ZOOKer John

Stock Trading Wife

I recently learned by accident that Karen has been investing in stocks. It was quite funny how I found out. I had told her that I bought a certain stock and it had almost doubled in value in just the last month or so. Then, Karen starts citing exact price points for this particular stock. It turns out that she acted on my verbal stock pick and bought some herself for us. So, now, we have more of this profitable stock than I had orginally thought. Too funny ...

... maybe we need to sell some of it and better balance out our portfolio. Urgh ...

Cal and Oregon Clash ... Soon

We're about an hour away from the big Cal vs. Oregon game up in Eugene, Oregon. It's going to be a complete offensive explosion. My prediction: Cal 34, Oregon 24. Go Cal!

Good to See a Friend

A friend from New York visited the left coast this week and we had a chance to get together for dinner this past week. I met Matt several years ago through work. He was at a publication at the time but now he's been running his own business for a few years. It sounded like things were going super well and I was very happy for him. We were joined by my former boss and friend as well as a current colleague and before we knew it ... we found ourselves enjoying a meal and chatting from 6:30pm until 10:30pm! Great company, great conversations ... smart friends. A nice evening, indeed.

When to Hire a Marketing Executive?

I see too many startups that have Management Team pages that run a mile long on their web sites. Well-funded startups usually make the mistake of hiring too many executives at the wrong time. Executive hiring has to be done very carefully, according to where the company resides in its lifecycle.

Also, executive hiring involves not only evaluating the individual but also the organization within the company. If you're looking to hire a marketing VP, are you sure that the marketing organization needs to be fully built or expanded? Or, are you really looking to hire a director or manager (or two) who can pretty much carry the day-to-day duties that are required to support the field, put up a cool web site, run some lead campaigns, and so on? I realize that this is a simplistic view of the world but the difference between an executive and manager look like this ... the manager knows what you could or can do, the executive knows what you should and must do. The manager has confidence in implementing. The executive has confidence in deciding. The manager knows how to spend dollars. The executive knows how to direct dollars.

Said differently, do not hire a marketing executive with nothing to do and no resources from which to create output. Organizational output is pretty much what you'll assess the marketing executive on and, thus, you need to evaluate this realistically. If, on the other hand, your startup is on the "brink of XXX" and marketing is a critical endeavor, find a marketing VP and empower him.

Here's what to look for in a marketing VP if you're a startup and you really must hire one ...

* Get someone who is hungry and out to prove something. This is critical. This is why companies who hire the same set of VPs who have been playing musical chairs end up tossing them after a year or so. About three months pass and it becomes clear that your hire has no clue about what marketing means. You realize that a bureaucrat has just joined. The marketing VP starts to budget and hire a bunch of the same cast of characters (suppliers and outside agencies and consultants) to basically do all the work. You've just been fooled. You purchased a turnkey marketing virtual team. Any marketing VP who has been around doing the same thing for 10 years or more will know nothing about current market dynamics, marketing techniques, marketing tools, talent pool to tap into for great hires, and the list goes on. He'll also not have much motivation other than accumulating stock options, vesting it, then moving on to the next startup to fool. There are exceptions but it's rare. Great marketing VPs move onto become CEOs, executive consultants, retire early and join social causes, become angel investors or VCs, start their own companies, and so on and so forth. Go to a large company and find a mid-level marketing executive (i.e., director) who wants to move up and be the primary executive or poach a fairly new ("new" doesn't necessarily mean "young") marketing VP at another startup.

* Hire for now, do not overhire. I constantly hear and see companies hiring a big company marketing VP because they already think ahead to when the startup will IPO or become the next Microsoft. Wrong. You need a marketing VP who can GET you there, not WAIT until you get there. You can always hire a Senior VP or Executive VP (there's enough title out there - don't worry) later on if you're trucking in the cash and growing so fast that a small country would not be able to hold all of your growth.

* Hire a confident executive bleeding into cocky. Unlike large companies, a startup marketing executive will have the deck stacked against them. From Day One, the score is 'World 100, You 1" and only the semi-blindly confident, passionate VP will go 10 rounds vs. 2. Unless he's such a jerk that you're forced to use the emergency exit after each working day so that you don't have to make eye contact with him, you're much better off with a wildman with fire in his belly than the professor or social butterfly of the softness and kindness variety.

* Hire someone who can attract other marketing pros. A startup has fewer marketing staff but each one has to be a lot more experienced than their large company counterparts. Startups have no processes and infrastructure in the beginning. You and your staff must build it before you can use it. Junior people do not know the first thing about building an organization. Your executive must build it and nourish it. Then, he must hire other marketing people to come and leverage it, refine it, and (again) build upon it. It's a common misperception that startup marketing types love startups because there's a lack of strict hierarchy and more freedom. If that's what a candidate says, avoid him like the plague. The answer you want to look for is the "I love marketing in startups because I love to build and building something meaningful fulfills me." Arguably, it's saying the same thing but there's an important distinction. One person is thinking from his interest and projecting inward (what can you do for me?). I can do whatever I want. The other is thinking about the startups needs and projecting outward (what can I do for you?). I'll do whatever is needed of me.

* Spend some time with the VP of marketing recruit outside of the four walls of the offices. Try to really get to know them. Standard-fare reference checks, background checks, and back-door checks aren't enough. There's a lot that paper facts will tell you but there's also a ton that'll mislead you. You'll hire the wrong people armed with the "right" paper facts and reject a lot of the right people with the "wrong" paper facts. A lot of surprising things leak out or show when you spend some quality time getting to know how a person thinks not just about business or your startup or marketing but of life, friendships, family, economy, and so on.

* Hire Smart, Fire Smart. Knowing if a marketing VP is working out well or not is very difficult. The main reason why it's tough to know is because a marketing VP is judged on the performance of their total output. This output includes the output of their marketing organization relative to the company's output over the longer haul then - say - sales or even engineering. It's a total paradox. And, it's why many CEOs have many sleepless nights. By the time you figure out that the output of the organization is not acceptable, you've already jeopardized the company and wasted a ton of money on this executive. With a sales VP, you fire them if they miss a couple quarters' worth of quotas and goals. With an engineering VP, a pattern of missing release dealines or visibly seeing terrible product instantly gives you real-time input on which to make a decision. In both of these cases, the output of their organization or lack thereof is easy to recognize. With marketing, the output takes a while to form. It's like the mini-parachute you tie to a stone and throw up in the air. You don't immediately know if the parachute will open. You don't know if the parachute was large enough to let the stone cruise down safely. You don't know if the stone will land where it's intended to land. Anyway, the only way you can know that something is not quite right with a marketing VP is to MANAGE him throughout. I don't mean micromanage him by asking for reports and status updates or getting involved with the implementation of everything - PLEASE do not do that as it's a surefire way of pushing great marketing people to quit and screw your company in the process. By manage, I mean that you need to meet regularly and engage in discussions to understand their way of thinking, decision making, planning, implementing, etc. In these meetings, stop talking or even suggesting and LISTEN.

