Andy Sernovitz: Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking
Go Andy! You can read this in one quick sitting. Spread the word.....
John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan: The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World
BE UNREASONABLE! here is inspiration to not accept the status quo and get change going.
Alexandra Harney: The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage
this is an incisive book on a critical issue - from someone who has been on the ground and first-hand observer.
Cody Lundin: When All Hell Breaks Loose: Stuff You Need To Survive When DIsaster Strikes
be prepared!!
Janine M. Benyus: Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
Janine inspired us with her fresh approach to nature and how we can design our lives to learn from nature's incredible work.
Fred Krupp: Earth: The Sequel: The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming
a new vision clearly articulated
Bob Harris: Who Hates Whom: Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up A Woefully Incomplete Guide
finally a book to make sense of all the insane warring factions all over the world.
Robert Frenay: Pulse: The Coming Age of Systems and Machines Inspired by Living Things
not a beach book. this is some serious forward looking material - enter at risk of demolishing your current thinking on tech. focus on how nature will inspire the next wave. now available in paperback.
John Naisbitt: Mind Set!: Reset Your Thinking and See the Future
the original trendmeister now turns his sights on blocks us from seeing what will come - good to shake up your assumptions
William R. Clark: Petrodollar Warfare: Oil, Iraq And The Future Of The Dollar
This book was written in 2005 before the big run up in oil prices which makes his analysis all the more impressive. This book will help you link the currency moves with petropolitics. Ignore at your own risk.
Bruce Mau: Massive Change
this book will blow your mind.
Richard Myers: World Changing Ideas
this is a must-read. it will challenge you to come up with ideas that can help millions or billions of people.
Mark Steyn: America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
i don't agree with many of his conclusions but his writing is witty and he pokes fun at some fat sacred cows.
We launched the freedom prizes this week in Washington, DC in the Senate Energy Committee hearing room. Senator Jeff Bingaman, chairman of the committee and Andy Karsner of the DOE were on hand to launch the new prizes. these prizes will focus on raising awareness of our dependence on oil and motivating us to lessen this dependence.
this is a short documentary on the local and state action on climate change and healthier cities. check it out.
Barak Obama came to speak to the US conference of Mayors here in Miami. Obamamania energized the room.
The Mayors clearly felt that D or R, Obama was much more likely to directly support cities. He was interrupted more than 10 times with applause.
Mccain was invited but decided not to show up.
Here at the MediaBistro Circus in tribeca. Internet confab.
Here is Elisa Camahort of Blogher presenting. She asks - what are you doing to build trust in your audience?
Here is why 18 wheelers do not belong in manhattan during the day. This truck is blocking ALL of fifth avenue.
We need a solution to help the city and the truck drivers. The drivers do not want to sit in traffic. They want to drop off their deliver and get to the next job.
What should we do?
Here is the BT tower in London. I went up to the top - yikes!!
Most of the UK's tv signals go through this tower. Ironically they don't get beamed anymore. All underground cable.
Here at the Goldman Sachs Alternative Energy breakfast -
Al Gore speaking. Then John Doerr and David Blood will comment.
Too bad they did not name their firm Blood and Gore. Such a memorable name.
Here I am with one of my heroes - Millie Leet. She co-founded Trickle Up 25 years ago - www.trickleup.org
Go Millie!
Here are my friends Steve and Marcy. Steve wants to start blogging. What will steve blog about? Strange and odd things I imagine.
How the mighty have fallen. Jetblue used to be one of my favorite airlines. Now they have descended lower than their old-time competitors. When you are shown up by United you know that you are in trouble.
Jetblue's gates at JFK are overcrowded and the bathrooms are filthy. Even knowing that many flights are delayed this time of year due to weather has not prompted them to clean up after the hords of customers.
Their pilots and flight attendents used to be a breath of fresh air. Now many are grumpy and gruff like the rest of the US airlines. Only overseas can you find professionals with a good attitude.
Another case in point - most every airline provides an easy way to get notified when your flight is delayed or cancelled. United has an EasyAlert service that works great. You can choose email, sms or other methods of notification.
For some reason the jetblue.com web site contains no menu option for such a service. having been burned by a cancellation on Jetblue with no notice I called customer service and asked how I could be notified in the furture. The rep could not find any link online to such a service and was stumped.
I emailed David Neeleman who I met at a CEO conference (back when he was CEO). He could not be bothered to respond personally so he had his assistant get back to me. She was very pleasant and referred me to who else but another customer service agent.
I asked this person how a customer find the flight notification page. She proceeded to send me the following INANE email:
Regarding the second issue we do have a service called Flight Status Notification. Go to the Help icon on the top right of the first page of www.jetblue.com. In the search function type in: flight status. Several options will come up. One of them is frequently asked questions about the flight notification process. In that area there are links to click on to take one to the sign up page.
Can you believe that jetblue expects their customers to go two levels down into help then somehow pick out this needle from an FAQ haystack?
I hope their new terminal 5 fares better than the heathrow terminal 5 which has resulted in 20,000 bags lost and 480 flights cancelled in two weeks.
I recommend to all my readers NOT to fly jetblue. You are better off on amtrak.
Here is the artist skylar presenting his mathematical art - tesselations and fenestrations. Geometries shaped by math and design.
We are at Mind 08 - zany.
Check out this cool conference on April 4th here in NYC - Mind08 - looks quite stimulating...
There is a new chef in the hood - Chef Kerry has opened the SouthGate restaurant next door ot the Essex House on Central Park South. Kerry was the founding chef at Danny Meyer's 11 Madison Park - a gem of a place.
Now he opens SouthGate in the newly revived Central Park South area. With the Plaza reopening and the restuarants of Time Warner Center thriving the whole neighborhood is on a gastronomic upswing.
SouthGate is New American with hints of asia and europe. The service is impeccable. The space itself was designed by Tony Choi in a very sleek retro modern design. It is a large restaurants that can seat about 100 people comfortably. I love the circular tables for 4 so you can squeeze in a few latecomers.
Congrats Chef Kerry and welcome to the block!
Can you guess what this is? Hint: it's me.
Art from the sundance film festival. Serene.
