The Genographic Project: $99 to learn where you came from
“With a simple and painless cheek swab you can sample your own DNA and submit it to the lab…Your results will reveal your deep ancestry along a single line of direct descent (paternal or maternal) and show the migration paths they followed thousands of years ago. Your results will also place you on a particular branch of the human family tree.”
Feng Shui in Retail Stores
“There are four types of buildings; those that are good for people, those that are good for money, those that are good for people and money, and those that are not favorable for either. When selecting a location, a Feng Shui practitioner will examine the surrounding environment and then utilizing a Chinese Lo P’an and age old calculations will determine the nature of the building and whether the occupants should move in. Ideally, you want a building that is favorable to both people and money. In the case where it is only good for one, you can enhance the other using either the Earth element or the Water element properly placed.”
Behind the curtains of Wufoo, Blinksale, FeedBurner, and RegOnline
“Support is more demanding than most would anticipate. While multiple things can lead to support requests (poor code, bad interface, complexity, lack of documentation, etc.) what seems to matter the most to customers is how quickly, friendly, and accurately you handle it.”
Q&A with the CEO of Lego
“Monocle Editor-in-chief Tyler Brûlé talks to Lego CEO, Jrgen Vig Knudstorp, at the company’s innovation centre in Billund, Denmark.”
Managing Humans
“This book isn’t just about management, it’s about creating places where people can comfortably build stuff. It’s about what to do during the first ninety days of your new gig, and explains why you should pick a fight, because bright people often yell at each other.”
Chef sues over intellectual property (the menu)
“[Motu chef] Homaro Cantu, has applied for patents on a number of his culinary inventions, like a method for printing pictures of food on flavored, edible paper. Mr. Cantu also makes his cooks sign a nondisclosure agreement before they so much as boil water at Moto, his restaurant in Chicago.”
ChangeThis: Escape Adulthood
“Whether your childhood is filled with fond memories, or something you’d just as soon forget, always be mindful that it’s never too late to have a second childhood, one that’s even better than the first. There is a child inside you who can’t wait to run free, who is eager to stomp through puddles, believe in fairy tales, and live life with reckless abandon.”
TimmyOnTime = IM time tracking
“TimmyOnTime is a time management tool that uses instant messaging such as MSN, AIM or GoogleTalk. No need to install any new software! Use your favorite instant messaging application and you are ready to go.”
Interview with “Chief Customer Officer” author Jeanne Bliss
“To examine the best practices of our customer-service elite, BW Management Editor Jena McGregor spoke with Jeanne Bliss, author of Chief Customer Officer and a former Land’s End head of customer service, about what works and what doesn’t.”
How many engineers does it take to turn on a light bulb?
“I gave a talk at Sun Labs where I encountered a special light switch in one of their conference rooms. At first I thought it was some kind of silly ‘engineer’ joke. But the light switch functions as stated for real. Does it win the award for the most confusing light switch? I bet there are other ones out there that are equally complex to use.”
Reggie Watts: “Out of Control”