* Last but not least, hire the RIGHT skill set. If your company is pre-market fit (ie., can't figure out if you're making something that customers want), you need to get an executive who has a strong background in product marketing. If your company is post-market fit (ie., you know there's a real market based on data and customer engagements but you're having a hard time getting the second dollar in the door and growing), you need to get an executive who has a strong background in corporate marketing. Believe it or not, in technology, it is not the same person although most will claim to be both. Every product marketing manager or director will claim to have "run" public relations, analyst relations, demand gen programs, web marketing, branding, advertising, conferences, field marketing, marcom, etc etc. ... to bag their VP of marketing job. By the same token, some corporate marketing people will claim to "know" product marketing to bag the VP job. Truth is ... both are usually not true. I've done both and hired/managed both in technology marketing. They are worlds apart. Figure out what you're looking for based on what stage your company is in ... then, you'll know who to hire regardless of whether they can actually do everything they claim to do.

What Makes a Great PR Professional?

I've had the fortune of being part of some really great PR programs as well as hired and managed great teams of PR professionals. I've also had the bad fortune of hiring and working with (or for) some really bad ones. Here's a list of 'must have' qualities in any great PR professional:

*   EXCELLENT COMMUNICATOR: The most critical asset that a PR pro leverages is his/her ability to persuade through effective communications. PR people are often dealing with a wide range of publics and an equally diverse set of audiences (whether internal or external to their company or firm). The ability to adapt to his/her audience, speak their language, and make convincing points just at the right time is a powerful trait. If a book is indeed judged by its cover (whether fair or not), the PR person's ability to communicate in a powerful and convincing way is indeed their book cover.

* GREAT WRITER: Next to verbal communication, the PR pro spends most of his (for sake of ease, I'll drop the 'his/her' now) time writing all sorts of things. Further, he reviews and edits other folks' writing. And, he reads a lot of media articles in order to gauge its impact. Basically, you need to be a terrific writer with great range ... to be able to write factually sound marketing materials, succinct press releases, persuasive pitch letters or emails, and powerful op-eds ... not to mention impressive ghost writing for top executives.

* RELATIONSHIP BUILDERS: The acronym stands for public RELATIONS for a reason. PR people are in the business of relationships. The best folks are uncanny at creating compelling messages on behalf of a company or product for the most rock-solid, differentiated positioning that automatically gets consumed in the marketplace - but this rarely occurs. A great PR pro will have an amazing network of media, analyst, customer, and industry relationships built over the years so that even a slightly above average message falls on friendly ears, or turf.  It goes without saying that in order to build great relationships, a great PR pro learns how to provide value to both sides of the "PR transaction" ... that is, they bridge the company's best interest with the external audience's (oftentimes reporters and editors) needs. Doing so builds trust and trust, in turn, forges relationships.

* DISCIPLINED PLANNERS: PR is a highly volatile profession. It sits in between a lot of parties with varied interests. PR results also rely heavily on many dependencies. As such, the best PR pros are those who know how to keep their eye on the ball while having Plan B and Plan C lined up. I've seen too many poor PR people point their fingers at a host of things that could (and, does) go wrong. Ultimately, no one cares why a result wasn't achieved or why an idiotic product marketing manager got in the way of success.

* REPUTATION MAKERS AND PROTECTORS: Great PR pros build a reputation but also spend equal time defending, or protecting, ones reputation. Whereas a marketing team may want to hype or play up a product capability to get attention, the PR pro is oftentimes in an uncomfortable position of pushing back on doing so if not enough supporting evidence or proof points exist. The best PR pros know how to be guardians and stewards of reputation management.

* DECIPHERS OF RELEVANCY: Too often, I've heard people say that great PR people are creative. I'd like to debunk that thinking. Creativity belongs in advertising, story telling, and in bedrooms. Great PR pros are adept at taking frequent pulses on the market. This leads to great timing and perfect-fit relevancy for whatever a company announces, launches, markets, etc. It's where PR becomes more art than science. It's also a skill that only the most experienced PR gurus really have the guts to apply as the potential for a campaign to backfire also is at its greatest when you're trying to make a square peg fit into a rectangular opening (btw, shoving a square peg into a round hole is always a no-no).

* STRONG SELF-IMAGE: PR people are sorta like real estate agents. You must exude confidence and success. Since PR comes across as more art than science (in truth, it's a bit of both) to most people, only the strongest PR minds can win the trust of top management. And, you'll spend an inordinate time dealing with top management if you're in PR so ... it's mandatory. While you're honing your skills and building up knowledge, go ahead and start looking the part right away. Look and act like a person that a powerful executive or decision maker would want to listen to ...

That's it folks!

Bleeding Dodger Blue

After a four-game sweep of the Dodgers by the Rockies, my beloved L.A. Dodgers are 6.5 games out of the wildcard race with just nine games to play. In other words, put a fork in it - this season is over. I am in mini shock that we could be out of the race for the playoffs this soon. Just a month ago, it looked like the Dodgers were going to battle with the Diamondbacks and Padres down to the wire. Now, usually quiet Jeff Kent is sounding off and complaining, Furcal is still hobbling, Nomar is tweaking with his swing mechanics (for the millionth time), and the young upstarts are tired physically and fed up mentally.

It's not a surprise that the team is starting to turn on itself. Tough times almost always get people to behave like morons and wilt under pressure in business ... and, in sports, it's no different. I blame the "neither here nor there" lack of commitment by Grady Little as the cause of this stretch run debacle. Looking at the team (as well as its random day-to-day lineup changes), you wonder if the Dodgers are a veteran team or youth-oriented team. The reality is that it's a team that is divided right down the middle. On the one hand, we have Nomar, Furcal, Kent, Lowe, Gonzalez, and Martinez. On the other hand, we have Loney, Martin, Ethier, Kemp, LaRoche, and gang. Juan Pierre falls somewhere in the middle - he's the DMZ guy with this being his seventh season.

Typically, you want to avoid having this sort of makeup in your team. Why? Because the interests of the veterans turn toward themselves when there are so many young guns on the team. It's a fight for jobs and competition turns inward - not outward at the true enemies (the OTHER teams!). When you have a couple rookies or young prospects, the veterans embrace them and even try to help them grow. When you have just as many "proved nothing so far" young ones as there are veterans, they're looked at as a threat. Veterans start competing with the young guns. They get nasty. They get frustrated. This is exactly what has happened in the Dodgers clubhouse. By the way, the reverse is also true. If your team is dominated by young guns (e.g. Cavaliers in the NBA are perfect examples), the handful of veterans know that part of what's expected out of them is to share their wisdom and help these up-and-comers grow up faster. They play a role. The Dodgers, however, are neither here nor there this year.

To make matters worse, and as Kent pointed out, manager Little has clearly proven that he has no strategy for how the Dodgers approached the season much less the stretch run. A tried-and-true approach throughout baseball history has been to use young players sparingly throughout the regular season to give the veterans some timeoff while getting some experience under the belts of the rookies so that both the regular season and stretch runs are optimal. Little has totally ignored any kind of rhyme or reason and (apparently) used a random roll of the dice to jigger the lineup any which way but rationally. It is very frustrating.

