Saturday, March 12, 2005

I've been submerging myself in school related projects this week in advance of my internship back in Germany. Some links to pass on...

An interview with the founder of "Craig's List" which recently sold 25% of the company to eBay. I like his focus on customer service, it's what makes or breaks a company:

"Q: So you answer the e-mails to Craigslist personally?

A: Generally speaking, yes. I get ready for the day and head over to Reverie (Coffee Cafe in San Francisco's Cole Valley neighborhood) and have a latte, and I read the paper. Quite honestly, I actually do read The Chronicle. After coffee, I do more customer service at our Inner Sunset office. On my way, I'll usually have lunch. Then I'll do more customer service there. Then typically, I'll go home and do more customer service. Maybe I'll go out for something like tonight -- a forum at the Commonwealth Club at the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. I'll do that and come home and do more customer service."

An innovative way to solve overtime shifting, a market based approach.

For the Star Trek geeks out there, the "Ferengi Rules of Acquisition".

An inside look at the Apple iPod scrollwheel.

I don't agree with Michael Rennie's quote: "Organizations don’t change, people do". I think business leaders can radically shape an organisation's culture and affect the productivity and actions of its employees. Otherwise the key to restructuring an organisation would be to fire everyone who does not act as you wish and replace them. Although I'm a big fan of bringing in your own management team and key personel when you have to overhaul an organisation, I certainly don't think it's in the best interest of the company to replace everyone who currently is not performing (for whatever reason) to the company's expectations. His point also neglects the issues of resource allocation, vision/mission and training efforts.

Mark Cuban, dot-com billionaire, on having the business "edge". I agree with everything he has to say in this post. Here's another interesting article on the changing business environment. Good ideas but too short.

Fan of the O.C.? Fan of Racheal Bilson? :-)

Ever wonder what the hell all those weird english words mean? Maybe the Urban Dictionary can help you out.

Secret caverns underneath Paris, very spooky cool.

A mug that you can write on with chalk. Cool idea.

Some good insights into customer service by the "Slacker Manager".

Hacker breaks into Harvard MBA admissions computer, people log in to see if they've been admitted, hacker gets caught, people who looked get rejected. Ouch.

Losers... remixed losers...

Certainly you are correct... and I just added her autobiography to my Amazon Wishlist :-)

Inspirational weight loss, but what got me is his new marathon goals, I've gotta get on that soon...

A German supermarket on the cutting edge, using fingerprints to pay for your shopping. Interesting, but I'm not sure how good I feel about the local supermarket having access to my biometric information.

It looks like France has a great Paris Olympics 2012 bid going.

An interesting post, scroll down to the second half as I believe that online collaborative learning is going to be the wave of the future and is something I'd like to indulge in during my PHD studies. Whether EuroRoss has a part in that only time will tell.

Someday - and that day may never come - I'll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept these links as a gift on my daughter's wedding day.