Arrived yesterday at NYC for some quality time with my significant other – so although I have my laptop with me, the flow of posts will probably decrease.. The weather is excellent here, I feel almost like I never left Tel Aviv. But – there’s less humidity in NYC, so although temp is around 25-28 C and sunny, it feels great.
Whenever I visit NYC the MoMA (the Museum of Modern Art) is a must attraction. It’s always welcoming, always modern, and you can find some cool exhibitions every time you come.
Just back from a short vacation to the north. I had a birthday recently and decided to take some time off with my girl and go up north (near Tzefat) for 3 days for some r&r. Since I was on vacation, I left my laptop at home, for some r&r of its own, although I’m sure I could find a free wi-fi spot if I searched… I always have a camera with me, either on my cellphone (Nokia 6233 – 2MP) or my Sony DSC-P73 (4.1MP – 3 years old..). I often find the Nokia camera more available, since I usually have it on me, and taking a picture is a 4sec thing, nothing more. Why this long intro? and what’s the connection to the title? be patient, it’s coming. I like good food, especially meat (what can I say ;-), and I eat about once a week outside, with friends usually. There are excellent places in Israel, but most of them are gathered in and around Tel Aviv. If I go up north (way north, near the border with Lebanon) I search the web for the good places in the north.
I went to eat dinner at Doris Butchers, a specialized restaurant for meat. Only meat. It’s hard to differentiate yourself in the restaurant business, and the life span of most places isn’t something you can brag about, but Doris Butchers have made it. They have only 2 branches in Israel, and oddly enough, the 1st one was established up north, in Rosh Pina, some 3 years ago, and the 2nd one in Tel Aviv, 6 months ago. In each location, there’s a large window at the entrance, with the ‘merchandise’ – the meat (look below). There’s no mistaking where you are – if you don’t like meat, that’s not the place for you. And I’m not talking about Burgers/Hotdogs – I’m talking 1/2kg minimum, average serving size is 1kg ! That’s a lot. Good (1st) example of how you can take advantage of your current assets, in this case – the meat! The 2nd example of utilizing your assets I saw on the road, on the way back. There aren’t many 18 wheelers in and around Tel Aviv, so I didn’t see it before, but this is superb! I took my phone and snapped a picture, right away..
The truck belongs to Neviot, one of the water companies in Israel (like Evian), and they sell water in several ways: bottles of 500ml/1.5L or 20L for home/office use. They started a new line recently, for smaller offices, 10L bottle, and on top of the usual marketing tactics and media, they found a way to use their marketing pipelines – the trucks. For those who can’t understand Hebrew: On the back of the truck, an 18 wheeler truck, there’s a sign saying: “small, but ahead of you”, and a number for reservations. Simple and smart. An excellent example of using an asset you have, and creating a different ad, with a hint of humor.
Happy Passover everyone.. You know how it is – holiday, vacation, dinners and lunches and all of a sudden your RSS reader is going nuts.. too many feeds, too many posts… I’m at home today, keeping the work/life balance my employer encourages, and what a better time to read some posts than when you’re sitting in your living room, listening to some music. Thought I’d give you a little roundup of some of the feeds I track. Here they are, no specific order: Turbo Todd has couple of interesting posts:
The first one is about a new web 2.0 sports site, Ballhype.com, a Digg-ish style aggregator for sport fans and junkies. When will someone create a Digg-ish site for pictures? ’cause Digg can’t get a hint…
IBM developerWorks site just won the Jolt Hall of Fame award. I don’t have much interaction with the site (after all it’s for developers, and I am, well, not a developer), but the site adhere to the needs of its viewers (developers), and the award only strengthen it. Congrats !
Last but not least is a post about a recent web 2.0 survey that was conducted by a security firm, Clearswift, on the productivity and sanctity of corporate data. Did you know that 50% believe that they are entitled to use corporate computers to access web 2.0 content during work? Entitled. However, only (yes, only) 46% have discussed work-related issues on social media sites and services (IM, forums, communities, blogs and web-based email apps). Fellow readers – start sharing… you should be ashamed of yourselves. only 46%..