I realize Nomar hasn't been his usual self lately but why is he watching the games from the dugout with everything on the line!?!? Nomar is one of the greatest hitters of his generation. It is sickening.

Speaking of blowups ... the Dodgers aren't alone. Mets are choking big time and literally throwing their season away although the fork still isn't in them, yet.

Maybe it's time for me to turn my attention to my "other" hometeam, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (the worst name for a team by far in sports history), who have the best record in baseball. After all, I grew up closer to the Angels in Orange County than Chavez Ravine. Woops, I gotta go ... the Angels bandwagon is about to leave.

My Turn at Being Andy Rooney

Here's a list of things that I wonder about ...

* Why is rush hour called rush hour? Maybe a more appropriate name would be something like "Crawl Hour?"

* Why do we say a great salesperson can "sell ice to Eskimos?" Don't the eskimos need ice to build their igloos?

* Why isn't the word "thesaurus" an entry in a thesaurus?

* Since nothing can stick to Teflon, how do pans and pots stick to Teflon?

* Why do people say "best of the best?"

* Why do people fold in Texas "HOLD 'EM" poker?

* When you get a flat tire, you need a jack. Why are jacks called jacks? Can we call it john then? Which reminds me ... why are restrooms called johns?

* Why is it an air "conditioner?" Can I buy an air "shampoo" too? Air cooler would be a better name.

Philosophy Anyone?

I found this cool site that allows anyone to ask a real philosopher anything you want ... it's called AskPhilosophers. I'm gonna try out a little test. I'll pose a question on their site about the whole "$10 million in exchange for 10 years" thing and see what these "professional" or "real" philosophers say ...

It should be a very interesting little test ... to say the least. I'm very curious to know. I'll post their responses here in a future post. Stay tuned.

Web 2.0 Start-up TripIt Is All Tripped Up

I read a recent entry on Techcrunch about TripIt. This beta site basically lets you forward all the various trip confirmation emails from hotel, airlines, etc. to them and they'll automatically create one master trip itinerary for you. I think it's actually a cool service ... so much so that I went and created an account, then started using it. The only problem is ... it does not work! I forwarded three emails to them and none of them could be recognized or processed! Two were from Hotwire (which they support) and their system could not recognize it and the third was Amtrak ... which they do not support yet.

TripIt's sample trip report also looks like the same complicated text-heavy trip itineraries of folks like Expedia, Hotwire, etc. The very reports imho that they have to differentiate from! So, I've been emailing their support folks back and forth trying to give them my free tips on how they could fix and improve the service. For example, in a confirmation form for submitting alternative email addresses, the user cannot resize the confirmation window in order to read the message in bright red text that they send to the screen post-submission. This is just bad execution.

Coincidentally, I read about Yahoo's acquisition of Zimbra today while in the middle of using the services of one of their competitors Zoho. I was fumbling around with Zoho in order to share a powerpoint with some business partners. Within the Zoho UI, there is NO place to click for deleting an uploaded .ppt file!!! Deleting a file is not an available option within their presentation app! I could not believe this! Then, I tried looking for a "how to" or FAQ section to figure it out on my own and could not find those either! Then, I resorted to deleting each of the 20+ slides one by one and then saving 1 slide because the service has a mandatory requirement for at least one slide before saving (not deleting) my deck! UNREAL.

It just reminds me how the biggest mistakes are the simplest oversights. I think people always gravitate toward fixing complex problems and earth-shattering stuff and, as a consequence, the most critical, basic features are usually what gets no attention.

Is Using Video A Mistake?

I get so bothered by blogs that have all sorts of pics and video postings all over the place. I call it the "lazy" pseudo-blogs that are not much of a web log at all. Pseudo bloggers should go and use Twitter, it was made for them. I'm pretty dedicated at the idea that ZOOKer John will be a blog driven by words. But, it looks like I just posted a Tetris video and it's bothering me. Ok, I'll make sure that I make one such exception to the general rule once in a blue moon.

I just HAD to share the video with you.

Tetris Master of the World

Apparently, this person from Japan is the best Tetris player in the world. This is almost too hard to believe but it looks like it's for real. Wow. I'm pretty good at Tetris but compared to this guy, I'm an infant.

Watch a little of the beginning and then watch the second half including the ending.

$10 Million or 10 Years?

Here's a great test that I came up with this morning. I tested it on my wife and she agreed it was a cool test. Let's say that someone offers you $10 million in exchange for fast forwarding your life 10 years. Do you take the money?

My answer was "no." My wife also answered "no." Agreeing to take $10 million in exchange for sacrificing 10 years of my life seemed pretty foolish. First, not every year of life is equal in value. Second, there's a slight (ok, extremely slight) chance that I could actually earn more than $10 million in the next 10 years combined. Third, I'd be 10 years closer to death so it's be nuts to take the money. Fourth, living is a lot more important to me than money or, more accurately, having lots of money. Fifth, life is a precious journey whether it's in experiencing a "comfortable" life or a life of "struggles." I could go on but you get the idea.

It's a really simple question that actually leads to a very honest and thoughtful pondering ...

By the way, money is never more precious than its time-on-earth counterpart. I'm a thirtysomething but even if I were young (money is not as important or demand lacks) or old (not enough time or supply lacks) I wouldn't trade 10 years for $10 million.

Great Day of College Football

I just sat around working all day. It's still one of the best feelings ever to get a ton of stuff done when there's nothing pushing you other than self interest and satisfaction. In between the reading and writing, I got in the requisite hours of college football. USC absolutely crushed Nebraska although the final score didn't reflect it since Nebraska got a couple cheapo touchdowns against the Trojans prevent defense in the fourth quarter. Cal pounced on Lousiana Tech and Florida beat up on Tennessee. Great, great Saturday of pigskin.

OpenOffice Stinks But It Has Promise

I was reading Jonathan Schwartz's blog entry on OpenOffice the other day because I'm a regular user of OpenOffice. My wife and I decided that we rarely use anything but the browser or media applications from our home computer so it made no sense to waste a lot of money on productivity applications (i.e., MS Office).

OpenOffice is compatible with Microsoft Office so it serves basic needs well. Where it starts to stumble hard is in how similar it tries to look to MSFT. The overall UI of OpenOffice is eerily familiar but it's ... sorta not. Features and functionality are 'hit and miss' - I'm sure a lot of this is intentional and well intended. After all, it's a lot more valuable if the developers building new things into OpenOffice did so with the intent to make things better than MS Office, not just copycat. The part of the equation that they are missing is the simple fact that almost nobody will be using OpenOffice without a previous bias to MS Office. Thus, when your initial face to these pre-inclined users is to say "hey, we're just like MS Office" people will assume that, first, certain things exists and, second, these things will be found in certain predictable places.

Here's a suggestion for how OpenOffice could start gaining wider adoption and deeper use. Either make OpenOffice as close to MS Office as humanly possible OR do exactly the opposite and make it different. Right now, it's neither here nor there. And, with every new release of Office forcing longtime users to fumble around to see where they're favorite features are hiding or hibernating, it'd be a lot simpler to make the transition to OpenOffice if it resembled MS Office more closely or became a totally different user experience altogether ... with compatibility - obviously - preserved. I guess I just said the same thing twice. Oh well ...

