is that Google does not apply traditional management practices, abhors people with "traditional" management experience and places innovation, talent and group-think (my term) as its priorities.
Having a monopoly position in a category that is synonymous with the company, and the associated cash position this brings, certainly allows Google to experiment and indulge as others simply cannot. This not something that can be replicated easily elsewhere. From what I hear from insiders, the troops are yearning for some management, especially in the middle manager and lower ranks. It will be interesting to see how time, market pressures and the ever-increasing numbers of staff affect Google's management ethos.
The BBC website has a video interview with Nintendo's president SatoruIwata, where he reflects on the company's decision to buck the trend of hardware-based, hardcore gamer-focused competition to the mass market, software title-driven strategy which has paid off so successfully. What Nintendo has done is an excellent case study for thinking "outside of the box."
He does acknowledge that the hard core of gamers have been starved of titles on the Wii, but says that these titles have longer development cycles and would be addressed within the next 2-3 years.
Also noteworthy, much of the innovation comes from the company itself -- the new WiiMotionPlus is an example. Nintendo needs to keep up the momentum and innovation, particularly by getting 3rd parties to develop for the Wii platform.
A brand consultancy has categorised popular brands into 7 types based on how they will perform in a down market. Typical of a brand consultancy, they have branded the 7 types as 'Modern Classics', 'Dominators', 'New Heroes', 'Wallpaper', 'Icons', 'Nadir' and 'Reinvention'. It's fun to guess which brands fit into which. 'Dominators' include Tesco, Ikea and Starbucks, while 'Wallpapers' include Dixons, KFC and Woolworths. I would have thought these categorisations are relevant even in the context of 'normal' market conditions.
Netaddiction.com has a psychiatrist-developed internet addiction test made up of 20 multiple-choice questions, including:
How often do you find yourself anticipating when you will go on-line again?
How often does your job performance or productivity suffer because of the Internet?
How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the Internet?
This test would be another funny internet diversion, but for the serious attention internet addiction is now getting. The American Journal of Psychiatry has an editorial in its March 2008 issue recommending that this is a disorder that should be added to the official list of mental illnesses.
As the most wired country on earth, South Korea seems to be by far the leading nation of internet addicts per capita, with most addicted to internet gaming. The country even runs boot camps to cure internet addiction, which is no surprise given online gaming is a professional sport there. Star players are treated like rock stars, with the attendant entourages and groupies.
As gaming is not as big in Europe and the United States (yet), the corresponding addiction is more likely to be on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, gambling, online dating or pornography.
Experts say the first step to shaking the addiction is to join a self-help group. An offline one, I assume.
Burton announced the winners of the "poaching" contest which they sponsored. The videos of "pirate" snowboarders riding three resorts which ban them (Mad River Glen in Vermont, plus Alta and Deer Valley in Utah) are a fun viewing.
In one clip, there's a great sequence of a snowboarder and skier heading down the mountain holding hands, to the soundtrack of "Why Can't Be Friends".
Having recently been to Alpine Meadows in Lake Tahoe, I am glad they opened up the resort to boarders a few years ago. These mountains have plenty of good snow to go around and the commercial drivers are getting more and more difficult ignore. I suspect at least one of the the remaining three will give in soon (probably one of the two in Utah). The others are likely to keep going, catering to the skier-only crowd as their (singular) unique proposition.
I am writing this while sitting in Reno airport (taking advantage of their free wireless network), on my way back to London after a week of awesome boarding in Lake Tahoe. I'll upload some pictures to Kulworld and onto Facebook after I get home.
One of the topics of conversation on the trip was how some resorts are getting on with their ban on snowboarders. While checking my RSS feeds just now, I noticed these two interesting articles:
How long before the others follow? Or will they? Or will resorts "cordon off" areas by giving easier access to skiiers, for example by putting button lifts and t-bars dreaded by snowboarders?
Hope everyone is having an enjoyable festive season. As the caption in the photo says:
"There is always time to dream and to be happy. This is the time to do it."
For those of you wondering, I took this photo in Val Thorens, France, during the early season snowboarding trip in late November. I gave it a bit of lovin' in my favourite graphics app to get the captions, signature and the look and feel in, although I have not re-touched the scene itself. This ended up being my greeting card to friends and family this year. (Click the picture to open up a larger version.)
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year! Posted on: Monday, December 24, 2007 | permalink
Where to go in 2008
I'm wondering where the PAR...TAY trips should take the crew in the New Year. According to the New York Times, Laos is the no. 1 place to visit. The top 5 is made up of Lisbon, Tunisia, Mauritius, and Mid-Beach, Miami. Have look at the reasoning and the rest of the list in the NYT's The 53 Places to Go In 2008.
It has been a thrilling cricketing fortnight for Sri Lanka. Beating England in the 1st Test was more or less a given, so the other achievements from this Test are more notable:
Muttiah Muralitharan became the highest wicket taker in Test cricket history, displacing the retired Aussie great, Shane Warne. Many feel that Murali will go onto take 1000 Test wickets. If achieved, I think it will be difficult to surpass his record in a generation. Unsurprisingly, he continues to be number 1 in the world Test bowling rankings.
Kumar Sangakkara displaced Australia's Ricky Ponting as No 1 in the world Test batting rankings. Sangakkara's numbers have been truly impressive in 2007. His 921 runs have come at an outstanding average of 184.20, with 2 more Tests against England in Sri Lanka remaining.
Sanath Jayasuriya, the masterblaster commonly credited for changing the face of the one-day cricket with his World Cup winning top order batting in 1996, called it quits from Tests. He intends to contribute more to the one-day game before retiring altogether.
Two Sri Lankans at the top of the ICC rankings is a very special achievement, which may again be difficult to match in a generation once these three aging stars (plus the current Sri Lankan captain Mahela Jayawardene) move on. As former captain Arjuna Ranatunga continues to warn, Sri Lanka needs to urgently develop a new generation of champions, before one day these glories eventually become mere memories of bygone glory days.
"Legendary ad man David Ogilvy argued that a good decision today is worth far more than a perfect decision next month," writes Margaret Heffernan in Fast Company. So, inaction, or "bias against action" as she puts it, is one of the habits to watch out for. Here's the full list:
Bias against action
Secrecy
Over-sensitivity
Love of procedure
Preference for weak candidates
Focus on small tasks
Allergy to deadlines
Inability to hire former employees
Addiction to consultants
Long hours
Although I mildly dispute the second to last on the list (sic), the core of her argument is spot on. Well worth reading the article for her explanation of each.
Posted on: Wednesday, December 05, 2007 | permalink
HP and Burton hit the "pow" together
I love it when my interests + passions collide. HP has somehow convinced Burton (the snowboarding colossus) to be featured on HP's new "What do you have to say?" marketing campaign. The Burton microsite on HP's website has some great snowboarding videos and lots of insider views of Burton and its history. It tries to demonstrate how HP is supporting Burton with maintaining the visuals-heavy brand.
For example, HP's large format printers are used to quickly generate mock-ups of board graphics, which is cutting concept-to-market process times. Board visuals from the 1977 Fiberglass Prototype to the 2007 Jeremy Jones 59 are not only a visual feast, they also show how board forms have evolved. There is also a slide bar showing Burton stickers from years ago, with the explanation that HP allows Burton's in-house design team develop and produce these stickers themselves.
I think HP has missed a trick by not creating a facility on the microsite for bloggers to embed some of these videos on their blog posts. I would have put some of the snowboarding clips here. A free viral-advertising opportunity lost.
Posted on: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 | permalink
Early snow!