Garr from PresentationZen is one of my favorite blogger on the web. His posts are insightful, eye-opening at times. It’s not the shortest of posts, but it’s worth the time. In his recentcouple of posts he talks about the maximization of choices – good or bad? Can more choices make us happy or sad? is the freedom to choice really liberates or only complicates things? Free up some time before reading, it’s not your usual feed..
Pronet Advertising is another blog I like to follow, ’cause I can always find some interesting video or picture that serves as the best proof that marketing sells. Like this post from last week, on how to illustrate your value proposition: I think the image says it all.
And of course, can’t finish this wrap-up without Guy Kawasaki’s How to Change the World blog. Current views, interesting posts and insights on the latest and hottest in the blogosphere, and that’s not an easy task. Here’s a recent post about an interview with Google CEO, Eric Schmidt.
I think that’s enough for now. Although it holiday, but I have other things to do.. like having coffee with friends in the sun outside.. and I can’t bring my laptop, it’s not social.. 😉
Passover (Pesach) is upon us, and the Seder is in 2 days, coming Monday. Passover is to commemorate the exodus of the Jewish from Egypt, a journey took 40 years according to the Torah.
You can read more about Passover (lots more) at Wikipedia.
It has been an interesting 2 weeks for me, and today they are over. I’m doing my MBA at Bar Ilan University, and during the past 2 weeks I had 4 exams, which means I had to take some time off from work..
Well, my last exam was yesterday (Wed), and today I decided to make a long weekend, and drove up north with couple of friends to the Hermon Mt., the only ‘Ski Resort’ we have in Israel. We had some true winter this past month in Israel, and the snow piled up to over 1 meter, which is about 3.2 feet – and that’s a lot! for Israel.. It was excellent!! Beautiful weather, excellent snowboarding conditions, good company – we even brought short-wave radio, so we can talk to each other on the slopes.. The only problem was that we were not alone – the site was PACKED with people, skiing/snowboarding (and visitors), and when there are a lot of people, the resort turns into an unpleasant place. It’s just not equipped to handle massive amount of people, and at some point we had to wait 30min for the chair-lift, and an additional 20min on it (very-very slow). So overall it was a good first day for snowboarding, but we didn’t snowboard as much as we hoped..
So, after 3 days off work, and an additional 2 days (weekend), I’m heading back to work on Sunday (as you might recall, Israel working week is Sun-Thu). And on that subject, I owe you a follow-up post, regarding my presentation this Sun. I gave a presentation earlier this week to my department at work about web 2.0 tactics, and its business implications. After reading some of my linked bloggers, I decided to use some of their rules, which I described in an earlier post. Re Web 2.0, Todd Watson posted on his blog this video, web 2.0 explained. After watching it, twice, I think I could save a lot of time working on my presentation, and just show that video..
It was a blast! I must take my hat (or fingers) off to Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and Presentation Zen for their ideas on how to deliver a winning presentation. Although I think they aimed more at VC presentations, giving an elevator pitch, or a business plan to investors, but their tips also apply to every-day presentations.
The first slide, ‘title’, was the comic shown to the left. A big thank you (and link of course) goes to bLaugh – the (un)official comic of the blogosphere, for their inspiring comics, which I used in my slides.
Oh, one last thing – Technorati has started tracking my blog.. after I signed in, and gave it a trace order.. Another milestone achieved.
This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.
Arrived yesterday at NYC for some quality time with my significant other – so although I have my laptop with me, the flow of posts will probably decrease..
Between Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Joan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky and others there’s a unique exhibition called “50 Years of Helvatica“, dedicated to the most popular typeface in the world. I had no idea Helvatica was that popular – apparently it’s used in the Subway signs, MTA (Metropolin Transportation Authority) map, MoMA’s first acquired typeface, millions (maybe billions) of t-shirts (such as The Beatles pictured here) and many more.
