Pepperdine, which according to Business Week (who apparently really really dig MBAs cause they spend about 50% of their editorial calendar blowing and fluffing the MBA programs of the world.*) is not a top tier business school. They sadly fall into what Business Week labels the “Second Tier”. Second tier in MBA programs is as appealing as being a Grenada based medical schools.

The problem in Pepperdine’s integrity goes as least as deep as its marketing department and its inability to write a survey. And writing survey’s is kind of thing one at a business school. Kind of the med school equivalent of  stitches.

Yet at the end of their survey they ask this question which is nothing more than scum sucking attempt to either force an honest person to lie or they can choose to tell the truth and sign up for either the Presidential spam package or the Executive.

“* Would you like to learn more about Pepperdine MBA programs

The correct thing to do would be to offer a fourth option, something like, “No thank you, I’m not interested in your marketing materials.” No need to debase those confused few who do not have MBAs and have yet to discover the many study’s that show  that an MBA is as wise an investment as multi-level marketing or making deals to help the daughter of the ex-president of Zimbabwe free up some of her father’s cash which is unfortunately held by hooligans.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pepperdine Law School Dean Kenneth W. Starr Named Baylor University’s 14th President (eon.businesswire.com)
• Pepperdine Does It Again (volleyball.about.com)
• Pepperdine Graziadio School Names Dr. Charla Griffy-Brown to Lead Center for Excellence (eon.businesswire.com)

Popularity: 7% [?]

And apparently my one reader was too busy to drop me a note and let me know so that I could be part of the hue and cry in a vain attempt at pulling myself closer to the dreamy digerati. Apparently someone at WP central had trouble with the “Core Router”.

In fifteen years of running sites nothing good has ever come of monkeying with anything labeled “core router“. If the site is running then just don’t touch that thing. Walk gingerly around it and speak in light tones. The one guy who understands it stopped coming in to work years ago and now just plays WoW in his Mom’s basement. He’s a level 72 warrior and a level 60 faerie named Elf Friend. He’s not handy with light social chat and no longer sees the value of fixing everyone else’s shit when there are real dragons to be slain. Leave it and him alone!

Failed core router companies

• Axiowave Networks
• Allegro Networks
• Avici Systems (changed name to Soapstone Networks in 2008 and no longer making core routers)
• Caspian Networks
• Charlotte’s Web Networks
• Foundry Networks (acquired by Brocade in 2008)
• Hyperchip
• IPOptical
• Ironbridge
• Marconi (still in business, not making core routers)
• Osphere Net Systems
• Pluris
• Procket Networks (acquired by Cisco Systems in 2004)

Related articles by Zemanta

• D-Link Warns of Vulnerable Routers (it.slashdot.org)
• You: O2 net routers ‘vulnerable to attack’ (guardian.co.uk)
• Network Issues and Netflix Streaming (mt-soft.com.ar)

Popularity: 4% [?]

Which is to say big and loud and fast and it’ll piss a lot of people off.

Ironically it’s those in the Netbook world who look shocked and say, “look how much more we give for half the price?” I’ve got bad news for Netbookians…your computers suck. They’re slow and painful and cramped. But oh yes, they were cheap. And we love cheap.

But the iPad isn’t a nicely done Netbook. It isn’t a Kindle with color. It’s not an iPhone that met a steam roller. It is the the next fom of computing and it’s beautiful. Yes, as always, it’s missing some things. But it’s not like a boat missing a motor. It’s more like, well, an iPhone that launched without cut and paste. We suffered along while we all worked to change the world.

The truth is we carry 100X the computer we need in our laptop most of the time. Buried in a slow loading inconvenient poorly designed behemoth. The iPad can accomplish 95% of what we need our laptops for. Oh, we won’t get rid of our laptops. That five percent is crucial. We will just add the fourth form of computing to our lives. And it will be beautiful and we will wonder in two years how we ever ordered off a menu that wasn’t pre-loaded in our iPad with our built in payment system.

The iPad is our wallet, portfolio, memory, communication, calendaring…well it’s our life. It’s just not our phone replacement. Our bags got lighter. We’ll take the laptops home one the weekends for heavy work.

