"The problems of this world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were."

- John F. Kennedy

I am flying to Seattle/Redmond today for three days of meetings, lunches, dinners and more meetings about all things Microsoft, which means I am probably going to be way too busy to blog until Thursday or so.

I'll be back with tons of stories and experiences to share and review with you, I'm sure.

Have a great few days, and try not to miss me too much. I know it'll be tough... but hang in there. I'll be back before you know it.

above: the kind of gorgeous stuff you see from 35,000 feet, by the way

What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth. This we know. The earth does not belong to man. Man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web he does to himself. One thing we know, our God is also your God. The earth is precious to Him. And to harm earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
-- Chief Seattle –

Have a great Tuesday!

Flashback to my first job out of college: Semper Fi - French Style

On November 11th, 1918, an Armistice was signed in a small train car that officially ended WWI - The war to end all wars. Though WWI didn't in fact end all wars, we still observe the date, which is something I hope we never stop doing.

1. The drive is often the best thing about traveling.
2. I love a good snuggle with my husband when I'm cold.
3. I often use pasta when I am cooking.
4. I'm reading Little Women right now; I love it.

Well folks, as you all know, I practiclly live at Starbucks. This is no news.
And the other day I told you all about the new Breakfast Sandwiches.
This evening, I was ordering my coffee and I guess I was sort of gazing at those sandwiches again, and so the barista girl asked if I wanted one.
“Yeah, I think so,” I said.
“Which one?” she asked, and so I pointed to the very most sandwich-y one of them all! [I think I also drooled a bit…]
Then she said, “On the house!”
I’m not kidding.
So this is my second FREE Starbucks sandwich!

I'm sitting here watching Rocky Balboa on Showtime, and... I'll be damned: It's actually pretty good. What's really surprising is that Stallone wrote and directed it - and both the writing and the direction are pretty tight. Who knew.

Preconceived notions and all...

Here I was, thinking Sly was all washed out, and then he comes up with this little gem.

I should have known better.

Taking inventory of ALL preconceived notions about everything and everyone, and throwing them out the window in bulk.

I finally started using twitter today, and I am pretty psyched about it.

If you're one of the 6% of adult internet users currently microblogging (using twitter) to keep tabs on your friends and colleagues, put your seemingly time-wasting hobby to good use - or at least come up with a better justification for your twitter habit at work:

You - "Twitter? Yeah! I use it all the time! It's a great research tool!"
Your boss - "Really? A research tool?"
You - "Suuuuuure! One can find out all sorts of things thanks to twitter, if they are so inclined."

I hope you all will excuse me here. I need to vent.

I watched yet another pathetic display by the Boston Red Sox offense on the road tonight, an absolutely brutal 1-0 loss to the Seattle Mariners, the worst goddamn team in Major League Baseball.

And I can feel nothing but sorrow right now for one Tim Wakefield. He pitched an absolute gem against Seattle, and threw just one bad pitch all night that Yuniesky Betancourt hit over the wall for a third inning home run. Wake threw just 94 pitches in the complete game loss, allowing just five hits while striking out six. Another game he should have won, if the damn offense would bother to show the hell up.

This is a lousy, overrated Seattle Mariners team. They had lost seven straight going into Tuesday night, and their pitching had simply gotten destroyed in Detroit and New York. But here come the Red Sox, playing like crap on the road, just the tonic Seattle needed. Erik Bedard pitched a fine game tonight, and take nothing away from him, as he went seven innings and struck out nine. But he had been awful in the month of May, going 1-3 with a 6.35 ERA going into this game this month. And historically, he's not a Red Sox killer, as his lifetime record against them is 4-4 with an ERA just over 4.00. He's a good pitcher, but he's been struggling as of late.

Three words: Incredible.

Don't read about this movie. Don't look for teasers or spoilers. Just go see it.

To shave or not to shave? The debate rages on at the office this week.

What's your opinion:

A) Shave every morning before work?
B) Shave only twice a week and sport a 24-48hr shadow at least 3 out of 5 workdays?

In what instances is it completely acceptable?
In what circumstances is it completely unacceptable?