I've booked 3 snowboarding trips for the upcoming season so far: Val Thorens, Lake Tahoe and Kicking Horse.
The early reports from the resorts in the Alps and North America are promising, according to the Ski Club of Great Britain. The pic at the left is from Val Thorens from 3 days ago. Apparently, Zermatt has already been open, with 6 working pistes. Let's hope the conditions are an early indicator of a bumper powder season.
The Telegraph has an excellent article titled "Sri Lanka: cricket, Buddhas and beyond" looking at what the country has to offer to the visiting cricket fans from England (and their partners often termed "the cricket widows") beyond the sport itself. It gives good tips on places to stay, eat and drink, covering the 3 Test venues of Kandy, Colombo and Galle. A good source of ideas for my next trip home.
I especially enjoyed this comment from the chairman of the Sri Lanka Tourist Board: "In 2001, when the Barmy Army [as the England cricket fan club is known] first came here, we had two days when we ran out of beer in this country. But this time we will be ready for them."
Posted on: Saturday, September 29, 2007 | permalink
The fake Steve Jobs blog
The tagline of this humorous site says it all: "Dude, I invented the friggin I Phone. Have you heard of it?" Check it out: The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Fake Steve even has a Cafe Press shop.
Time magazine believes that the leveraged buyout market is near its top. In an article titled "A Private-Equity Peak?", Janet Morrissey suggests that the move by Blackstone and others to go public and the recent tendency by firms to encroach on each others' deals throwing aside the alleged gentleman's agreement among firms, indicate that the ride is coming to an end. Blackstone wants to cash in at the top, while firms are jumping on other firms' deals because M&A candidates are becoming scarcer and private equity houses are still sitting on piles of cash they want to invest.
Just before the dot-com crash, annual deals in the US alone topped USD 1.5 trillion. As of early July 2007, US M&A volume has already totaled USD 1.17 trillion, presaging a record full year. Not all M&A activity in these figures are driven by PE houses, however they are clearly contributing to the accelerated deal volumes.
Although not mentioned in the article, recent political examination of favourable tax treatment of private equity deal-makers and the public backlash is also likely to contribute to the eventual reversal of the trend.
I was first involved in a private equity deal when I led a technical due diligence on a EUR 12 billion deal in Italy in 2005. The intense deal design and diligence periods of these transactions are thrilling, and I have been involved in several others since then. I better get involved in a few more of them before it is too late.
Himal, the learned South Asian magazine, has a cover article this month on the history of Sri Lankan cricket.
Confronted with headlines these days, one might well ask: Is there more to sport in South Asia than cricket? We were sure there must be. After all, hockey is the national game in both India and Pakistan, as volleyball is in Sri Lanka.
Volleyball? I did not know that in 1991 the Sri Lankan government had decreed that volleyball would be the national sport. We all know that in reality, cricket is the reigning sport, surrounded by a near-religious fervor and following.
The history of the sport in the country, as described by Michael Roberts, in "The Ceylonese origins of Lankan cricket" is a good read. It brought back memories of playing cricket on street corners with tennis balls; of the annual "Big Matches" between my school, Ananda College, and our archenemies, Nalanda College; as well as the World Cup victory of 1996.
It seems "green envy" is everywhere these days. The International Herald Tribune seems to have coined a term for the green technology hype in a recent article: "Silicon Valley's dot-com era may be giving way to the watt-com era." Like it.
The unveiling of the logo for the London Olympic and Paralympic Games has been met with a lot of ridicule. The BBC website has a collection of user-generated logos that range from good to terrible, and some are humourous. Item 11 was submitted by a friend of mine.
I've created two photo albums from the Easter weekend trip to Lake Garda and Verona.
We stayed in the village of Salo on Lake Garda, and made day trips to Sirmionie, Riva and Malcesine, three other villages on the lake. We also went to Verona one day and visited Juliet's balcony and her tomb. The food and wine were impeccable and enjoyed typically warm, sunny days. A good way to spend the 4-day Easter weekend!
I came to the realisation that flying Ryanair and Easyjet just for the sake of cheap seats is no longer for me. The baggage and excess weight charges, transfer costs to non-central airports, passenger demographics, unfathomable inflight announcements, arrival bottlenecks at Luton and Stansted.... Enough said. I have made a pact with myself to avoid these two airlines and airports as much as I can from now on.
In India's Daily News & Analysis, Suresh Menon writes that Indians are supporiting Sri Lanka to win the World Cup, as they did in 1996 after Sri Lanka's victory against the hosts in the semi-finals. This time around, Sri Lanka knocked India out of the tournament even earlier.
Why do we love to love Sri Lanka? The answer is — like Sri Lanka’s cricket — simplicity itself. A bunch of talented players come together as a team, with a heightened sense of their place in the scheme of things.
There are a couple of superstars, but they are focused on geeing up the team rather than calculating by how much a six or a wicket enhances their value in the endorsement market. As the team went out to field against the West Indies, the most animated pep talk came from Muttiah Muralitharan. He could so easily have cocooned himself, kept aloof. Yet here he was, as excited as a kid making his debut. It is a rare spirit.
The simplicity extends to their game too. There are only two types of batsmen — those who describe lovely arcs, usually over the boundary, and those whose batsmanship is made up of straight lines and high elbows. The bowlers have pace and cunning, or spin and cunning. And the wicket keeper is a weapon of mass destruction as he showed when he stumped Brian Lara off the medium pacer Chaminda Vaas or ran out batsmen by converting good throws into great ones.
As feel-good as this sentiment is, I'm a bit concerned that there are too many expectations on Sri Lanka meeting Australia in the finals. There is still a long way to go. New Zealand, in particular, is a dark horse in my mind. Sri Lanka lost to South Africa a couple of games ago, and it's good to get the blip out of the way early on. I don't think Sri Lanka will lose to South Africa if they met again during the remainder of the tournament.
As West Indies captain Brian Lara said after being thoroughly outplayed by Sri Lanka in the recent Super 8 clash, "They've got to take that form further into the tournament, they've still got to play Australia and New Zealand and these top teams, so then you'll get a measure of exactly where they are."
Of course, my emotional vote (and a bit of a stake) are on Sri Lanka to win th whole thing.
I've posted a few photos from the excellent trip to the Bansko ski resort in Bulgaria. We stayed at the luxurious Kempinski hotel and spa on the slopes and got the best powder conditions I've ever had on our last day there. I'll definitely go back to the resort and the hotel.
For many snow fans, the answer is probably "it depends." Nevertheless, I am excited for this weekend's trip to Bulgaria's Bansko resort for 3 days of snowboarding. We are looking forward to "large-ing" it at a 5-star hotel and spa at the resort. Even if there isn't much snow, it is bound to be a good time.
Back on the green agenda, Eurostar was quick to market its environmentally more friendly train services from the UK to the slopes of France.
"Detailed independent research commissioned by Eurostar has shown that a passenger travelling on a return Eurostar journey from London to the French Alps generates 24 kilograms of CO2. In comparison a passenger on a typical London Heathrow-Geneva return flight generates 191 kilograms of CO2, while a typical round trip between Gatwick and Geneva generates 169 kilograms of CO2 per passenger." [my emphasis]
Regardless of how cynical I am of research sponsored by a company standing to benefit from the results, the quantification is useful. Eurostar is actually quite convenient, assuming you want to go skiing in the French Alps, and your schedule fits with Eurostar's service to the slopes.
In the Guardian, Richard Hammond asked the same question at the start of the season, without a providing definitive answer. I suspect we'll have to enjoy our ski holidays with a certain amount of guilt, and perhaps adjusting in other ways, including picking resorts in the Green Resort Guide.
