By Keith Ferrazzi
I wrapped up this book a couple of weeks ago but I haven’t written anything about it yet because I’m really not sure what to say.
I’ll start with a general overview. This purpose of the book is to teach the reader about networking. Social/career networking, to be more specific. As a person who definitely does not take advantage of this necessary skill, I picked up the book hoping to learn more. I did, but I didn’t. This is where things get confusing.
The author of this book, Keith Ferrazzi, is a networking machine. The term ‘networking machine’, however, might not be strong enough of a description. This guy lives, eats, breathes and sleeps networking. While reading the book we learn that he used to work at Deloitte, then jumped to a dot-com startup and now runs Ferrazzi Greenlight (I’m probably missing a job here…), but you wonder how he had time to do any of those things.
One of the major critiques about the book is the constant name-dropping. Ferrazzi seems to know just about everyone, and loves to run through the names of the CEOs, pols and other famous folks he has in his PalmPilot. It does get nauseating, but if you think about it, how could you write this book without it? If Ferrazzi doesn’t mention the famous people, would you believe that his networking tips work? I wrote off the name-dropping complaint and chalked it up as a necessary evil.
So, what did I get out of this? Well, networking is important. More important than I initially believed. Ferrazzi gives a few good tips, but out of nearly 300 pages, there are probably about 25 pages worth reading. One good section, I thought, dealt with conferences. I never get to attend these, but he did have some very good suggestions I’ll use if I ever do. The book was short on actionable advice and long on stories. As I don’t have any other books on this subject to offer, I’ll have to tentatively recommend it if you’re looking to learn more about networking. If you have any alternatives, post a comment.
[2] | 
posted 11/09/2005 04:08 PM
One of the benefits of being laid up due to surgery is that I get to watch a lot of TV that I normally wouldn’t have a chance to watch. I’ve seen a lot of movies, Simpsons re-runs and last night’s nose-achingly funny episode of Arrested Development. (Tobias as the mole…just hilarious.)
I have, however, stumbled upon what might be the dumbest thing I’ve seen on TV in a while…ESPN’s simulated press conferences shown during SportsCenter. Let me try to set the stage for you. Steve Philips, former Mets GM and current ESPN baseball analyst, comes out to a waiting throng of reporters and cameramen and pretends to be a general manager for a major league baseball team. He comes out, gives a prepared statement and then goes on to answer questions. So far he has pretended to be the GM for the Red Sox, Yankees (surprise) and Cubs. I have no idea how many teams they’re planning on doing this for, but I for one cannot wait for the simulated Devil Rays press conference.
Can somebody out there help me understand this? Why? Why? WHY? I find real press conferences close to useless, so I’m stumped as to why ESPN has found it necessary to come up with these “fake” ones. The level of detail is just amazing, too. Respected reporters are participating in this. Jeremy Schapp, Buster Olney, Karl Ravech, and whoever else is sitting around the cafeteria in Bristol joins in. They have photographers. Everyone shouts out, “Steve! Steve!” so they can get their questions heard. Philips even matches his wardrobe to the team’s colors.
The thing is, I just don’t get it. The whole thing strikes me as over-the-top silliness – and that’s saying something considering the source. The “reporters” ask relatively interesting questions, and Philips does his best to give insightful answers. Fine. But let’s keep in mind that Philips doesn’t work for ANY of these teams. He’s just giving his opinion. I’d be much more interested in seeing him on SportsCenter giving his opinion than this traveshamockery. What a waste.
| posted 11/08/2005 08:42 PM
I’m using a script from Javascript Coder that helps me validate some xhtml forms I’ve written for a project. I guess I could have done this all by hand, but if someone else already has the answer, I might as well use it.
One of the features of the product (which is free, btw) is that you can use their built in validations, or you can pass in regular expressions. I was having a lot of trouble getting the regex function to work, until I finally figured out that the ’\’ characters all have to be escaped. So, in essence, every ’\’ has to be changed to ’\\’. Once I did this, every regex expression worked.
I submitted an email to JavaScript Coder but never recieved a reply. Hopefully this helps anyone out there who has run into the same problem.
Update: Prasanth from Javascript-Coder just replied to my email and verified that the problem was not escaping the backslashes. I think the biggest problem with all of this is that it’s difficult to use ’\’ in html. What I mean by that is if you just type in ’\’, when the page is rendered you will see nothing. You have to type in ’\\\\’ to see ’\\’. It gets confusing. Best advice is to always proof-read before you publish!
| posted 10/28/2005 10:08 AM
By James Surowiecki
I just finished this book the other night and I enjoyed it. The title is a little misleading because the book focuses more on “groups” as opposed to “crowds”. The main point is that, in general, groups of diverse people can come up with better solutions than really smart individuals working by themselves. If you’ve recently taken some OB/HRM classes from your local business school, this should come as no surprise.