Desktops? How cute…they’ll be good for towing behind cars or some such anti-world recreation. But the iPad will be our center.

And yes Android will follow and it will be good. It will be the Chevy 3/4 ton to the beautiful Pininfarina like lines of the iPod. Change is good and at first it will look effete and snobbish. But soon it will be real. And Microsoft and RIM and others will head for other shores, other businesses where they don’t have to compete with such smart people.. Most of our computing is simple and can even be fun. and it’s always better when it has location. The world continues to change whether we bought a two pound Droid with a worthless keyboard or not. The iPad makes me happy.

Related articles by Zemanta

• How Many iPads Need To Be Sold To Make It A Viable Platform For Content? (streamingmedia.com)
• Apple iPad: what the tweeters say (guardian.co.uk)
• Why iPad will sell despite “missing” features (digital.venturebeat.com)
• The iPad is a Digital Coffee Table Book (everwas.com)
• ‘iPad as netbook-killer’ concept ignites controversy (infoworld.com)
• Opinion: The iPad vs. netbooks (macworld.com)
• In praise of the iPad: A contrarian view (tuaw.com)
• The New Apple “iPad” – the Amazon Kindle Killer? (adriansjournal.blogspot.com)
• The iPad: First Impressions of Its Importance to Publishers (scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org)
• Where netbooks still beat the Apple iPad (computerworld.com)
• Is Apple’s iPad worth the price (timesunion.com)
• Waaannnttt!!! (thedutchfiles.com)
• Textbook Firms Ink E-Deals For iPad (online.wsj.com)

Popularity: 21% [?]

As a relative newbie in much of the spam world I find myself Mayberry-like ignorant in the massively abusive world of bulletin board attackers. I naively ran my comments section on this blog, pretty open because nobody comes here but my son, who’s four and…only then when he’s sitting on my lap.

So I was surprised that 2,600 spammers were doing everything in their power to help the world get rich quick and do so with astonishing manly prowess. It took me about an hour to ding all the spammers and in doing so I lost the fifty excellent comments from my reader(s?).

And I then I started dorking around searching for a something that could handle the spam load without the word Barracuda in the title. I’m sure that there are many happy ‘Cuda users but it must be a world that is Windows 3.1 centric.

And then I found WP-SpamFree and it’s amazing. I have no idea how it works (first sign of a great product…it’s none of my business how you get rid of spammers, the less I kn0w the better) and yet it hums along dinging would be mass marketers left and right. I’ve rarely been so happy with a product. And this one was, I think, free or one of the many excellent flavors of open source that passes for free. Or maybe I’ll get a bill in 30 days, fine with me. Nice work over there at H6 Web Geek.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Botnet Baddies Setting Up Own ISPs For Unfettered Spamming [Spam] (gizmodo.com)
• Spam Comment of the Day (jefflazerus.com)
• 58 reviews of Add ability to identify which users have rated your comments helpful/not helpful (rateitall.com)
• Promotion for An Open Source Software Project (startups.com)

Popularity: 100% [?]

I might be able to skip the book it as the title just about covers one of the most important strategic imperatives of any company. ”

It’s Not What You Sell, It’s What You Stand For: Why Every Extraordinary Business Is Driven by Purpose

by Roy M. Spence, Haley Rushing

Popularity: unranked [?]

Here’s a video about how we used to market at Backcountry.com circa 2007.  It’s kind of a B- performance. Sorry. There is some good data in here though:

This is a link that may or may not work to a speech to a BYU entrepreneurship class circa 2007.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I came across this text on one of our sites last night..in the cart:

Sorry the item(s) in your cart are unavailable. The item(s) have been removed from your cart.

Ouch! The previous text is in red for those who are RSS readers. I think red text is as offensive as the blink tag. It actually makes me nostalgic for the blink tag.

Lets just never use it again. And lets stop using plural(s) like this…oy.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Mobile girl power – in more ways than one! (mymobileadventures.com)

Popularity: unranked [?]

Ten years late mCommerce has arrived. Due to our convoluted quilt of 12 wireless technologies like the laughably bad TDMA (AT&Ts previous technology that could manage only eight calls per cell) we find ourselves arriving a decead after iMode revolutionized Japanese pop culture.