Tim de Lisle from Cricinfo has done an amusing article for The Independent (titled "Laptop Before Wicket"), where he profiles the cricket writers of British newspapers. A fun read.
How far will Sri Lanka go in this year's cricket World Cup?
Cricket Web does a good team analysis and decides that Sri Lanka will go out in the semi-finals, as they did in the World Cup held in South Africa three years ago. The Guardian shares this view, hedging: "Sri Lanka will expect to reach the semi-finals, at least."
On the other hand, if the statistics of their last 20 one-day games continue to hold in the World Cup, I won't be surprised if Sri Lanka makes it to the finals. Those stats, compiled by Cricinfo, show that Sri Lanka typically gets off to excellent starts, both in terms of average runs per wicket and scoring rate. So, even if the opposition is equal in scoring in later stages of a game, Sri Lanka tends to win with upper order success.
Even though Sri Lanka lost by 18 runs to New Zealand in yesterday's warm up match, young opener Upul Tharanga got a century. Veteran Sanath Jayasuria was rested for this game. He should be back relaxed and ready take on the World Cup stage, which made him a legend through Sri Lanka's win in 1996, in large part due to his inventive blasting at the top of the order during the tournament.
I came across this great scan of a 9-page Esquire magazine spread from 1983 run by Apple to introduce the Lisa! It proudly announces 1MB of internal memory and a 5MB ProFile hard disk!
A site with good user-generated snowboarding videos
GrindTV has a good collection of videos uploaded by users. In addition to snowboarding, there are also categories including surf, skate, wind, wake and more. Almost a one-stop shop for videos of hip outdoor pursuits (and people, of course).
After getting its feet wet with the Five Across acquisition, Cisco has now announced that it will be purchasing the technology platform behind one of the early social networking sites, Tribe.net.
Regardless of Cisco's ambition to get into the consumer space, I think this is more a technology play than a direct entry into consumer social networking. They will probably strip out and embed the technology (mostly software) into their solutions (products), starting with enterprise network hardware like firewalls.
Although a lot questions will be asked about what Cisco is doing with social media, I think this fits well into their visions around "intelligence in the network" as well as the "human network". We'll have to wait and see what these acquisitions morph into.
Anticipating cheaper flights between the UK and the US
The Open Skies Agreement which was finally ironed out by the EU and the US will no doubt mean increased competition for flights across the Pond. "Price war looms over flights to New York," was one of the most popular articles on The Times of London's website over the last 24 hours.
There are two key reasons for the expected increased competition. First is the removal of the monopoly held by a cartel of four airlines (British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, American Airlines and United) at Heathrow Airport. Given over 40% of flights from Europe to the Americas take off from Heathrow, allowing other airlines to offer transatlantic flights should lead to a price drop. bmi (British Midland) is expected to be one of the biggest beneficiaries.
The second reason is the US will now allow up to 49% foreign ownership of US-based airlines. The Times reports that Virgin, Easyjet and Ryanair could all be considering setting up operation States-side, leading to even more competition.
It is not clear how soon consumers will see the changes. I suspect it will not be before I have to book my snowboarding trip to Breckenridge in Colorado in April!
Cisco is making a huge push into India, moving senior executives on secondments, creating a venture capital fund to invest in Indian companies and building research and manufacturing centres. Why? Cisco needs to compete with the likes of Huawei of China, with its lower cost base and engineering talent. India is also a huge market for telecom and networking products. Cisco even has a chief globalisation officer, which shows how serious the American company is about emerging markets, not just India. In an article titled "Cisco's Grand India Ambitions," Business Week gives more facts and figures, including: "Cisco officials reckon that IT expenditures by Indian companies on networks alone could reach $1.2 billion by 2012, up from around $550 million now. Little wonder Cisco is expecting 5% of its $28.5 billion in global revenues to come from India in the next couple of years."
Some online publications have unearthed a potentially salacious video on YouTube which looks like it was done by Cisco. The video tries to bring to life Cisco's TelePresence video conferencing capability by using the Indian custom of match-making as the comedic plot. Potentially embarrassing for Cisco, if the ad is authentic.
Posted on: Wednesday, February 28, 2007 | permalink
A symbol of being "out of touch"?
Understanding the likes and dislikes of the Myspace generation is a difficult task for those in the boardrooms of media companies. I came across this little tidbit in The Capitalist column of today's CityAM , one of the several free newspapers distributed in London:
TV types hang on his every word, but certain members of ITV chairman Michael Grade's family aren't quite so interested. A spy spotted Grade having lunch with his son and young grandson on Saturday. "The Little boy just sat there with his iPod on playing PlayStation for the whole meal," says my mole. How symbolic.
The widely-followed leadership guru and former CEO of GE, Jack Welch, thinks Web 2.0 has a role to play in corporations, especially as a communications vehicle. He says that, for example, organisations should settle on a clear message and use Web 2.0 as a medium to get the message out to stakeholders. Blogging by CEOs, as ones on this top 10 list are doing, is one such application.
Posted on: Saturday, February 24, 2007 | permalink
"Backcountry light" at Breckenridge
The New York Times's Escapes section has an articleabout the increasing availability of backcountry terrain to the masses. They use the Breckenridge Resort in Colorado to profile the phenomenon. I'm missing the great backcountry boarding at Kicking Horse. It's been only about 3 weeks since I got back from Canada, and am itching to get back on the slopes. A trip to Breckenridge is a possibility...
Guardian's Technology Blog notes that Dell is making big noises about Dell 2.0. They've created a website called IdeaStorm to get the public to contribute ideas. Users can also vote on the submitted ideas, Digg-style. There is even YouTube-like video site Studio Dell, where users can upload their own videos. I'm not a fan of Dell machines, but this move is quite forward-thinking from a marketing strategy angle. #end
A while ago, NBC went after YouTube after a clip from the US comedy show Saturday Night Live was uploaded by users. At the time, I questioned: "Does NBC not get the Web?" Eventually, they reversed the strategy and started thinking more openly about the Internet. Now comes the next evolution of the openness sweeping through some circles in the Media sector: Viacom has announced that it will allow people to take videos from MTV and other sites and post them on their own blogs. A small announcement with significant ramifications in its acknowledgement of user-generated content, social media and the convergence of TV and the Web.
Posted on: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 | permalink
Web 2.0 movers and shakers
Staying on the topic of Web 2.0 companies, Movers 2.0 measures which of these new generation websites is getting the most traffic movement each day. The data is collected from the Alexa tracking system, which isn't necessarily authoritative, but it does provide an indication of movers, just like we hear about the movers on the stock market. Pando, Facecast and Grouper are the most biggest movers at the moment.
There is also a Top Web 2.0 Sites list, which gives a cumulative view. The top 3 according this are YouTube, MySpace and Orkut. The last one, a social networking site similar to Friendster, was a bit of a surprise to me.
I wrote about the proliferation of creative Web 2.0 company names and logos last week. At the other end of the spectrum, Tech Crunch's Dead Pool is a good place to track the mounting Web 2.0 failures.
The event also sees the launch of many alternative ad campaigns, mostly by organisations which can't afford the rates. Web 2.0 companies Meebo, Meez, Multiply, Plaxo, RockYou and Technorati banded together to create some ads for distribution over YouTube. A good use of the online medium and social networks.
The Red Bull Illume Image Quest website has some amazing sports action photography.
I can't link directly to the photos themselves (these Flash-driven intefaces are one of my pet peeves), but it's worth exploring the site for the great shots.