XBOX Being Targeted By Phishers

History has always taught us that criminals are oftentimes the innovators when it comes to business. I ran across this posting on ValleyWag. It looks like XBOX Live gamers need to be on the lookout for phising. Phishing is basically done through masquerading as a legitimate site that you trust (like PayPal or bank) in order to steal your login information like usernames and passwords or credit card information. A lengthier Wikipedia definition is HERE.

Pandora Radio Is Mega Impressive!

I rarely get excited about the deluge of these so-called Web 2.0 services and businesses - except, of course, my own Web 2.0 startup (which hasn't started, YET). To me, Web 2.0 are just communities and applications for greater collaboration and connectedness. I can write 50 pgs about its definition but the one I just gave is pretty much it. There's so much junk out there that it's bordering on ludicrous. Web 2.0 is pretty much Web 1.0 without the big bad media companies behind the content. There's also a collaboration angle (many:many) that businesses are now only starting to comprehend for their own use down the road. But, I'm simply referring to the influence and content part of Web 2.0 here. My prediction is that over the next few years. Web 2.0 will start looking a lot like Web 1.0 as the masses begin a filtration cycle that leads to a smaller universe of power users who ... you guessed it, will start acting like the big bad media companies. This isn't a bad thing. It's just the individual voice gaining power while at the same time the big bad media companies come downstream to individualize its own voice for greater impact.

But, there are some gems out there with tremendous potential. Take, for example, Pandora Radio. It's an awesome application. If you're a VC, get your money into this endeavor quickly! More seriously, take a close look ... the service will get smarter as more people use it. Yes, network effect.

Buyers Trust Buyers

It's pretty fair to say that all of us to some extent understand the notion that buyers are most influenced by the decisions of other buyers. This is why market statistics are so important to publish in order to establish market leadership. But, I'm often surprised at how little technology startups use market statistics. The gold standard in technology marketing is to use customers in case studies. But, it's important to remember that these are not really effective on their own because you're still using the traditional advertisement approach except that instead of advertising a product, you're advertising the customer. The point is ... it's still advertising. What technology startups have to do more frequently is to not market the product through the customer but let the customer directly market the product. It's different.

Create programs that allow the customer to directly influence other buyers (or, their peers). Having a customer post some glowing comments about their satisfaction after buying and using your product on some influential sites is a lot more powerful than spending thousands of dollars to write yet another glossy case study that's PDF-ed and posted on your own web site. Cultivate a roster of customer evangelists to go out to the public forums, blogs, user groups, and other industry gatherings and promote your product - on their own. Let them write and speak about you in their own words. When something doesn't smell like marketing or advertising, it's a lot more credible. And, trust me, most buyers recognize a standard-fare piece of marketing collateral disguised as a customer case study when they see it.

While you're at it, take advantage of statistics on your product's buyers. At one of my former companies, we understood the power of using buyer statistics to influence future buyers. We realized that most of our competitors had more customers than we did so we narrowed down our list to those customers who were Internet properties. By doing so, we were able to let the statistics work for us rather than against us. Then, we made an aggressive and ongoing push on the fact that (for example) Four of the Five largest Internet properties bought our product. This allowed us to confidently go after similarly large Web customers. Numbers are powerful because they are still the tried-and-true way to get across leadership. And, you don't need enormous market share numbers to start using numbers. Start small, but start early.

Speaking of numbers ... I ran across this cool survey on Nielsen BuzzMetrics (see below). Click the image for a larger version.

   

Powerpoint Tips In 10 Minutes

I've read a handful of the so-called tips on how to make effective presentations or aka "how to create and use effective powerpoints." I've found all of them to be either too analytical or too terse. So, here are my suggestions on what you can do to improve your powerpoint presos ...

.PPT IS A PRESENTATION

First and foremost, PowerPoint presentations are visual. Make your preso come to life and weave-in a ton of visual elements. Pictures tell a thousand words but a more accurate phrase would be ... pictures allow you to flexibly utilize a thousand words on a presentation-by-presentation basis. Limit the words, use the visual pictures, diagrams, photos, etc.

EACH SLIDE HAS A LIFE

All the so-called experts who say that each slide should say ONE thing are wrong. I've never heard of such a ridiculous claim. Every slide should have an assumption or observation coupled by a conclusion. For example, if a particular slide depicts the competitive landscape, you want to say that a) it's a crowded field (show lots of dispersed dots everywhere) but b) it's a nascent market that is up for grabs. You get the point. Give your audience an observation or information then interpret it for your audience with a strong, confident conclusion. Do this for every slide.

GIVE A PERFORMANCE

Nobody ever does this but ... try using a camcorder to tape a rehearsed presentation. I will guarantee you that you will come across as aweful. Remember that the speaker can hide a poorly created powerpoint deck but the reverse is never true. Focus your attention on mastering what you want to say and worry about nit picking the slides later. The less number of slides and words per slide you have in your presentation, the more you're likely to come across sharp and persuasive in your verbal presentation. When I first tried the video-taping exercise, I did better with a set of blank slides than with richly worded and ornately designed slides.

ZAP THE ANIMATION

Your powerpoint is dense enough ... do you really need to add the bells and whistles like animated slides, transition slides, and so on? Nobody in the world will be impressed by animated stuff. People will only care about the overall case you were making and new information or facts they learned. That's it.

EVERYONE SAYS SIMPLE BUT NO ONE LISTENS

Every technology startup has its share of technical people. Even the marketing people in technology companies are rooted with educational backgrounds in computer science or engineering. Some marketing folks know nothing about technology but read a handful of trade magazine articles and then try to pass themselves off as technical visionaries or experts overnight. A soft marketing exec will compromise 'til the end of time and accept an endless stream of input from anybody and everybody. After all, technology attracts some pretty smart people and a weak marketing exec will usually bend over backwards to accommodate everyone. This has led to overanalysis and the inevitable "piling sh*t" syndrome in technology marketing. Everybody piles on top of one another and soon enough, no one is able to smell the sh*t. My point is this ... it takes a titanium spine and an iron stomach to be able to stand up to the hordes of people wanting to make the preso smarter and better. DO NOT fall into the pile. Dumb it down and keep it simple. Your presenters are the folks who need to look smart and say smarter things. Your slides should give them the flexibility to do so.

GET REAL 360 FEEDBACK

I'm often surprised at the way various marketing executives and CXOs elicit feedback or input on various presentations and their accompanying powerpoint presos. They basically go to some trusted peers or underlings and ask them to provide input. Or, they toss the draft preso over the fence to someone they know in the marketplace - say, an analyst or friend. Surprise. The feedback rolls in predictably with a few suggestions to tweak this or that. What's never fed back are the MAJOR gaps or holes because a true 360 feedback was not conducted. I'm not talking about the type of time consuming feedback where you're trying to turn art into science. All I suggest is getting feedback from people you know will have dramatically different prisms through which they see the same object. Ask these three people to take a look at your preso and provide feedback: 1) A junior product marketing staff, 2) a senior engineering staff, 3) a member of the management team or high ranking executive officer, and 4) administrative assistant or HR staff. If you truly need to go with even less than this short list, skip the marketing and HR folks - just get the bounce off from the admin or HR person as well as the senior engineering staffer or manager. I'm skipping a whole section here on the value of outside feedback from customers, partners, and analysts. It's critical to get outside perspective on major presos (especially those that will be used in a widespread manner such as a product launch presentation or conference preso) but before you send anything to the outside world, you need to check it internally.

