6 weeks until Christmas

Christmas has never been one of my favorite holidays. Maybe because it’s always so cold – except  in the Southern hemisphere – or that so many people are left alone and hungry. I think it’s the most depressing holiday there is, especially since I’m not a believer in the myth about Christ.

I’m more looking forward for Christmas to be over to that we can look forward to springtime.

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Really cheesy marketing messages

You can easily tell when a web company’s marketing department is built out and bloated: you are receiving cute notifications and reminders. They use lame metaphors and softer language to make the messaging more human. A popular practice is to pretend that the web service *is* human by using first person and sometimes even a name. And then of course the assurance that *everyone* is on the case to fix this a s a p and you as a consumer should not try to contact customer care (too costly). Just sit back and relax cause someone down in the dungeon is fixing the “glitch”.

Example 1: “Can’t talk now. System’s down. Sorry for the holdup. Looks like a temporary glitch in our network has part of Yahoo! mail down, so you’re briefly without service. Rest assured the alarms are blaring in the basement and our team is working frantically to get you up and running ASAP. Again, the snag is on our end — so there’s no need for you to do a thing.”

Below is probably the most lame activation email I’ve received during my +13 years in the internet industry. By trying to make it human and personal it feels fake and unreal. I’d rather just get a message from Joe-Blow, junior marketing manager, saying that there is a new release out that I should check out with a few new cool features. Or even better, just an email from one of the engineers letting the world know what they been working 24/7 on and why.

Example 2: “Spock.com misses you. I really thought we had something going when you signed up for the Spock Beta. Even though you moved on, I haven’t. I’ve been working on several new features hoping you might join Spock, including Picture and Tag Voting Wizard, News, and Spock Power.

Hopefully I’ll be good enough for you this time, but if not, I can take a hint. You won’t be hearing from me anymore. (Sigh.)”

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Nail on the Head

The most beautiful words: “We chose to invest in Dopplr because of the strong team and the simple execution of a great idea.” The essence of startups!

Already August?

Summer in San Francisco is like winter in London – grey, cold and muggy. One forgets that it is summer until one heads off outside of the city an experiences the true summer. Fortunately, we are heading off again for a few weekends trips to Oregon and New York. Maybe even London.

Finally – It’s Springtime!

The time between November 15 and March 15 is when I hybernate like the grympiest bear. Just ask the Missus. She would tell you that yours truly is a big pain in the bootie during these 4 months. Once the sun comes out, the birds start to sing and the flip-flops are out – it’s a whole other story. Our hero becomes filled with life and passion.

As you can see from above, this weekend is the start of the spring and it looks like the above 20 C / 70F is going to last for another 20 days. In addition to these great news, K&L has got Lalande-Borie again and the Ferry Building Gabitou cheese.  What more could a man ask for? Star Wars VII?

The Bird

First time back in Snowbird since 1985 and I strangely recall a lot of slopes. And I got to switch back to my board which was a heavenly experience. We skied the left part before lunch at the Forklift and then the backside on Mineral Basin in the afternoon. The snow was pretty gnarly but started to melt in some southern areas. But who’s to complain – 1.5 hr in the hot tub got the sorest muscles in the mood again.

First Time Since 1989

We are in Alta (Utah) this weekend and I’m skiing for the first time since Val Thorens in 1989. They don’t allow boarders in Alta so I had to adapt and go with mainstream. It was a painful and quite surprising experience. I cautght on pretty quick and was ripping it up nicely. The only downside are the boots who happened to extremely painful to wear. But I’ll get used to it.

Don’t Hold Back, I Won’t

I’ve been thinking about getting a personal motto, something that resonates with my personal beliefs and that I can add to our stationary (laugh). It takes some time to generate a really good, long-lasting motto which I now think I have. One of my old buddies and former collegues always said “Don’t Hold Back” whenever we ventured upon something new. That stuck and has now become: “Don’t Hold Back, I Won’t”.