Although there have been much conjecture about why Cisco went to battle with Apple, my view reeks of another conspiracy theory. I think Cisco decided to go after Apple because a genius at Cisco convinced others that getting the Cisco brand associated with the hipness of Apple, even with some likely bad publicity, would get the Cisco name into consumers' minds. After all, many more "regular" consumers (i.e. not techies or financial types who've followed Cisco's stock for decades) really knew about Cisco before Apple's iPhone launch. Cisco is desperate to get known in the consumer space, after making major moves to enter this market, starting with the acquisition of Linksys. The re-branding and dropping of the "Systems" from the company name was all part of this thrust.
Eventually Cisco and Apple will come to some agreement (undoubtedly before the June 2007 U.S. launch of Apple's much-touted phone), but regardless of the direct benefits Cisco gains from that, they have pulled off a remarkable marketing coup.
Posted on: Saturday, February 03, 2007 | permalink
What's in a Web 2.0 name or logo
A friend of mine has a blog post on his company's website describing how he came to name his business Zogix. There's actually some logic behind how they went about it. The same cannot be said of the many of the silly-sounding Web 2.0 business and product names. Web 1.0 trailblazers Yahoo! and Google have a lot to answer for here, I think. For a quick sample of some of the next generation, take a look at this innovative way to catalogue a good selection Web 2.0 names and brands. This person spent a lot of time capturing Web 2.0 logos to create a composite image (now there are 4), uploaded the composites to Flickr, and even added hyperlinks to some. An easy way to check out many of the Web 2.0 names and brands, since someone else has already done the hard work.
Technology, media and convergence are areas which naturally interest me. People who know me well also know that cricket is a passion of mine. Now I have an example of how all of these come together beautifully.
Cricket commentator and author Simon Hughes has successfully mated TV's Pop Idol format and the sport. He has created a hit TV show in India called Cricket Star, which gets better ratings and generates more revenue than Indian versions of Big Brother or Pop Idol. Now Hughes is looking to bring the format to the UK. Even more genius, he is trying to get Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood starlet and recent winner of UK's Celebrity Big Brother, to host the show.
Now if only someone does the same for snowboarding. Won't be long, I'm sure.
I've got another converged idea for improving the excitement levels of cricket, especially English cricket, based on recent performances by the national side in Australia. I'll write about this another time.
Posted on: Thursday, February 01, 2007 | permalink
New Kicking Horse photos
Just got back from this year's snowboarding pilgrimage to Kicking Horse, which has had over 704cm of snowfall so far this season. That's over 7 metres of snow, with a mid-mountain base of over 180cm! (You can check out the current conditions here.)
I've uploaded 22 photos to Flickr. A few thumbnails are on the left as you scroll down this page, or you can access the full set here.
This article in the Guaridan has a good collection of tips on skiing, especially to the novice. Ones I often recommend when starting out: try ot on a fake slope; rent skis and boots; and pick the right resort.
I am a big fan of Gap, mostly because their clothes fit me well and they create quality contemporary products. The retailer is struggling, however, and is reportedly exploring all options including going private or a divestiture (Gap also owns two other retail chains: Old Navy and Banana Republic). I hope the management team finds a solution that saves the iconic brand. The signs are not good, as top execs seem to have started a procession for the door. The right blend of management and fashion talent will be needed reimpose the Gap brand on the clothing market.
A recent poll has concluded that Google, Las Vegas, iPod, YouTube and eBay were the winning brands of last year. Yes, they do have Las Vegas at #2. The pollsters used a very broad definition of "brand," as shown by the top five losers: Nicole Richie, Britney Spears, Havana, Paris Hilton and Hand-hand combat.
I can't disagree with many of these if the measure was more like "mindshare in 2006." I don't think Las Vegas and Havana would resonate the same way outside of the States, however. (In the UK, Havana happens to be a very popular tourist destination and Las Vegas is known but not that high in mindshare.) Given these measures, I think Microsoft is a shoo-in as one of the top 5 winners of 2007, given the expected and predictable noise around the impending release of Windows Vista.
Happy New Year! Vodaphone reported that the number of text messages sent through its network on or around New Year's day had increased by over 30% from last year. That's 95.2m messages emanating from Vodaphone UK alone. (Apparently, Christmas Day saw the highest traffic of multimedia messages with photos and video clips.)
So, did you join the throng of texters? I contributed to Vodaphone's 95.2 million, blasting texts near and far, including to SriLanka, Europe and the United States.
This article in the Guardian attributes the growth to attractive text-inclusive pricing bundles from mobile service providers like Vodaphone, as well as the older generation getting more familiar with the technology, especially as they look to keep in touch with youngsters in far-flung places. I think these two as well as converged multi-platform social networking (email, instant messaging, text) amongst the youngsters themselves is another contributor to the growth.
A recent article in London's Evening Standard profiled the story of startup airline Silverjet, which will in January become the 3rd business class-only service between London and New York.
The economics of this model is not entirely proven. The success of EOS, Maxjet and Silverjet remain to be seen, and will hinge on survival beyond the buoyant business climate we are experiencing currently.
Posted on: Saturday, December 30, 2006 | permalink
The Top Social Networks of 2006
Not surprisingly, MySpace tops this "best of" list. Of the general social networking sites, Bebo and Vox are perhaps equal or greater in terms of fandom, but they are nowhere near in user numbers. The list is overall quite U.S.-centric, but does give a good overview of the best of the various social networking genres like photo and video sharing, music and social shopping. I'm disappointed my recent find, UK site Bottle Talk, is not mentioned. The list also predicts that "MySpace Video versus YouTube will probably be the hardest fought battle in the video space next year." We'll see.
A couple of distractions from some of my social networking site exploits:
Will Ashley Tisdale be the next Avril Lavigne? Check the teenage musician's page on Bebo. Given she has over 6000 "groupies" on Bebo, and has an upcoming album on Warner Bros. Records, she is well on her way. Of the teaser music on the site, I enjoyed her take on Wham's "Last Christmas."
One of my favourite "user generated" photos of the year on Vox.
In an article titled "Humbug to the gadgets that ruin Christmas" in yesterday's City View column, Ian Lyall quotes me as a technology analyst on the increasing (and often unnecessary) complexity of consumer devices. The Daily Mail doesn't reproduce all its print articles online, so I can't link to a live webpage. This PDF does show a clipping, for those interested.
Although Apple's elegant iPod doesn't get tarred with the "unnecessarily complex" brush (the absolute opposite is Apple's secret to success), there were several stories about how its online music store's performance had suffered during Christmas. Users looking to fill up their newly-received gadgets with digital tunes "faced error messages and long delays," the New York Times reported. Surely, Apple should have been able to predict this demand, given their sophisticated sales tracking process? Again, the consumer suffered.
Posted on: Thursday, December 28, 2006 | permalink
Harrowing flights, take-offs and landings
In my years of business and pleasure travel, I've only had a one or two hairy flights. One was flying from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Roswell (the UFO capital of the world!) on a business trip. We were on a very small turbo-prop aircraft (probably an Embraer), seating about 12, as I recall. In a mild snowstorm, the plane swished about horizontally and vertically for what seemed like an eternity. We also flew over an airplane graveyard, which was eerie. This picture of "dead" planes parked in Roswell as well as this overhead shot of another graveyard in the Mojavi desert from Google Maps shows how odd this scene is, especially when seen during a horrifying flight.
Speaking of harrowing flights, have a look at these crazy take-offs and landings from the Princess Juliana Airport in the Netherlands Antilles on YouTube.
Posted on: Wednesday, December 27, 2006 | permalink
Top 10 British Boxing Day walks
The Guardian has a good collection of walks around Britain. Useful to walk off the Christmas stuffing in style in the British great outdoors.