FORGET THE BACKUP SLIDES

The only times I use backup slides is when someone has a suggestion to add a certain slide or set of slides and refuses to back down. They literally claim that without these "critical" slides, nobody will understand the value of what we do or they will lose a deal or the world will end. Clearly, we've all been in similar situations before. I call this type of person a deadly startup virus who will bring everybody down. He or she needs to take a class on candor. But, whenever I'm in this situation, I stuff their slides in the "Backup" section of the deck and this pleases everybody 9 out of 10 times. Unless you're simlarly using the backup slides as a weapon of diplomacy, leave the backup slides out. You can get the same data or information across through a white paper, data sheet, analyst report, or news clip. I can't tell you how comical it comes across when someone starts off their presentation with a pretty good set of 10-15 slides and then drills through 30-50 backup slides! Wow. Stick to 15-slides or less. Nobody needs to have more than 12-15 slides to tell their story. The history of civilization could even be covered with 15 or less slides. Get a clue. 

Mandatory Top 10 "I Can't Stand It" List

This morning, I freaked out three times because some idiots (three idiots to be exact) on the freeway almost crashed into my car and killed me. One car quite literally almost cut me off at a T-intersection while I was driving to the speed limit of 45MPH and had the green light. So, to cap off the evening, I wanted to put up my Top 10 List of Things I Cannot Stand (as of 12:40am on 09/11/07). The list is not in any order. When I can't stand something, they are all ranked as #1 on the list.

1. People who tailgate on the freeway when there is rush hour traffic.

1. People in the Bay Area who can't stop talking about wines. Everybody drinks wine. No one really cares about your expertise or passion for wines. If they did, they'd actually drive down to Borders and buy a book about wine. Peter Mayle is a great writer of both fiction and non-fiction books that have something to do with wine and Provence. I actually have four of his books.

1. Anybody who is stupid enough to be one of the first buyers of Apple's iPhone and equally stupid enough to brag about it.

1. People who do not smile or say 'hi' after making eye contact.

1. The noisy neighbor of mine who keeps blasting away music through his 4,000,000-watt speakers every Saturday.

1. The fellow shoppers who nearly kill me as they run over me with their massive shopping carts at the local Costco but never bother to say sorry or even glance a look.

1. People who rest their dirty shoes on top of the seat in front of them at a movie theater - whether it's occupied or not.

1. All the books about how Wal-Mart is ruining civilization.

1. Cashiers at the supermarket who chit chat with coworkers while 20 people are standing in line. You'll notice that every supermarket in the Bay Area has about 18 checkout lines but only 1-3 are usually open during peak hours. Earth to supermarkets --> What on EARTH are the other extra checkout lines for???

Tips on Reducing Stress Levels

I've heard and read all about the importance of having some levels of stress. I get it ... human beings need some stress. Great. Well, human beings also would be better off if they had less of it. Regardless of the academic or medical evidence that suggests otherwise, I'm sure no one in their right mind would refuse to eliminate stress altogether if they were given that option. So, in the spirit of accomplishing the impossible, let me share some of my secrets to elimnating - or, at least, reducing - stress. These have periodically worked wonders for me:

- Drink lots of water not to hydrate but to purify. Everytime I drink a glass of chilled water, I feel refreshed.

- Focus 100 percent on a specific thing and do it in shorter bursts like a sprinter. I've managed to multitask between work and life this way by compartmentalizing. And, the compartmentalizing has reduced my stress and anxiety. The unintended consequence could be pissing off your wife or husband from time to time for tuning them out (albeit temporarily) but, hey, there's rarely a great remedy without some ill effects. I also tell my wife that reducing stress means I'll live a longer, healthier life which means I'll have more time to tune-in over the long run anyway by sometimes focusing hard and tuning out other stuff.

- I physically tap a framed piece that states "It's a Wonderful Life" before I leave the front door each and every morning - weekday or weekend. Atheletes do it before they enter a stadium to compete and I do it before I say hello to a new day. It's worked wonders in making me focus on what's really important ... and, that's my good health and the opportunity to experience another day of learning. Unlike a lot of people, even a tough day ahead doesn't worry me. Facing each day as a new day of learning and overcoming challenges (ie., accomplishing something) is a positive thing.

- I try to exit a day by doing something nice for someone. I know it sounds corny but I really think that really meaningful things happen privately and in small doses. I always visualize about a pound of stress leaving my mind and body when I do something generous or kind for others. Think about each selfish act as gaining 5 pounds and every selfless act of kindness as losing 1 pound. Do the math. You basically need to give six times for every one time you take.

Bandwagon Frenzy Starts Now

I'm sure the entire Bay Area will be talking endlessly - at least on the sports radio talk shows - tomorrow morning about how the 49ers will make it into the playoffs this year. Yawn. Reality check. The 49ers barely beat the lowly but improved Arizona Cardinals. Yeah, not the St. Louis Cardinals but the NFL team in cactus land that shares the same mascot and name. Alex Smith deserves huge props for pulling through and winning an important season opener to set the tone for the rest of the season but if it wasn't for his individual moves on the last drive's fourth down play, the 49ers would've lost the game. Smith basically turned a busted fourth down pass play into a first down gain but scrambling out of the pocket and tiptoeing down the sidelines.

I do like Mike Nolan for having the guts to wear a suit for every game as well as for his no-nonsense approach to coaching this team but ... this is still a 7-9 team at best.

I guess it doesn't hurt to see some Bay Area teams do well since the alternative is to hear the whining and Monday morning quarterbacking from spoiled Bay Area fans. I do listen to KNBR almost exclusively every day during my commute to work and, so, it'll be refreshing to hear some optimism from the Niners gang ...

Why the World Needs Lenovo

I really hate the way Lenovo (formerly the IBM ThinkPad) laptops look. I use a ThinkPad at work and also have a ThinkPad at home. My wife has a Toshiba laptop and I've expressed my disdain for Toshiba's in the past on this blog. To repeat, Toshiba laptops suck because they feel like rice paper and are so fragile from the casing to the keyboard. But, the real reason why I stubbornly use ThinkPads is because of the little UltraNav pointer. To this day - and, no matter how hard I try - I simply cannot use the touchpads used exclusively by most laptop manufacturers. The situation has turned from annoying to comical as I am now the proud owner of no less than five mouse peripherals for two machines! I keep a mouse on my computer desk, regular desk, in the breakfast bar area, and in my bedroom.

I wonder what would happen if Lenovo ever went out of business ... I'd be doomed.

Winning Breeds Winning But ...