Apple’s iPhone strategy has been the most beautiful business ramp in the history of technology. The OS is, despite some minor flaws, excellent. A year ago it became the one material possession I would save with me if there was a fire (pardon the duh factor of grabbing a phone). In the past my laptop was my most vital possession and yet quickly my iPhone has supplanted. Yet convergence is just as far in the distance as it ever was. I use my laptop just as many hours a day…it’s just the the iPhone has eaten up all the space that comes between. Even a pause in conversation is enough to have me idly unlocking the phone, considering a spin through the app store.  Divergence is alive and well as it always has been.

Much of the business world is still grappling with what kind of opportunity the iPhone really represents. Often the thinking goes that mCommerce should be like the Tommy Hilfiger web model. I believe that is the wrong tack, taking traditional eCommerce and just shrinking it to a smaller form factor.

What needs to exist is the notion mobile is leading us to a new model for computing that I’ll call for the moment, Better than Web.

Better Than Web is, well, just like it sounds. eTailing always runs a few years behind the content revolution and generally  also just doesn’t do things as beautifully. There isn’t an ecommerce site in the world that has anything like Facebook’s beautiful UI and phenomenally layered business logic. I dream of an eTailer that hits even 70 percent of the Facebook mark.

And in the world of Apps the gap between the A players and the eTailers is larger. I have yet to se

e an etail example using GPS, shared browsing, haptic interface, audio, accelerometer and more. With GPS, turn by turn navigation and some simple work Walmart could have every one of their store’s guide you through a real map your current stadium like store. Add a list function and it could walk you to each product you need while offering you coupons on nearby or similar items. Average cart could climb and time in store could go down. Need a clerk. Hit the big panic button and scan the bar code and have an instant call back…from the call center in Mumbai.

And for us rare pureplays the world just gets rosier. Show only reviews from my state, current location, in the last fifteen minutes, from my friends, etc. No longer need a person in Naples Florida be greeted by puffy down coats on the homepage. We could actually personalize. If it’s a ski site like ours and we’re able to track vertical skied in one day then we would know much better what skis to recommend.

Simply put, in eTailing your retail App better not be a slimmed down dimmer retail store with itty pictures that works in conjunction with your web site. It instead needs to be the next generation or etailing offer much much more. The move to dynamic localized and personalized content just moved up a few years. Ebay is averaging $89.95 per download in revenue and we haven’t even hit the holidays. Mobile is the future of etailing, duh. And Better Than Web is the future of mobile.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Aren’t you a little bit tired of the green’ocrisy. The shameless annoying hypocrisy of the greenies. I can say with some certainty that the cloying phrase, “social responsibility” has jumped the shark. Check out McDonalds.com’s post reminiscing about the spirit of Woodstock. Awesome.

Well thank God for a movement on the wane. Yes, lets save the planet; duh, we live here. It’s like putting put up banners that say, “save the living room!” It’s a given. We need to do it with every bit of energy we can get from a supersized #2 meal…which, in it’s day was two cheeseburgers, fries and a coke; back before the notion of supersizing.

The hemp wearers can quibble amongst themselves and they might disagree as they see their one career avenue going up in smoke, but the simple truth is that when McDonald’s co-opt’s the phrase “social responsibility” you can be certain that it’s days of hipness are over. Shane McConkey called it when he ended the life on the term Extreme Skiing. He did it when Taco Bell launched it’s “Extreme Value Meals”. He was right and Freeskiing was born. How about it Max?

Oh and if Vanity Fair and Madonna are asking the question then it’s far too late:

Popularity: unranked [?]

If you don’t have an iPhone then you are one of the teeming masses of the world that has missed yet another crucial juncture in technology. I don’t want to love Apple. They’re smarmy and pretentious in an icky way. Were they on the island in Lord of the Flies they would have been Piggy and that’s no way to get ahead in a uptight society. But the truth of the matter is that Piggy made fire with his glasses. He was damned handy to  have around.