Other than the Thames walk in London and Holyrood in Edinburgh, I am ashamed to say I haven't yet explored the rest. One of my resolutions for 2007 is to explore Britain more, especially the Lake and Peak Districts.
Fortunately, I'm not one of the many (or more likely, few) who received the much-hyped (by Microsoft!) Zune digital music player as a present today.
Not that I'm a fan of the iPod, either. One reason why I dislike both of these devices and their associated music stores, is the proprietary nature of their music file formats and often-draconian approaches to music sharing. Both manufacturers do not use the "open" (and de facto standard) MP3 format for downloads or to store music files you upload to the devices. Both opt for closed (or "walled garden") approaches instead. David Pogue does a good summary of all that is wrong with the Zune in the New York Times. I predict that Microsoft will again fail in their effort to imitate Apple. Perhaps I'll wait until Bill Gates is third time lucky.
Bottle Talk is a new British website that marries the concept of social networking with the love of wine. People can share their reviews and ratings and explore various tags like "fruity", "pepper", and "light" to pick out a wine to try. There is an Amazon.com-like "you may also like" recommendations feature, as well a "Desert Island Wines" section.
Bottle Talk is just starting out (it is currently in beta.) If the site succeeds in building an active following like Trip Advisor has done for the travel genre, they could onto a winner, with significant advertising revenue and trade-sale possibilities.
Posted on: Saturday, December 23, 2006 | permalink
DV Guru's Best and Worst of 2006
A good summary of the year that was in media and technology, with a focus on video -- online and otherwise. Coverage includes GooTube, the videoblogging soap opera that was Rocketboom, Apple's move to Intel processors and the multitude of digital video formats.
Posted on: Saturday, December 23, 2006 | permalink
The Guardian picks the 100 most useful sites of 2006
It's that time of the year: drumrolls for various "best of" lists, please. I'll post a few which I particularly like over the next few days. The first is from The Guardian's technology columnists: The Guardian's 100 most useful sites of 2006. Althogh it has a British bias, the list has several generally useful gems worth bookmarking.
A site that I really liked is VideoJug, which has YouTube-like videos, but contain practical tutorials. An example: How to fold a t-shirt in 2 seconds. A good example of user-generated content and internet video benefiting the community at large. The cricket tutorials, shot at the Lord's Indoor Cricket School (where I practice during the offseason) are quite good, too. Posted on: Friday, December 22, 2006 | permalink
Ramen and guitar tabs
Wired columnist Jennifer Granick has an interesting take on the decision of two music publishing trade bodies in the United States to go after websites which publish guitar music tablature, or tabs. "According to the music industry, even incorrect tabs and tabs developed by users from listening to songs are its property as "derivative works,"" she writes, illustrating the dilemma many amateur musicians will now face when trying to help each other learn guitar music online. Then she goes onto make a case for why this is similar to the Chinese chefs who invented ramen noodles alleging copyright infringement against noodle shops everywhere. Cynical? I'm not sure. Posted on: Wednesday, December 20, 2006 | permalink
How Ocado and Enron are connected
I read in the in-flight magazine of Eastern Airway the other day that the online grocery store Ocado had purchased the trading system of the collapsed energy company Enron during its liquidation. Ocado was started by three former bond traders with Goldman Sachs, so they knew what they were doing.
I am a big fan of the online store and the shopping experience they've created. It's good to see the company has survived and thrived despite the infamous failures of the likes of Webvan and premature obituaries by the likes of the Economist. Posted on: Thursday, December 14, 2006 | permalink
Funniest Ashes picture I've seen so far
This graphic, posted to the Ashes photogroup on Flickr, casts England spinner Ashley Giles as the bumbling movie character Borat. Too good! Posted on: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 | permalink
Even cricket goes carbon neutral
The Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) has decided to go "climate neutral" for its overseas tours, a first in cricket. Effectively, the MCC will take on energy-efficient projects in the developing world to offset the CO2 emissions caused by its teams flying around the world to play and promote cricket.
It seems no organisation can now afford to be perceived as a pollutant or environmentally-unfriendly. Even though the cynic in me is dubious about the true motives behind such announcements, the initiatives themselves, if executed properly, should make a positive contribution. Posted on: Sunday, December 10, 2006 | permalink
Latest technology for avalanche survival
Snowsports continue to benefit greatly from technological advances, from high tech breathable clothing to snowboards with embedded "terrain control" microchips. The latest invention designed to help snow addicts survive avalanches is to deploy airbags held within their backpacks. This is the idea of an Austrian company called ABS System, who claim that the pack offers avalanche victims a 98% chance of survival.
The ABS Escape backpacks have two 75 liter or one 150 liter airbags stored in the pack, which are activated with the change in air pressure. This distributor's website gives a more detalied explanation on how it works, including some (poor quality) videos. They could do a lot more with their web presence, but if the product works as advertised, it quite definitely will catch on. Prices are high at more than Euro 300 for the smallest model, but I can see backcountry guides and heliski operators renting them out or including them in package prices. Posted on: Saturday, December 09, 2006 | permalink
Insights from Motorola's CEO Ed Zander on the company's transformation
I am not a fan of Motorola mobile phones, mostly because their operating system is one of the most convoluted. (I am a fan of the Windows Mobile interface.) Even though they haven't much improved the usability of the software on their handsets over the years, they certainly have revived the industrial design of the devices.
On the back of the success of the ultra-thin Razr and its siblings, Motorola's global market share has increased in the last two or so years from 13% to 22%, only behind Nokia's 33%.
The CEO Ed Zander has been a driving force behind the transformation. In this article in The Observer, he gives some insight into the cultural changes he brought to the company, including removing "business card apartheid" and "blowing up" the "holy temple" of executive suites on the 12th floor of the company's headquarters.
I also learned that Motorola was named after the first car radio (from "motor" and "ola", after the Victrola phonograph) and that Neil Armstrong's first words from the moon were heard through a Motorola radio transponder. Not a bad legacy. Not a bad transformation either, given the über-cool mobiles are today mentioned in the same breath as the iconic iPods by the Myspace generation. Posted on: Sunday, November 12, 2006 | permalink
Hair ball, Hair brain, Hair cut
Good riddance. Former Sri Lanka cricket captain Arjuna Ranatunga, who has been one of umpire Darrell Hair's staunchest critics, summarised the International Cricket Council's decision to fire Hair from the Elite Panel of international umpires this way: "This should have happened long ago."
Hair, while an exemplary disciple of the laws of cricket, has too little a brain and far too much braun to put the spirit of cricket first. His decision to bring about the only forfeiture in the history of Test cricket brought the game into disrepute at a time when cricket is on the resurgence, as it certainly is in England.
One of cricket's most-admired umpires, Dickie Bird, was asked how he would have handled the situation, Lawrence Booth writes in his Spin column in the Guardian:
On the day of the verdict, the Spin asked Dickie Bird how he would have handled the situation. He said the only way he could have found anyone guilty was to have actually seen them tamper with the ball. Simple but eminently sensible, and a reminder of why he got on so well with the players. Where Dickie would have sorted out the Oval fiasco with a quiet word to Inzamam and probably a bit of a joke, Hair reached for the blunderbuss. Given the events of the past few weeks, there are no prizes for guessing which approach is the more desirable.