Can some people pull it off while others can't?

This is Roby. Roby and I have been friends for many years now, despite the fact that he is Italian and I am French. Roby is a pretty kick-ass photographer, graphic designer and all aroundman of fashion, and like me, he spent some time in the military before moving to the US. Unlike me, however, Roby decided to return to military life to take part in the "war on terror."

If you are a regular reader of the BrandBuilder blog, you are no stranger to any of this. If you're new, then you're about to get caught up.

This is pretty cool. Waste five minutes today playing with it. Why? Because it's fun, quick, and it'll tell you a thing or two about brand you.

Listen up, people!
Fast-food lovers everywhere… REJOICE!
← Starbucks is selling wicked good-looking breakfast sandwiches!
I knew this day would come!
Is it not prophesied in The Book of Revelations or something?
God, I love Starbucks!
I want to almost live there!
So now they’ve got all kinds of McMuffin-y things, I just saw them today after work for the first time! I almost passed out.
So what if it’s 7 p.m.! I want one of these!
It may have been to avoid any more of my drool-slobber getting all over the display case, but the barista guy, my buddy Damien, asked me if I wanted a FREE breakfast sandwich of my choice.

Starting today and lasting through the rest of his deployment in Afghanistan, I am going to reserve a little bit of bandwidth every weekend to bring you some of my favorite images from Roby's quasi-daily photo diaries.

A post dear to my heart from Go Big:

Reminds me of this one.

Every time I hear someone use the term “viral marketing,” I cringe. I know it seems like just a word, but I think it’s a concept that misses the mark and perpetuates some half-baked thinking.

With the frigid and overcast weather in San Diego recently, good old Seattle comes to mind. Just as San Diego first posted its first dip in median prices back in late 2005, Seattle is coming down the same pipeline exactly 2 years behind.

Roby's week "en images," as they would say in the old country:

If like me, you're fanatical about a) access to relevant (dare I say actionable) data and b) new ways of communicating or presenting this data, then you will love this site.

I was trying to explain to a few colleagues the other day that I needs tools to visualize data and business processes in 3D. I'll bet that if I dig deep enough, this site will have what I am looking for. (Please please please?)

Overheard today on Buzznet:

David Burn gives us this (on AdPulp) -

Tim O'Reilly talks about the value of putting people from different disciplines in a room together:

As you may or may not know, Microsoft's very awesome Surface technology launches this month in at&t stores in select US cities.

Everything you've ever wanted to know about Surface is just a click away. (And yes, the post there involves wookies, droids and a certain Dejarik version of Microsoft Surface.)

Roby's week in Afghanistan: A photo journal.

Read all about his adventures here.

Happy Thanksgiving, bro.

I was home last night watching the Red Sox-Mariners game on the MLB Extra Innings package. I've never been able to fully figure out exactly how they pick which team's broadcasts on any given night, but they overwhelmingly pick the home team's feed more often than not.

For the Seattle series they had the Mariners broadcasts. (Although when ESPN showed every Manny Ramirez at-bat last night as he was going for home run #500, I switched over every time, as they used the NESN feed.) Their guys aren't too bad, and I've always liked Dave Sims, as I met him years ago back in New York when he was doing a cable sports show called "Gameface." Really nice guy.

But the game started in a really lousy fashion on FSN Northwest. As it was about to start, I noticed a plethora of commercials as the game time passed. And when they joined the game, the first pitch had already happened, and Jacoby Ellsbury had already struck out and was walking back to the Red Sox dugout. And Dave Niehaus, the longtime Seattle announcer, said to his audience, "They started early on us."

No, Dave, they started on time. Your broadcast network blew it, and had to jam in more commercials.

Let's travel back to 2005, when Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) hadn't yet been hijacked by clueless and myopic marketers looking to make a quick buck off the promise of this strange but powerful thing called authenticity:

From a two-year-old post by John Moore on his Brand Autopsy blog:

This brilliant project lives squarely at the well-traveled intersection of nerdy, creative and cool. Click on the image to see the island in its full topographic glory, or go here to get it from the source. (via Orange Yeti.)

Ain't creativity fun?