Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder

My family pulled through this Sunday when we celebrated my 34th birthday.  They all chipped in and got me the “object that I covet” Flip Video Mino Series Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black)

I blogged about this sweet little piece of machinery a few weeks ago, and I gotta tell you, this is one cool little gadget.  I’m sure I’ll post a few videos here to show off the quality. The ease of use is unreal, just point and shoot, then hook up to your computer to download.  It’s super light as well. I’m excited to use it.

Cool new Gadget that I Covet

Today I stumbled up a cool little gadget that I’ve seen before, but never really gave much thought about – the Flip MinoHD.  The first time I saw one in action was on New Years Eve at my cousin Stephanie’s wedding.  A close friend of her husband was walking around with (what looked to me) like his cell phone.  As I held onto my trusty Camcorder, I snickered – “what kind of quality can he possibly get out of that video”….I love when I’m proved wrong. Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black) is one of the coolest new products I’ve seen on the market – and I just begged my wife to buy it for me for my birthday. Considering we have a 9 month old – the options are endless.  I hope this baby will live up to the claims regarding quality.  If the images are good, I can see myself ditching my trusty camcorder and making a full migration to the Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder, 60 Minutes (Black)  It can hold up to 60 minutes of video (just like my camcorder), and it’s a fraction of the size. Great for a new dad that’s loaded down with diaper bags and the like.

If anyone has one, I’d love to learn more about he quality of the images you’ve shot?  Thanks!

The Power of a Smile

This afternoon I had a great lunch meeting with my good friend and former colleague Alex Baydin.  Al’s the CEO of Performline.  He and his team are having a great start to their year, and we had a great “catch up” lunch.  I was in the best mood after I left our meeting.  It always gets me fired up to see good people doing big things-  kudos to the Performline team.

On my way back downtown to the office, I was feeling energized. I called my wife and then hopped onto the 1 train back down to Houston Street from 23rd.  When I sat down I saw an older, somewhat downtrodden black gentleman sitting directly across from me.  He had slumped shoulders and was looking down at the ground.  I had a smile on my face, and when he picked up his head and made eye contact with me – of course I offered this gentlemen a smile.  He immediately sat up straight, smiled back and pulled out a pad and pencil – and began to sketch me.

A few people sitting around us realized what was happening and started to smile.  I looked at them and said “I guess I should keep smiling”…they laughed and the gentleman continued to sketch.  We stopped at 18th, then 14th, – the person who had been sitting next to me got off and smiled at us both.  A new person got on at 14th and sat next to me – when she realized what was happening she smiled and we both chuckled a bit.  When we got to Christopher street you could see his 

drawing come together – I was getting off at the next stop so I stood up next to the gentleman and placed my hand on his shoulder .  I held my hand on him, leaned down and said “that looks great”…a woman next to me prepared to get off at the same stop said “is that supposed to be you”?  I said ” I believe so” and with that the man signed the sketch, ripped it off his clipboard and handed it to me over his shoulder with a smile.  I took it, said thank you smiled back – and got off the train.

Behold the power of a Smile.  You gotta love New York City – and you gotta love life.

Check it out:

5 Things I’m grateful for

1. My wife Laura – I paid her $50 if she could last 1/2 hour without talking last night (seriously, she won and I was a happy man to pay up)…but I love that woman.  Plus we laugh together….all the time..

2. My daughter Talia

– Feel the touch of a 9 month olds open hand on your cheek and feel the hand of God.

3. My home – I worked my buns off to provide a home for my family, and although it’s no palace, it’s a great place, and I feel like I enter the “no stress zone” every time I come home at night.

4. My family – I actually CHOSE to live in the same town as my brother.  Crazy right? Wrong.  He and his gorgeous family rule.  We all dig spending our Sundays together, and we even invite my PARENTS! For my Mother’s 60th Birthday we’re sending my parents to Sciacca, Sicily – the town of origin for my Mother’s family.  Family is EVERYTHING. We surprised her.  Priceless..

5. My job – I work with some of the smartest people in the online world, and they’re nice to me.  Not sure what I did to deserve that?   

Life is good people.  take a minute to list your top 5…I promise, you’ll feel great afteward!

Gary Vaynerchuk – Online Man of the Year 2008?

Question:  Who inspired you this year?

My answer:  Gary Vaynerchuk

I’m a wine neophite, yet I find myself watching Gary’s online reviews obessesively.  I like to think of myself as a positive, motivated, focused guy yet Gary’s online activity (endless tweets on twitter), and non stop production of killer content makes me question my own  work ethic (this is a good thing).  When everyone in our industry is freaking out about layoffs, and who they’re going to point the finger at Gary’s message never wanes  “love, hustle, family”….

This guy is what the online industry should all aspire to be.   How can you not love a guy that decided to proclaim a “Good People Day”.…awesome

When I saw Gary deliver this keynote at Web 2.0Expo it changed my life.  Seriously.  Watch it.  Then watch it again.  I even made my parents watch it.  I made my colleagues watch it.