Peter Roebuck has a mildly amusing article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the prevalence of successful oddballs who bat left-handed in cricket, but are really right-handers. As one such oddball myself, I think having the stronger hand on top of the bat should be standard coaching policy for young cricketers. Posted on: Sunday, November 12, 2006 | permalink
Ashes postcards
I found another set of funny cartoons on the cricket blog The Corridor. The one on the left represents Douglas Jardine's 1932 quote "All Australians are an uneducated and unruly mob." I think Jardine's words will have resonance around the world during upcoming Ashes series, if the Aussie spectators behave as I expect them to. Posted on: Saturday, November 11, 2006 | permalink
Defining the Myspace generation
This cartoon charcterises the Myspace generation pretty well. I came across it today while mindlessly surfing the social networking site. Posted on: Saturday, November 11, 2006 | permalink
Behind the facelift of Cisco
I always wonder about the behind-the-scenes activities that result in a corporate brand relaunch. This article gives a glimpse into the recent Cisco rebranding and has an insightful interview with one of the creative minds behind the project. Just ignore the author's penchant for random capitalisation. Posted on: Monday, November 06, 2006 | permalink
How many countries have you visited?
This site is a poignant diversion. You can select the countries you have visited from a list, and the site will plot them on a world map. I'm on 31 (which is 13% of the countries listed on the site), with coverage overwhelmingly in North America, Europe and Australia and Pacific. I consider myself well-travelled, but a friend gloated that he is already on 45. Oh well, at least we are indexing on our respective ages (if only)! Posted on: Sunday, November 05, 2006 | permalink
My best bowling performance and second five wicket haul of the season
Playing for Salix last Sunday against the St. Anne's All Stars, I had bowling figures of 7 overs, 2 maidens, 15 runs and 5 wickets. All five wickets were clean bowled. This was all the more remarkable because they were top order wickets, not a clean-up the tail effort. I had shared the new ball in a tight game with only about 120 runs to defend. The humourous official write-up (and photo) can be found on Salix's website.
My bowling has improved drastically over the last few years. I've been able to continually increase pace and accuracy, which ends up yielding economical spells and good hauls. The impoved confidence has rubbed off in other areas, too. It was an all-round performance last week, with the 2nd highest run scorer against a very good bowling attack and a diving catch at gully to seal the victory.
At about the half-way mark of the season, here's how I'm doing against the objectives I set myself:
Objectives: 300 runs, 3 fifties, 6 sixes, a batting average of 30 and 30 wickets Current standing: 180 runs, 1 fifty, 4 sixes, a batting average of 25.7 and 21 wickets
The goals still look achievable, but the batting stats now look like they will be a stretch.
In February, I asked the question "Does NBC not get the Web?" in a post, when they made waves by asking video sharing website YouTube to remove a popular clip from an NBC show. I expanded:
It’s not easy to get any content (let alone videos) to catch-on in the blogosphere and the Web. There’s too much noise and content quality is much too poor. When there’s a breakthrough, shouldn’t a company, especially a big media company trying to feel its way through the convergence and the digital media revolutions happening around them, be thinking and acting differently?
NBC's announcement today that it has struck a deal with YouTube to create a dedicated microsite (or channel) which will promote NBC's programmes indicates that they are starting to get it.
"The distinction between television and video is becoming murkier and murkier. Rather than putting our heads in the sand, we're trying to jump in and embrace it", John Miller, the chief marketing officer of NBC Universal Television Group, was quoted as saying. Posted on: Wednesday, June 28, 2006 | permalink
A web 2.0 mapping site
The next generation map sites put the "old" ones like streetmap to shame when it comes to elegance and usability. Have a look at hot-maps.de, which does a great job of using Ajax to pre-populate dropdowns and allow the user to zoom and navigate the map by click-dragging the mouse in the direction they want to move. Worth a bookmark in your browser. Posted on: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | permalink
BBC editors to blog
The BBC has launched a blog in which editors from the BBC stable (radio, TV, online, etc.) get to share their views, providing increased transparency to the editorial process.
As it should be with blogs, users were quick to comment. The views ranged from the US reader who wrote that he appreciates the BBC for its unbiased coverage compared to the "Complete Nonsense News" he gets at home (I call it "Constant Nonsense News"), to the UK resident who griped that the US viewer gets to access the BBC's content for free when he has to pay for a £130 TV license annually.
The BBC isn't the first news organisation to introduce this angle. For example, the Guardian's "comment is free..." editors' blog has been around for a little while. The BBC's blog looks to be another worthwhile resource of the genre. Posted on: Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | permalink
Of stamina and satisfaction
It has been a week of satisfying cricket for me as spectator and participant. Sri Lanka beat England for the 5th consecutive time in 3 forms of the game (the 3rd Test, the Twenty20 International and the first 3 one-dayers to make the rest of the NatWest Series a dead rubber). The 3rd NatWest Series match at Chester-le-Street on Saturday was the most pleasing, which Sri Lanka won by 8 wickets. "England have endured some rough moments in recent times in one-day cricket but rarely such abject humiliation" wrote Vic Marks in the Observer today.
I'm an England supporter, except when they play Sri Lanka. I think Sri Lanka is setting up well for the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. Same cannot be said of England, however. England will be heavily tested again shortly, when a strong Pakistan team arrives here. Sri Lankan loyalties aside, my current money is on Pakistan to win the World Cup. Beefy agrees with this choice, too!
On to the participative part. After a fun evening game with the Chelsea Arts Club at Burton's Court last Tuesday (which we won comfortably), I took the Saturday off from playing. On an uncharacteristically humid Sunday, I opened the batting and the bowling for Salix. My effort with the bat was displeasing, giving my wicket away with a poorly-chosen shot at 13 (4x2). The opposition's bowling was very much a buffet ("help yourself" style). I really missed out on a big score. After we had set a target of 170-something to win from 25 overs, I shared the new ball as the no. 2 bowler. I bowled accurately and with pace, but without much joy at first, even dropping a caught-and-bowled chance. I kept going, eventually taking the key wicket of their best batsman, who scored 70-something. My captain kept me on, and I took two more crucial wickets. I bowled through the innings -- 12 overs on a trot, which is the first time I'd done this ever. (A few weeks ago, I bowled 8 in a row, which I thought was plenty!) We bowled them out with 2 balls to spare and about 15 to get. I ended with 12-0-55-3, proving I've still got the stamina. A teammate commented that he did not see any discernible change in pace between my first and last overs. This maybe so, but my body is creaking now. I'm sure I'll be stiff for a few days at work. Worth it, I suppose. Posted on: Sunday, June 25, 2006 | permalink
Scoble leaves Microsoft
Robert Scoble's blog Scobleizer has been one I've followed regularly. He has been an insider blogger extraordinnaire at Microsoft. I was surprised to hear the news that he is leaving to join a Silicon Valley startup. Given Scoble's network of contacts, I really should not have been. He is moving to PodTech.Net, a digital media and content producer and aggregator.
Hopefully Scoble's move will be more fruitful than that of George Shaheen, who left as Andersen Consulting's Managing Partner (equivalent to Accenture's CEO) to join Webvan during the dot-com boom days. Webvan crashed and burned at the end of the boom. Shaheen did re-appear in the big leagues, first as CEO of Siebel, and then of Oracle once Siebel was gobbled by Oracle. ) Posted on: Tuesday, June 13, 2006 | permalink
My first five-for for Chelsea Arts Club
Another excellent cricket weekend, with a victory each for my 2 teams on the warmest weekend we've had so far.
On Saturday, we played an early morning game (well, by our standards anyway -- it was a 10:00am start) in London's Battersea Park. In order to watch England's opening World Cup enounter, we had agreed to a Twenty20 match with Rode, one of our toughest -- but friendliest -- opponents. I opened the bowling and had their top order immediately in trouble, ending up with a haul of 5 for 25 in 5 overs. This was the first time I've taken 5 wickets in a match in England. It was especially satisfying because getting this many wickets in a Twenty20 is not easy, and Rode are a very good team with a strong top order. We ended up with a relatively easy, but hard-fought victory.