I've been at a lot of startups. I'm sure that there are many others who would say that I haven't been at enough startups. This, after all, is Silicon Valley - the mecca of startups or startup la-la land. I've put in about 14 years of work in marketing organizations of all shapes and sizes ... and five tours of duty were in startup companies. I've co-founded a startup in web-enabled transit advertising that went nowhere. I've been a PR guy at a company that basically started the whole hoopla over identity management and moderately succeeded (translation: its reputation of leadership eclipsed its revenue success although the latter wasn't too shabby). I was a customer marketing and corp comm director at a startup that was one of the biggest successes in networking in the post-bubble era ... a magical case where great marketing and great execution success (aka, revenues) converged and the startup went from being two weeks from bankruptcy and not meeting payroll to selling for $325 million and amassing $110+ million in revenues from less than $1 million over a short 2.5 years during a period when most folks were heads down waiting for the so-called IT spending freeze or downturn to pass. And, I've now been a VP of marketing in two startups - one of which flatlined and another that's trying to find its stride in a very nascent but white hot potential market.

But, my entry isn't about my job history. I wanted to say a few things about what I've observed as the catalysts (and, conversely, obstacles) to startup success. I won't be able to cover everything that contributed to real winning and losing in this entry. Actually, I'd rather write a book and chase down publishers if that was the goal. This is really about a simple wishful thinking that becomes an overused prophecy to succeed ... and, it exists in droves in startups. For more on this wishful thinking, skip to #5 below.

Every startup goes through immense frustrations during the early years. Here are the five phrases that serve as my litmus test for whether a startup is properly staffed with startup people. I have a tendency to focus on having the right people because it's the people who both "start" (by doing vs. thinking or debating) and "up" the bar (by scoring wins and reaching milestones quickly). People are critical to winning. Almost every winning startup had their future written the moment it staffs up with the right people or wrong people. By the way, most startups these days are not attracting enough startup people. After the bubble burst, many folks who lost their "big company" jobs showed the paper qualifications to actually find refuge in startups in order to pay the bills. This is great for the bill collectors but bad for startups.  The result has been an influx of big company thinking and behavior in startups that results in a vicious cycle of doom. Anyway, back to my list of Four Telltale Signs that Your Startup is Not Properly Staffed:

#1 - "How do we measure success or progress?" Answer: The only way to measure success in startups is to a) ship version 1.0 of whatever product or service you're offering and see what sticks and what doesn't and b) check the revenues. It's that simple. Any other "metrics" and you are kidding yourself.

#2 - "We don't even have a business plan or marketing plan or sales plan or operating plan or XXX plan ..." Answer: If we had the time or inclination to write plans, we would never have the time or inclination to implement. In startups, any plan becomes outdated the minute the ink on the paper dries. What's really required in an early stage startup is not a mission statement but mission in life calling for why the business exists along with a crystal clear explanation of the problem it is solving and how/why customers are or will pay for it. As the saying goes, brilliant ideas aren't funded but good enough ideas with brilliant people who know how to implement are funded. VCs are very wealthy people who make their limited partners even wealthier. They must know something. Try to focus on implementing because if the implementation fails, you'll know that the strategy or idea or concept sucks and you're agile and swift enough to adjust accordingly. If you never focus on the implementation, you'll be revising your plan until you run out of energy and money. By the way, the CEO of one startup had an operating plan that ran 80 pages and was updated every quarter for the Board. It consumed endless hours of executive staff time. This was the flatliner startup. Another CEO gave me a puzzled looked when I made the grave error of insisting on receiving the business plan. This was the hugely successful startup. Enough said.

#3 - "We can't have top-down management around here because people who join startups aren't here for that type of environment." Answer: This is one of the most dangerous comments to be heard as it's the most untrue statement as well as the most paralyzing to a startup. There's a reason why super experienced executives rollup their sleeves and join startups. These executives are brought on board because - unlike their big company counterparts - they thrive in environments where they are expected to make a direct, and daily, contribution to each of their functional areas of expertise. Everything in a startup is top-down. A startup that has a thick middle management layer or too many individual contributors with autonomy to select their projects and manage themselves is a place waiting to self destruct. Young people who thrive in startups enjoy taking directions and learning while being given a chance to contribute a ton relative to others in larger companies. Be sure that your people play a role but remain involved at all times. So, check and see that your employee base resembles a color spectrum with only two colors at the ends of the spectrum - that is, very experienced executives on one end and youthful future leaders on the other end. Avoid the "in-betweeners" who are neither here nor there. They will become disruptors and burn a lot of money along the way due to their tendencies to think grandeur vs. guerilla (not to mention that they have bloated salaries).

#4 - "We base decisions on opinions grounded by only guesswork. We never have any market research to back our thinking and instead always spew conjecture or anecdotes." Answer: Come on. I've been doing SPSS research for consumer markets in the mid-1990s and enterprise IT research for a $Billion S&P500 software maker more recently and can say one thing with certainty ... a startup has little to NO research or even customer requirements to serve as a beacon much less depend on for key jumpstart decision making. You're a startup because you've (hopefully) figured out a new or better way to do something of value for customers. The customer does not know it, yet. You can't ask the customer to tell you how to build and market something they do not even recognize. Further, you cannot look at existing numbers for adopted technologies and existing markets to tell you what to do. A better approach is to instill discipline in your efforts to make sure that you go after the agnostic vs. atheist with regard to potential customer market segments. Find out quickly which customers are on the fence due to lack of awareness ("agnostics") and do everything you can to convert them to be a "believer." There's an old saying that says that we were given two eyes to see and two ears to hear but only one tongue to speak. You'll need these believers to lend you their tongue and speak on your behalf to their technology buying peers. Don't waste any time on getting the unconvinced but identified (fill in blank) buyer who is using something else and twisting arms to change their way of thinking. It's a lot faster with agnostics and you'll learn a ton from them. But, above all, you need to LIVE with these early agnostic customers! By the way, lean on industry analysts as partners in your effort to convert the agnostics. Customers are influenced by industry analysts as are press, partners, and investors. You need them on your side for evangelizing what you do but also to learn a thing or two from them as their lens is wider than your deeper but narrower view of the world.

#5 - My favorite of all time. "Everything is bad but if we get our first one or two customers, everything will change and (fill in a rosey statement here)." Answer: I have heard this at every startup and it's never ever true. Early on, I was guilty of saying and thinking this same thing. Now, I know better. It's comfortable and convenient to believe it but the entire thinking is illogical. The wins never come because things are so bad. The "bad" situation is the CAUSE of the lack of wins or revenues. It is not the other way around. When you join a startup, it has no revenues and no visible wins. To ever get to the early wins and pick up a mojo for winning, you need to fill the startup with completely evangelical believers who would bleed the company logo in pain and still march on to the top of that million-mile mountain - sometimes even knowing that the first year or two may be in a Sisyphean ordeal because that's the critical period where the fleet footed startup picks up its stride and learns about its own identity and calling. I call marketing in a startup a missionary effort with little certainty or clarity ... until the big payoff when the aligned and razorsharp focus and behavior results in the first small win ... which turns into two small wins ... then the machine get revved up ... until, finally, you find yourself in a meeting where your CTO makes a grandiose speech about making sure that everybody is focused on figuring out ways to scale our business 360-degrees only to be followed by the VP of finance who shouts a reminder that we're still a startup and we need to penny pinch our costs so that we can have enough saved up to press the gas pedal at the right moment. This last part was a real story of what happend at the big win startup. A classic moment in irony or the conflicts borne out of growing pains. Prabakar and Seamus were the two culprits for this winning moment circa late-2004.

