Random thoughts

things i've been meaning to post about, but haven't


- Wimbledon Pay Equity. This week, Wimbledon announced that the women's and men's champion will make equal money. Women's right advocates rejoiced. This is one of the most ludricrious things I have ever heard of. Sports is entertainment. Compensation should be given based on which of the two sports generates a larger fan base, which gets more sponsors, which gets higher TV rating. In many cases, this might justify HIGHER prize money for the ladies, even though they work less (3 sets versus 5). I wouldn't let the chairman of the All-England Club manage a lemonade stand with these business principles.

- RFID. Somethign I posted on Jonathan Kaplan's blog. As someone who working in consumer packaged good, I feel like I need to comment here. First of all, the experience you describe already exists, and it has nothing to do with RFID. There is a much simpler and efficient way to give customers specific prices-- its called couponing. For a while, every who uses a frequent shopper card gets specific offers (at different values) based on various things in their shopper history (usually purchases of competitive products).

Additionally, some cards will now make custom offers to you when you ENTER the store and scan in your card.

Regarding the example you gave, this would never occur for several reasons-- most notablly whenever you see a discount on a product at your local grocery store, it is funded by the manufacturer, not the grocery store. The manufacturer has no incentive to "raise" prices, since they don't see any of it.

The only really use of RFID in retail (which is mandatory by end of 2009 is to improve inventory management and the amount of product which is actually in-stock.

does anyone else...

prefer watching the NFL combine to an actual college basketball game?

American idol

if you watch American idol, you need to know about dialidol.com. This will allow you to monitor real-time which contestant is likely to be voted off.

this made me laugh

Sign above the Chelsea International Youth Hostel in the New York:

Check-in In Rear

Help please

love our new Mac, Sparky. Only negative is Excel.


is anyone can get me a good list of Mac shortcuts for Excel, I'd be your baby tonight.

Jim Harbaugh... classless

Kind of ironic it happens during Superbowl week. But the former Bears and Colts QB has realy made his mark as Stanford's new head football coach. Already with a good recruiting class in tow, Stanford rescinded an offer to Eddie Morgan, a fast Texas DB. Not that much interesting there, though academic schools tend not to yank schollies the way teams Mack Brown coaches do.

However, when terminating the scholarship, their method is a bit unusually. THEY DID IT VIA EMAIL. Yes, the same way Harriet dumped Matt Albie on Studio 60. Via Email. I know Palo Alto is in the middle of Silicon Valley, but a little class here would have gone a long way. I hope any football player thinking of going to Leland Stanford Junior College thinks about this.