We watched the England soccer (football) match at the Chelsea Arts Club. Tradition calls for any player with a 5-wicket haul or fifty or a hundedred to buy a pitcher (a jug) for the team and the opponents. Unfortunately, the Arts Club doesn't do pitchers, so I'll have to do that next game!
On Sunday, we played at the beautiful HSBC ground in New Beckenham, Southeast London. I had an economical opening spell on a batsman-friendly wicket, with 7 overs, 2 maidens, 25 runs and 1 wicket. We had them at around 65 runs at the 23rd over mark, but our bowling declined in the last 12 overs. They ended up with 207. We made it in the 34th over, with captain Andy Rainer scoring an unbeaten century. Having gone in at number 4, I was there at the end with an unbeaten 28 not out, made in 33 balls. There was only one boundary in my knock. It was hard work running mostly twos and threes on a scorching day.
Another not-out is good for my batting average, which now stands at 27, which is not to far from the 30 that I've set as a goal for the season. Not too shabby. Posted on: Sunday, June 11, 2006 | permalink
Shane Warne takes an addiction online
Shane Warne loves cricket, gambling and girls. (The third is contentious, I know, but I could have been belligerent and said drugs instead.) He's taken the second of his loves online, lending his name to a new venture called PokerCricket, a gambling website which he has been promoting heavily.
It's not clear what kind of arrangement Warne has with the operator, but a quick dig around shed some light on who is behind the scenes. The site is run by OnGame, which runs other gaming sites including PokerRoom.com. OnGame was acquired by BETandWIN.com Interactive Entertainment AG, which has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange since March 2000.
Online gaming companies have been the rage in the past year or so, with several IPOs, high market valuations and plenty of transactional activity. But competition is intense and regulatory threats continue. Celebrity-endorsed niche targeting seems to be a growth strategy. Once a gaming platform is created, the incremental cost of rolling out variant sites isn't too great, so I suspect there will be more collaborations like Warne's and other niche targeting. Not all celebrities are likely to want to take there vices (er, loves) online like Warnie, however. Posted on: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 | permalink
Sri Lanka's unexpected Test performance and the road ahead
After the first Test between England and Sri Lanka at Lord's (I'd been there on Day 3), I wrote that the way in which the visitors saved the match "will give immense confidence to the young team, for the rest of their tour here and beyond." With due acknowledgement of hindsight and hope, I ended up being right. Even after losing the second Test, Sri Lanka went onto thrash England in the third and final Test, drawing the series 1-1.
A 3-0 drubbing at the hands of England had been the general consensus. BBC's Martin Gough does a good post-mortem analysis by aggregating user comments in "What went wrong for England?". Acerbic commentator and former England batsman Geoff Boycott summarises that injuries to key personnel was the primary cause. I concur.
The result in the third Test, however, was almost all due to one man, the freakish talent that is Murali. Sri Lanka's young team has shown that they have the ingredients to continue to grow stronger as a team, but they will not be consistent Test match winners without Murali. Finding a balanced bowling attack for the post-Murali era is the biggest challenge that the country's cricket administrators face. They've got a good start with Lasith Malinga and Malinga Bandara (who did not participate in the Test series), but will need to unearth more firepower and slow-bowling talent.
Now, bring on the one-dayers. I have much higher expectations for Sri Lanka in the shortened form of the game. My money is on Sri Lanka and Pakistan meeting in the NatWest Series Finals, with England coming last in this year's tri-nation series. Posted on: Wednesday, June 07, 2006 | permalink
Google still ahead in search, says Bill Gates
Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary over the last year or so, Bill Gates has publicly admitted that MSN Search is still looking to catch up to Google. Unsurprisingly, the stock market reacted harshly, with Microsoft shares falling 11% last Friday. This was the biggest one-day drop in percentage terms in the last 6 years, but was a reaction on the the back of disappointing quarterly results, not just the acknowledgement of Google's continuing dominance.
Oh, how the tables have turned. Remember the days of the anti-competitive practices litigation against Microsoft, where the continued pre-installation of Internet Explorer on every Wintel machine was one of the key victories for the company? No matter how much of an advantage this created, Microsoft is unable to get users to move away from Google when they do a search (presumably even if MSN Search is the pre-installed start page on the user's machine):
In response to a query from Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Mossberg about why Google has gained market share during the last year, Gates said, "We have to do things for them (search users) to convince them to type in our URL" instead of Google's.
Even more ironic is this quote, also from Gates:
"Google has done less innovation than I would have expected a year ago."
Isn't stifled innovation one of the biggest arguments critics make about curbing Microsoft's dominance? Now it seems Microsoft is using the same playbook critics have used against it. What next, Microsoft lobbying regulators about Google's dominance? Hmmm... afterall, Google is now pre-installed on all Dell PCs.... Or is it Google using Microsoft's tacticts? This brief article titled "Google-Dell: How much does it really matter?" on CNET explores these angles, including good commentary from the blogosphere.
My feeling is, let the battles continue. Innovation is alive and well in the land of Web 2.0, and so is competition. Posted on: Thursday, June 01, 2006 | permalink
Let's talk about airport security
An article titled "Airport security is a farce... I rest my case" by Carol Sarler in The Observer touched on what has become the bane of the traveller, especially the frequent traveller: "little Hitlers" (Sarler's term) masquerading as security officials at airports around the world.
The Observer's (and sister paper, The Guardian's) website allows for blog-like feedback by readers on articles, and the comments often expand on the journalist's views. I can relate to one of the threads in the readers' dialogue around this article, on the perception of safety that authorities seem to want to create through the misguided use of racial profiling. As someone who has been out of the country 9 times as of mid-May this year (see the list on the left), and is prone to "random" stoppages and searches, I can relate.
The worst experience I have had was not in the United States, as many assume, although I have on more than one occassion been asked to step into an interrogation room for an unpleasant "interview." I think things have generally improved since 9/11. The backlash by "foreigners" who opted not to travel to the U.S. and spent their tourist dollars elsewhere must have played a role, along with the dreadful coverage around the world. Admittedly, I, too, chose not to fly an American airline or transit there on several snowboarding trips to Canada. To be fair, the attitudes and behaviours I encountered on my latest trip (in January 2006) were entirely acceptable.
The worst case, anyhow, was in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, a new entrant to the European Union which seemingly had not let go of its "little Stalins" (my term). I was there for a long-weekend in October 2005 with three other friends (who were all Caucasian). At the airport, I was grilled, all my baggage emptied and checked, and nearly refused entry to the country (even though I had gone through the hassle of getting a visa from the Slovenian consulate in London and had conducted myself impeccably during the interrogation), all to the amazement of my friends who were allowed to casually loiter around the immigration station. This pretty much coloured my entire stay in Slovenia, which regardless of the unwelcoming border experience, was not anywhere as good as other Central and Eastern European capitals I have visited. It is unlikely I'll be returning to Slovenia any time soon or recommending the nation to others, given there are numerous friendlier and enlightened holiday destinations. Posted on: Sunday, May 28, 2006 | permalink
An insider blogger of note
A little while ago I wrote about the way in which blogging has transformed how insider information is disseminated. Here's an extreme example: a blog by a former MI6 spy, Richard Tomlinson, who has a long-running feud with his secretive former employer. His blogging is a cautionary tale for employers. It also gives fascinating insights to the public. For example, Tomlinson has posted photos related to undercover operations in Russia and has promised more from his days in Bosnia. Using this new medium, employees can get an airing to their vendettas (Tomlinson's blog has already been written about in the Observer). Employment contracts will not always be a deterrent to this medium, so employers must be prepared (i.e. have a thought-through strategy on how to handle a renegade blogger) and be vigilant. Posted on: Saturday, May 27, 2006 | permalink
A satisfying cricket weekend
I was at Lord's on Saturday for the England vs. Sri Lanka Test match. It was a relatively quiet day of the match, a day in which Sri Lanka were looking to recover from a poor 1st innings display. By Monday, they had gone onto do themselves proud by batting for nearly three days in the second innings to save the match. It was one of the most remarkable escapes from sure defeat, proving that the young Sri Lankan team in a state of transition has heart and willpower -- in addition to talent -- to compete with the best. Kumar Sangakkara's comment on Saturday that "if we get out of this it will be one of the great escapes in Test history" proved to be true. This will give immense confidence to the young team, for the rest of their tour here and beyond.