A startup is a gamble and it should attract risk takers. Close your eyes and visualize your prototypical startup marketing or sales or engineer or <fill in anything here> guy or gal as a complete and utter animal who thinks of controlled chaos as a means to an end that translates to reward. Anyone who thinks of a decision or act within the framework of a risk-reward analysis and focuses on the risk side of the equation should not be hired. Get the guy who weighs the risk-reward and makes decisions based on the reward side of the equation. Now, I'm not saying that getting a gambling train wreck is the best thing to do. What I am saying, however, is that you must avoid the risk averse person who is overly cautious and place your bet on the risk taker who can implement and get results in an environment often filled with ambiguity and uncertainty. You'll know when you have a risk averse person on your team. It's the fella who constantly asks the questions so that action can be halted. In big companies, you actually need the reverse and want that person who seeks answers to probing, thoughtful questions. After all, you'll probably have tons of money on the line so risking a big loss for what'll amount to a relatively moderate gain is simply stupid and irresponsible. In a startup, the biggest risk of not acting or implementing since you really have nothing to lose is the opportunity to have found out if the reward was unexpectedly enormous. Make decisions on some information and go out and implement it. Then, if it doesn't work out, try a different approach only after adjusting it with raw and real market feedback and customer input.

A last word on the topic of startups and its DNA plus formula for winning. The most frequent dysfunction I see in startups is not in its lack of having a perfect business plan or having a bullet proof strategy. The worst failure is in failing to be brutally honest and transparent with any and all decisions. People do not lose faith and defect because they do not agree with strategy or even multiple changes in strategy as long as they understand why it is changing. But, people do lose faith quickly when they see one thing but repeatedly are told something else. Remember: the smartest people are recruited into startups. You cannot fool them long. It's not really a case of needing to communicate more frequently but to make each communication meaningful and direct. Cut the garbage and spin out when dealing with the troops next to you in the same foxhole as you battle the world. They can handle it.

Car Makers: Simplicity vs. Complexity

A few weeks ago, I filled out a survey about automobiles in order to gain access to market research on automobile buying behavior. As part of the deal, I needed to ask for "more information" from certain GM vehicles. Before I go on, it is worth noting that I am a proud and happy owner of a Volvo S60 sedan which is, of course, owned by an American car manufacturer (Volvo still exists for commercial vehicles but the passenger car line was sold to Ford in 1998 for roughly US$5.8 billion according to a Wikipedia entry).

I came home tonight and saw a package from GM resting on my desk in our home office. I realized just how stupid the folks at GM (the company) and GM marketing could be after I lifted this heavy package, opened it, and found what was inside. Apparently, GM's idea of a prospective customer asking for more information on the Saab 9-5 sedan and Chevy Tahoe SUV translated to "please send me all the information in the world you have on anything made by GM ... but hold the butter."

Along with a price list from a local GM dealership printed out in plain white paper, the folks at GM mailed me three rather thick brochures printed on very expensive looking heavy stock paper. My first reaction was ... boy, they should've saved some trees and postage. But, after a few minutes fumbling through the brochures, it occurred to me that I was starting to get very annoyed. Unlike a startup (where a vendor is selling, not getting customers to buy), a gigantic company like GM is clearly in the situation of compelling customers to buy their product. A big part of this equation is making it easy for buyers to make a choice and, hence, making it easy to BUY. Sending me a bunch of stuff I never asked for is bad but ever more so when I explicitly told them what I'm interested in buying and what I want more information on so that I could make a decision.

But, enough about my high maintenance personality as a consumer of goods and services. When I actually put my consumer hat aside and put on my marketing hat (that is, after all, I spend the great majority of my life doing), the situation looked even worse. Have you looked at the entire GM lineup of brands and vehicles lately? Wow. Let's just say that they had a single side profile image of every vehicle in their lineup and the brochure literally weighed almost as much as a phone book (ok, slightly exaggerating here).

Now, contrast GM's approach to building and marketing cars (and, in fairness, all the American car companies) to the European and Japanese makers and, well, you get the point. Whereas the Europeans build a brand around quality then produce cars built around that brand ... American car makers seem fixated on rolling out a bunch of cars and building a separate brand out of each vehicle. It's basically over-segmentation and micro-branding at its best (or, worst). I love the idea that you could build a car that many people want to drive and then offering more choice by rolling out uniformly branded vehicles in different shapes and sizes. For example, I thought Porsche did a great job of doing this recently when it rolled out its SUV. The traditional Porsche buyer is a performance enthusiast who is a diehard fan of the classic Porsche silouette. And, hence, Porsche's SUV appeals to the same buyer who already drives a 911 or would buy a 911 if it weren't for the fact that they're actually looking to buy a soccer mom-friendly SUV.

Instead, when you look across GM's entire lineup, nothing comes across as obviously consistent across the whole much less even a subset of the whole. This entry got a lot longer than originally planned (since I really intended to say GM marketing sucks and their product line sucks - the end) but let me take a shot at recommending how they should jigger their lineup so that it makes sense:

#1 - Discontinue all vehicles except for a select few with the Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Saturn badges or brands. I favor a single brand myself but, hey, you can't undo the billions spend on brand marketing in one stroke of change. Let's take it one step at a time. Anyway, GM will have a competitive entry in each of the major categories this way (e.g., Corvette for performance coupes, Suburban for large sized SUVs, Tahoe for midsized, Sky for convertibles, Cadillac for luxry performance sedans, etc.). The world just doesn't need Pontiacs and Buicks. GMC brand can live on but it's pretty much the mirror reflection of their Chevy counterparts so it really doesn't need to live on with window dressing cosmetics and a different name.

#2 - Create a simple brand statement like ... "Pride in American Value" to play to both our innate sense of loyalty to American-made stuff and the dual meaning of value (ie., value priced and American values ... strong, dependable "get the job done"-ness if there is such a word).

#3 - Stop trying to compete against the Europeans (high performance luxury) and Japanese (high value comfort and reliability) and start enhancing your brand values that resonante most with your customers - i.e., why they buy GM vehicles in the first place. You are perceived as a cheap alternative to people who do not have the money to buy a more expensive European or Japanese car and/OR for people who do not believe in spending too much money on a rapidly depreciating asset (or, liability?) such as a vehicle. Thus, start by differentiating yourself as the leader in buiding cars that are "smarter or better investments." If your car is cheap and unreliable, it's not much of an investment. But, GM cars have become much more reliable over the last decade and - quite frankly - your smarter choice message and positioning could work. Nobody sees any car purchase as an investment but what you're really going after is to crisply and simply differentiate. And, to make the whole "smarter, wiser choice" claim stick, please stop overproducing cars and being protecting your resale value and price erosion. Do it gradually but DO IT as the notion of value never was defined as "cheap" until your cars hit the scene.