I nominate Gary Vaynerchuk as Online Man of the Year 2008

Six Senses

In a recent post regarding Daniel Pink’s new book A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the FutureI committed to reading the book.  I lied. Sort of.  I downloaded the audiobook  

I’ve been enjoying everything about this book. Daniel Pinkis certainly capturing the essence of something that I feel is changing the world we live in.  Not only are some of his ideas fresh and new, but he’s presented them in a manner that will silence critics.  I’m encouraged that a movement toward giving right brained thinkers more respect and accolades indicates that our culture is growing as a collective. 

Here are the list of 6 senses that describes as being key differentiators for our future leaders.  I’ve already touched on these in past posts, but after hearing the audiobook, I feel they’re worth reiterating;

1. Design – A Movement beyond function

2. Story –Those that will succeed need to not only present an argument, but they must add persuasive narrative

3. Symphony – I love the sound of this one – Putting all of these pieces together and seeing the big picture

4. Empathy – Extending beyond just logic

5. Play Pink regards play with as much esteem as other traits – indicating that games and humor must play a role in our lives.

6. Meaning – Pink references research of college students who instead of articulating an interest to make boat loads of money when asked what they want to do – they speak of making a difference – having purpose – and contributing to the greater good. 

I’m sure I’ll provide more from Pink’s book
I’m fascinated, and encouraged at the same time. 

Outlier

Last night I was able to redeem a credit I had accumulated as a member at Audible.com.  I’ve been thinking about cancelling my membership, but I recently read a review for the book Outliers: The Story of Success.  Although I’m also in the middle of reading another book, I think Outliers may have my attention for now.  Malcolm Gladwell raises some amazing questions about what makes people huge successes. 

Although I’ve only listened to about 1/4 of the book, there are already some fascinating insights. 

1. If your child is older than his or her classmates may indicate their success in athletics.

2. That once you reach a certain IQ score, there really is no difference in how successful you’ll become – ie, over 120 is “good enough”.  The rest is up to the individual.

Some of these points may be counter intuitive to you, or they may seem so obvious, but most people just don’t really acknowledge them as being huge factors in determining their own success. Either way, the audio book is fascinating.

Keys to the Kingdom

I have a confession: 

Among the mix of hardcore business books, and Harvard Business Review Podcasts I so ravenously devour, I sometimes pick up a podcast from Oprah (stop laughing please).  I feel she’s a thought leader in spirituality and becoming ones true self.  Since I’m all about self actualization, and self improvement – you can see the tie-in.

Last night I listed to her podcast when she interviewed Daniel Pink, author of a book called  A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Apparently Oprah liked the book so much, she decided to share this book with the entire graduating class at Stanford this Spring when giving their commencement address. I haven’t read the book yet, but I felt like I needed to offer a post for

2 reasons:

1. I’m certainly going to read it (or listen to the audio book)

2. It seems to be the perfect marriage of spirituality or self actualization and business converging.  Nice.

Some key elements:

The new world we’re living in is being taken over by right brained individuals. Over the past few decades the world has been run by a certain type of person (mostly left brained) Doctors, Lawyers, Accountants.   Pink uses words to describe these people like have the ability of “symphony”  – aggregating disparate ideas and being able to articulate them in a manner that’s comprehensible to lay-men.  He also mentions the ability to tell stories that evoke emotion, play, and experience empathy. Right brained, right brained, right brained.  You get the idea.

He argues that while logical and linear brained thinking is great, and effective, it’s not enough.  The world is coming around to the right brain.  Pink comes to this conclusion by evaluating the facts (he’s a self assessed left brainer himself).

Years ago we were in the agricultural age, then industrial, information, and now conceptual. Left brain activity is activity that can be replicated by computers (anyone can look up the capital of Yemen on Google).  Right brained activity cannot (at least not yet). 

The paradox of prosperity contributes to this phenomenon as well.  The more prosperous we are, the more laborious things are automated, and the more time we have to sit around and ponder – why am I here? (cool, right?).  So as the world becomes more prosperous (baby boomers in particular), the more evolved the world is becoming.  Right brained people are no longer being viewed as new-agey  individuals because the efficacy of spirituality/meditation etc is being measured by science. 

I’ll talk more about the book after I’ve read it of course, but I felt it was worth sharing.  Let me know what you think?

Right brainer’s UNITE! Here’s a link: A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

Header Image

I’ve been receiving a lot of email from folks asking about my new header image.  The image is actually of me (well sort of). During the Web2.0 Expo in New York there was a really cool “machine” I suppose we’ll call it that would capture your image, and then replicate an image of you – only out of hundreds of smaller images.  It was really phenomenal to see, and a perfect novelty for the crowd at the show.  It was perfectly Web 2.0. The images sweep across the screen to finally hone in on your image.  It was very “Etsy.com – ish”.

Here’s the full image of Myself (you can make out my faceless image holding my camera phone up to take the shot.  Very cool stuff.

oustanding

Generation WE: The Movement Begins… from Generation We on Vimeo.