On Sunday, I played my first game for the Chelsea Arts Club Cricket Club, against the well-organised village of Ripley in Surrey. After losing the toss we were asked to bowl. I opened the bowling and had a very good outing with the ball. The ball was swinging around, and with a good bit of accuracy, I was troubling their top order. After getting a wicket each in my first three overs, the Captain had me bowl my allocation of eight overs in one go. (This is the first time I have ever done this, as far as I can remember.) The captain's faith paid off, because I took my fourth wicket in my eighth over. I ended up with a tally of 4 for 36, with three of those wickets "bowled" and the other a "caught behind". We went onto win the match by five wickets, so a very satisfying weekend. Posted on: Tuesday, May 16, 2006 | permalink
Salix season starts with a romp
I had my first regular season cricket game today, when Salix CC took on the Mighty Wonderers in our season opener at the GlaxoSmithKline ground in Greenford, our home pitch. And what a beautiful early season pitch it was!
I had a superb knock of 73, which included three sixes (two back-to-back) and eight fours (at least two back-to-back), batting at my preferred number six position. Coming in at 25 for 4, I went onto put on about 180 for the 6th wicket with my skipper, who eventually brought up an unbeaten ton. This was the highest partnership in the club's history for any wicket. I was out caught on the boundary (under somewhat suspicious circumstances, I must add... the fielder may have stepped over the boundary marker), looking to score a few more runs in the final 2 overs.
We made about 220 in 35 overs and restricted them to 80 for 9 in their 35 overs. I also took 1 wicket bowling a few overs at the end of the innings. All in all, a satisfying start to the season for the team. Personally, this is an exceptional start, especially given that I only scored 2 runs and had no joy with my bowling during our pre-season overseas tour to Provence. Now I have increased confidence to achieve the goals I set myself for the season: 300 runs, 3 fifties, 6 sixes, a batting average of 30 and 30 wickets. Given today's start, the wickets may be toughest target. But, cricket is a funny old game; one match does not make a season. Nevertheless, I'm excited for season 2006.
Sri Lanka's cricket tour to England starts in earnest on Thursday at Lord's with the first of the three Test series. I'll attend the 3rd day (Saturday) of the Lord's Test, as I have done in each of the past five years. Although I am looking forward to this, expectations on a good performance by Sri Lanka are low. The odds of a competitive outcome will depend heavily on the Sri Lankan big names: Murali, Vaas and Sangakkara. Vaas should be looking to improve on his previous subpar performances in England. Michael Atherton does a good assessment of Vaas's contribution to Sri Lanka cricket in a piece in the Telegraph today.
Most will include Mahela Jayawardene on that list of ones to watch, but I think he should be concentrating on his batting, rather than captaining the team in the absence of Atapattu. I think it's time for Sangakkara to take the reins. He's a mature, intelligent and no-nonsense individual, not to mention a world-class batsman and wicket keeper. Add to that his ability to give it back to "chirpy" opposition players, reminiscent of Arjuna Ranatunga. This is the attitude and youth that Sri Lanka needs in a captain now, to mould and build a young team in the post-Jayasuriya era, similar to what Michael Vaughn has achieved with England in the post-Hussein era.
Of the rest, I'll be watching Lasith Malinga, who is likely to trouble the English batsmen, at least early on, with his pace and unorthodox bowling action. I also rate Thilakaratne Dilshan at number six. He was the highest scorer in both innings in the dispiriting 10 wicket loss in the practice match against England A last week. I think he is underrated, and has the skills to anchor the middle-order and make big scores.
Overall, it will be a learning tour for Sri Lanka, but I hope they will be competitive and show glimpses of hope for the future. Posted on: Sunday, May 07, 2006 | permalink
The most innovative companies
Business Week has published the results of a global 2006 survey of senior executives to identify the innovation leaders. The survey was conducted by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the respected strategy consultancy. Apple, Google and 3M take up the first 3 spots. Toyota and Nokia are the only non-US companies in the Top 10, but are closely followed by Virgin, Samsung and Sony at numbers 11-13. New entrants in the Top 25 are Ikea, Target and Research In Motion, the innovator of the BlackBerry communications device.
It's worth noting that according to BCG's calculations, innovative companies had a 10-year margin growth of 3.4%, while the general market (as measured by the S&P 1200 global stock index) had growth of 0.4%. A similar 3 percentage point difference was also found in their stock returns. These data points generally support the theory that innovation pays. Posted on: Thursday, April 27, 2006 | permalink
What if Microsoft designed the iPod packaging?
A great parody video of what would have happened to Apple's über-cool iPod box in Microsoft's hands. Remarkably, it was produced by Microsoft's marketing folks. Posted on: Monday, April 10, 2006 | permalink
The profit warnings index
Ernst & Young compiles a quarterly index that looks at profit warnings by UK listed companies. It can be a good indicator on the health of a particular industry sector. In the Q1 2006 release, the index shows that General Retailers and Software & Computer Services firms were facing the toughest trading conditions, at least by this measure. The accompanying report gives E&Y's analysis on macro economic conditions and focuses on industries relevant to the latest figures. "Delays in contracts and projects" was the reasoning quoted for the Software & Computer Services sector. This isn't surprising, given how reliant companies in this sector are on contract wins. The report does not name the companies which are covered in each sector, which I think would give a better context. Posted on: Monday, April 10, 2006 | permalink
The internet "children" struggle with adolecense
A friend sent through this article in Business Week. It points out how gung-ho Yahoo! was not too long ago with its media ambitions. It hired a string of Hollywood types and announced that it was poised to disrupt the media and entertainment industry in a single bound. These days, Yahoo! is much more circumspect about its media strategy. To quote Yahoo!'s COO: "It's fair to say we've had a shift in thinking over the past 15 months."
It's interesting how these disruptive internet "children" are learning business lessons as they start to grow up. Google's recent string of gaffes are also amusing. The CEO forgets to remove "presenter's notes" in a PowerPoint presentation before publishing it on the web (a schoolboy error in the eyes of most "grown-up" companies, who typically publish in the more locked-down PDF format instead). The CFO says the stock market shouldn't expect Google to grow at a perennial 100% rate (fair point, but say it differently). The biggest of them all, miscalculating its tax liabilities, resulting in the stockmarket beating down its stock price. I suppose a small relief to Google on that last point is that even tax preparer H&R Block recently announced that it had miscalculated its state income taxes by $32 million!
The children need to take a tad more parental advice from business "greyhairs." But, as with most teenagers, learning by mistake is what they often stubbornly opt for. Posted on: Wednesday, March 08, 2006 | permalink
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