I think that does it. Three simple things. It's not rocket science.

Magazine Review

About two years ago, I subscribed to some magazines as part of some promotion from American Airlines' frequent flyer program. I sat down with my wife to go over the titles and we agreed on the following five magazines: Kiplinger's Personal Finance, Money, Women's Health, Golf Digest, and Newsweek. My top choices were Sports Illustrated and Sporting News but both of them missed the cut. Apparently, it turns out that my wife retains a magical 'veto' power over any decision I make when it comes to personal choice.

Of the five magazines we regularly receive, here's how they are consumed in our household.

Kiplinger's Personal Finance: The wife regularly reads every page and places Post-It notes on roughly half of the pages. I don't read it at all. I noticed recently that every single issue of Kiplinger's is kept around the home. Trying to throw older issues of Kiplinger's in the waste basket is akin to burning c-notes in front of a hungry man (i.e., impossible and futile).

Money Magazine: Again, my wife reads this title religiously. When she reads Kiplinger's, all thoughts must be internalized because she doesn't remark afterwards but rather writes down notes. But, when she reads Money magazine, I usually get called over from whatever I'm doing (it's usually reading Gold Digest or watching ESPN Sports Center) and endure an interrogation about credit card rates, unpaid balances on credit cards, whether we really need the Comcast Digital Plus service, and so on. In other words, Money magazine must have lots of articles that prompt my wife to externalize her thoughts. Hmmm.

Women's Health: I'm not really sure if either of us read this one. It's a pretty stupid magazine - really. Every issue has articles about keeping fit, eating healthy, and practicing meditation ... and, buying the right sunscreen and lotions. Boring.

Golf Digest: I've been subscribing to this magazine for the last 20 years or so. I've noticed that each issue weighs a ton. I guess that's a good sign that the sport is thriving but it also means that half of each issue is sardine-packed with ads. The instructional articles suck compared to before and the well written profiles are pretty much non-existent now. Overall, the magazine is getting worse in quality and I probably won't subscribe next year.

Newsweek: There are so many other ways to receive news nowadays that having a weekly news rag like Newsweek get delivered on a weekly basis is pretty much overkill. Most of our issues end up piling up on the floor or in one of our restrooms. Jonathan Alter's columns are still good but the rest of the magazine is totally useless. We'll definitely not renew our subscription to this piece of waste paper next year.

I just realized that it's kinda cool to see what kinds of magazine a person reads and/or subscribes to throughout life ...

I would've never guessed that I'd actually spend money on Women's Health and Kiplinger's Personal Finance or Money ... and not spend any money on Sports Illustrated or Sporting News.

Football Season Finally Here

The best time of year is upon us as football gets under way. I'm both a fanatic of both pros and college pigskin so I'm stoked to the hilt that it's finally September.

Our gang will hold a BBQ and fantasy football draft day tomorrow but it looks like I may not be able to make it there. So, I'll need to figure out how to remotely draft my team. It makes a big difference when you're single vs. married on the whole dedication to being a fan thing. My definition of "dedication" is a bit different than what most people consider it to be. Most people think they can talk about sports or football at work with colleagues or at the bar over a pint of beer and call that being a fan. Wrong. On a typical Sunday, my friends and I (whether in one house or not) are decked out in team apparel, tuned into 2-3 'live' broadcasts, and staring into real-time game trackers on up to 10-12 games views on 2-4 PCs. I rarely go to the local homestand games because it means that I'd be missing out on all the other games. And, on top of it, I don't really root for the 49ers or Raiders. Recall that I grew up in Southern California and the Rams were really our only NFL team. The years of Eric Dickerson were fun but - I mean - we had Vince Ferragamo and players like Pat Haden to root for the rest of the time. Enough said. Also, I never considered the Raiders a home team while they were in Los Angeles. Raiders are always going to be Oakland's team even if they move to Hawaii.

The Cowboys have always been my team since I stepped onto American soil in '79. Randy White, Danny White, Tony Dorsett, Drew Pearson, Doug Cosbie, Too Tall Jones, and the venerable Tom Landry. I actually miss these teams more than the Super Bowl winning teams a decade or so later with Aikman, Emmitt, and the rest of 'em. The Cowboys were much classier in the '80s. Remember the way the entire offensive line stood up in unison before each snap count? THAT was way cool ... WAY cool. Remember the movie about the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders? Yup. Or, how about the hat Landry always wore as he calmly gazed into the stands while his team was down 27 points to the lowly Buccaneers - knowing the Cowboys would never lose to such mediocre teams? Nice.

Ahhh, those memories of when it was great. Now, back to the current year ... I really think the Cowboys have a shot to take the Super Bowl this year. I haven't felt this way since the Jimmy Johnson years. Tony Romo put another year under his belt and will only get better throughout the season. Marion Barber should get more than 10 carries a game. Julius Jones doesn't suck but his limitations are mainly an outcome of not being used in 3rd down situations where he gets checked down to for a swing pass. If they figure out how to use Barber and Jones more effectively, it'll help Romo be a better QB. Speaking of Romo, it looks the Cowboys are going with just two QBs this year (Brad Johnson is second string). Given their recent history of injuries, I'd really rest easier if they had a third stringer on the roster but the two choices they had were either Richard Bartel or Matt Moore. Huh? Exactly. Moore is actually a promising rookie but he's probably better off on the practice squad if the Cowboys can re-sign him off waivers.

And, who am I forgetting to mention? TO!!! Terrell Owens makes a one handed grab from Romo and goes the distance baby!!! We'll be seeing that picture play out a ton this year. TO never belonged in San Francisco anyway.

Before I fishwrap this entry, here's my prediction for the coming season ...

NFL: Cowboys beat Bears in NFC Championships. Colts beat Chargers in the AFC. Cowboys beat the Colts in the Super Bowl.

College: USC wins BCS crown. Pac-10 is the toughest conference in NCAA by far and USC is the best team by far in the PAC-10. That's an ironclad logic flow (by far) for ya! Cal finishes second in the Pac-10. UCLA finishes third. Stanford sucks and finishes last. Stanford football is an oxymoron by the way.

Better go now ... wife is yelling at me from the kitchen to start vacuuming.

Owen Wilson

I was saddened to read the news that Owen Wilson was hospitalized after attempting suicide. Owen's one of my favorite big screen comedians. Life is so beautiful but such a mystery ... and fragile. Get better Owen!

Bourne Ultimatum

I love the whole Jason Bourne series. Every sequel gets better. Bourne Ultimatum is a truly exciting action packed movie.

My wife and I swore off watching movies in theaters because we felt $10.50 per ticket is a total ripoff but we're glad we watched this one. In case you're wondering why we're such hypocrites, we actually planned on watching two or three movies while we were at it ...

Unfortunately, we decided to watch just one movie and go home because both of us got sick from eating too much butter with our (overpriced) popcorn. Sad but true.