Category archive

Biz

Apple’s moves to the future — Polish, privacy, Pad, and purpose

Published on

I have thoughts on the announcements Apple made at it’s annual “Welcome independent developers who want to see how we’re building native features that make your apps obsolete” event. I thought to keep my yap shut on this one, but since my most-read post ever came after a WWDC and I saw some meaningful moves, I figured why not…

Keep Reading

You might be interested in

"Entrepreneurial Media" comes to UT-Dallas

Published on

As a startup media junkie, I’ve been both pleased and bemused by the recent trend of academic institutions starting to focus and train on entrepreneurship in media. While such training can only be good, I’ve been frustrated to see most of the activity limited to the traditional Big Media Hubs — on the East Coast at CUNY; on the West Coast at UC Berkeley; and at J-school stalwarts like Northwestern and Arizona State.
Don’t get me wrong– I laud the work of all of these programs, all led by people I consider friends and titans of the industry. Their work is critical and trailblazing. I crib heavily from their playbooks.
But there are things I’ve seen in common that I’d like to diversify:

  • All are in traditional hubs of news, hubs that in the case of the coasts may be so cosmopolitan, large and media-rich as to be anomalous in scale, or at least of limited transferability to communities in Middle America.
  • All come directly out of a Journalism school. This is on face a good thing, as Journalism needs as many people focused on business models as possible. But just as I applauded startups with different models from my old Pegasus News; and just as I’ve long lamented the lack of sales folks at myriad “Save The News” conferences, I’ve longed to see a media entrepreneurship program drawing on an even more eclectic group — Crowdsourcing the problem beyond the core, so to speak. Keep Reading

Sometimes too much is too much

Published on

Whole Foods in Lakewood, Dallas
Whole Foods in Lakewood, Dallas

While doing the weekly-ish grocery shopping at the Lakewood Whole Foods this morning, I realized that I am totally over Central Market, which used to be my favorite grocer.
First, a bit of context: Because we live in an area of town where grocers fear to tread, we have to drive a minimum of five miles to get to anything north of a dollar store. And, as demi-foodies, we figure that if you’re going to drive, you might as well go to one of the better stores — and in this gerrymandered burg of dry areas, part of that relates to the ability to buy hooch. We never much cared for the Greenville Avenue Whole Foods, so until it moved to the new store in Lakewood, that meant a drive to the Central Market on Lovers.
At first I thought we were going to the new WF more often just out of laziness because it was closer. But during today’s shopping expedition, I realized that I really am enjoying the shopping experience more. Here’s why: Keep Reading

Customer service at scale, part II: Why my experiences with AT&T make me fear for GM

Published on

Yeah, you may have a great big battle station, but if you waste the opportunity to shore it up, a rebeliions gonna come. (Image from The Daily Yeah.)
Yeah, you may have a great big battle station, but if you waste the opportunity to shore it up, a rebeliion's gonna come. (Image from The Daily Yeah.)

I’m going to resist the temptation to turn this post into a therapy session over the myriad problems I’ve had with AT&T over the past month. Specific situations will crop up organically in the descriptions below, but instead of a chronological chapter-and-verse story, I’m going to focus on the lessons I’ve learned about AT&T and its processes. Keep Reading

You might be interested in

Go to Top