And in this world Apple is quite simply the best product company on the planet. They make beautiful brilliant products. Okay, they kinda suck at customer service and their web site is oh-so hip circa 2005. But when it comes to stamping out a product you can hold in your hand it dwarfs all others…whatever the category. *For all you sad wannabes toting your BoysenBerry Crescendo and saying, “it has a touch screen too”, please, please just shut up and click away on your miniscule QWERTY keyboard. I know, it costs you $150 to get out of your contract…yawn again. It’s worth $150 to stop the bleeding and join the world. Simply put Apple is five years ahead of the nearest competitor in wireless. It’s like Icarus boasting about having Greek bees wax with a one degree higher melting point while Daedalus is kicking it in a G5.

Rather than get your dander up and say things like, “there are 11,000 apps in the Android app store”. Yawn. Apple has sold or given over 2 billion apps. The competition is laughable. It’s like Manchester United taking on my sons team, the Condors. There is no competition in wireless smart phones. It may burst to life again in a couple of years, but I haven’t seen signs of it.

And it’s the App store where the love resides. It’s so good that I check it at least daily. And when I find a new app; in whatever category; my life becomes instantly better in that way.

The momentum behind apple is enormous. They have created a better UI, a better way to navigate the web, a mobile eco-system that works and ultimately the one portable computer that we must all own.

I had a Blackberry for quite a while. And it had as much in common with Apple’s communication platform as my first tin can and string phone. Good luck wireless world. You’re going to suffer for a long while.

*Apple, you suck at mice and that is inexcusable. The Apple TV is cool, but not cool enought to bear  your name.

Popularity: unranked [?]

I’ll be there this year no matter what. Come hell or high water. Nobody’s crazed delusional self-stories will keep me from an event that is about healing and love.

Popularity: unranked [?]

The risky way is the safe way and the safe way is the risky way

We stood at the top of a line we had never skied. It was steep, three tight moves over small cliff bands, straight line, then done. Fast, fugly, but doable. As always the Tan Farmer dropped in first, nailed it and moved on. Loki followed seconds later, looking kind of spazzy all backseat, no rhythm, another displaced east-coast bumper trying to ski the West. But he was through cleanly, no lost shoes. I was left with Lawyer-boy, a better skier than the rest of us, smooth. Lawyer-boy said, “I have a job, I have a wife, I love skiing, I have a bad back, I don’t need to do this shit, I’ve got nothing to prove.” And then he dropped in and proved the thing that didn’t need proving.

And like a thousand days before I stood alone at the top of a line, fully gripped. Riddled with self-doubt…and then I dropped. And I came out the ass-end of the chute–jacket chattering in the wind—ripping like I was channeling Seth Morrison, alive! Seth would have laughed at this shot but it was great to be me.

It’s amazing how we have to keep relearning the same simple rules; the risky way is the safe way and the safe way is the risky way. There isn’t much difference between dropping that line and taking a risk at work; or committing in relationships, having a child, starting a company, riding your first century. In all cases the easy way, the safe way is not to go, to stay at home, stay single, stay on the couch.

Eddie Aikau was one of the pioneers of big wave surfing. He disappeared in 1978 attempting a 20 mile life or death paddle between islands. Afterwards his friends would look at the surf and say, “Eddie would go.” I think about Eddie, I think about him in the boardroom, in the backcountry, on top of peaks and during especially tense and painful moments in relationships. Eddie would take the risk, Eddie knew that only in risk is there reward.

As I look at 10 years of work on this company, the hundreds of thousands of man hours that have gone into this, I see the fruition of many hard and painful decisions. Every worthwhile thing seems to come through hard fought gains. Appreciation only comes with sacrifice. And thankfully the people at Backcountry.com have had the courage to ask and answer the question of whether Eddie would go. And they do, time and again, hang it/out risk it all, until they succeed.

Every time I have to relearn this lesson I am surprised at myself, surprised that the lifelong battle is always against fear and if I am not consciously fighting it then I am quietly losing to it.

Thank you Edward Ryan Makua Hanai Aikau

And thank you Larry Hamill for writing the inspiring book, Leading the Revolution. I use your ideas to shape my life.

John on the Playa, happy

Popularity: unranked [?]