One of the major points of the book is the importance of diversity within teams. Not diversity in the skin color sense, per se, but more in regard to education, previous work experience, problem solving approaches, etc. Along with diversity is the importance of dissent and independence of thought. Groups consisting of individuals who are not afraid of going against the grain or challenging the group’s conventional wisdom will, in general, out-perform groups that focus on getting along. Working in these types of groups will not always be comfortable or completely enjoyable, but the results are worth it.
The book is about 270 pages and is a quick read. Surowiecki uses many interesting examples to make his points and keep the book moving (driving in traffic, competing on TV game shows, maximizing stock market performance, voting for political candidates, navigating busy sidewalks, tracking SARS, etc.) Some have complained about overly scholarly language and too much business speak, but I did not find this to be the case. I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars. I should make some cool rating system or something. One of these days…
| posted 10/25/2005 12:12 PM
I’ve been using Gmail for about a year now and I really like it. Having my email on-line is convenient, and I don’t have to worry about synching with Outlook anymore. Plus, they give me so much space I never have to worry about attachment size or returned messages because my in-box is too full. The interface is nice, too.
I have two minor issues with the service, however:
- Messages in the Trash folder are supposed to be deleted every 30 days. In my experience, however, they are not. I don’t know if there is a setting I missed or something. I sent GMail a note to see if they have a solution and I’m waiting to hear what they have to say. I did some searching on-line and found others with the same issue, but no fix.
- GMail loves to cut off long messages. I really hate this. They say they do this to increase the response time of my email. Fine, but I should have the option to turn this off. I get some emails that are really long (status updates, reports, etc.). When I get to the bottom of the messages there is a note telling me the rest of it was cut-off. Ugh. GMail posted a work around, but it’s not acceptable and doesn’t work well with html email.
Other than that, I like the service. And you can’t beat the price! If you would like a gmail account, send me an email. It’s still in beta but I can send out 100 invites or something like that. If nothing else, you can lock up a decent email address before all of the good ones are gone.
| posted 10/25/2005 12:08 PM
Cnet has come up with their new Blog 100 list, which supposedly identifies the top 100 blogs that are worth reading. There must be some mistake, however, because I did not see JayDreyer.com on the list. I looked it over three times and still can’t find it. It must have been an oversight on CNet’s part. I’m assuming that if they expanded the list to the CNet Blog 101, I would be listed.
After briefly perusing the list, I must admit that I feel totally out of it. I probably have been to a small handful of the blogs listed and only regularly read one or two of them. The good thing about lists like this, however, is that they introduce you to sites you might not be aware of. The only problem is, I’m running out of time in the day to keep up with all of these!
On a side note, CNet estimates there are currently 14,000,000 blogs in existence and 80,000 are created every day. Wow. There is a lot of useless information floating around out there.
[2] | posted 10/11/2005 12:34 PM
Pathetic.
| posted 10/08/2005 11:08 PM
Did these things just come out or have I been under a rock for too long? I am totally addicted to these damn Sudoku puzzles. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can try one out at Sudoku Online. It’s a huge time waster, but it’s also a good way to keep your brain sharp.
| posted 10/07/2005 02:30 PM
I recently finished reading the book “Freakonomics” and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I’m a big geek when it comes to this type of stuff so it wasn’t a surprise. If you are not familiar with the book, the premise is that the authors use the fundamentals of economics to find the answers to a wide array of questions. Things like finding out if sumo wrestlers cheat, why real-estate agents don’t always work for your best interests, the effects of abortion on the crime rate, the inner workings of south-side Chicago crack dealers, etc. It sounds crazy but it’s a fascinating read and I highly recommend it.
| posted 10/06/2005 04:16 PM
I have been slacking as of late when it comes to updating the site here. September was a slow month of posting! Sorry to disappoint my 3 readers. I’m trying to pick up the pace in October.
There are some new features here…the comments section and form have been cleaned up a little. I think they look nicer. I’ve also been working on the content on the right side of the screen. I’ve taken out some things and added others – including a link to my Amazon wishlist. Now you have no reason not to buy me something! ;-)
I also added a direct link to NewsGator. If you have an account with them (it’s free), you can add my site to your news feed list by clicking the button. Then, whenever I submit a new post, you’ll know it via NewsGator. It’s pretty cool. I use it to keep up with about 15 different sites. Very handy.
I’ve also been busy working on side projects. I’m making the web site for my brother-in-law’s resort in Nicaragua. You can check out the progress at http://www.straightblue.com/~local/. Once we’re finished with it, it will be accessible via www.localtreasureinternational.com. If you have any feedback on the overall appearance of the site, let me know. Just keep in mind it is not finished right now.
Another thing I’ve been working on is helping two guys with their open source photo gallery products. One is called zenphoto and the other is photostack. I’ve been working with Noel from photostack a lot more than zenphoto, but I give feedback and bug reports to both. They are both really neat tools. I’m using zenphoto at the resort site I mentioned above and I’m testing photostack on this site (it’s hidden right now…). If you are looking for this type of software for your site, I highly recommend both products. It’s been a great learning experience for me, even if my contributions are minimal, at best.
| posted 10/06/2005 03:00 PM
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