scott crawford brand investor

Chiptole goes "Back to the start"

2011-08-31T10:22:00.003-04:00

Worth repeating

2010-09-01T14:55:00.002-04:00

Making it so.

2010-07-21T10:27:00.004-04:00

The epic battle

2010-04-18T09:50:00.003-04:00

From Wired magazine, a war room view of what's at stake in this epic battle. Or, if you change your POV, a look at what's possible given the pressure being brought to bear on all these innovation/development fronts. Exhilarating times.

Canny brilliance.

2010-03-19T19:28:00.002-04:00

I wasn't searching for a follow-up post to the "Shutter Island" bit, but was stopped in my tracks just now when I saw this photo on Design Observer. Then I read the opening paragraph that accompanied it: From 1913 to 1971 five thousand one hundred and twenty one mentally ill patients were cremated on the grounds of the Oregon State Hospital. Their remains were sealed in copper canisters. The canisters were stored in the hospital’s basement until the 1970s when they were moved to a memorial vault underground. The vault was subjected to periodic floods. In 2000 they were removed from their institutional crypt, placed on plain pine shelves in a storeroom, and were left virtually forgotten until David Maisel heard of their existence and photographed them. Fascinating stuff. Check out the full story and exhibit of photos here.

My journey to Shutter Island.

2010-02-23T23:10:00.002-05:00

I'm still reeling from the screening today. One of the hardest theater experiences in a long time, especially when I finally put the pieces together and realized why. Wicked.

Appreciating the hidden whole.

2010-02-23T22:52:00.002-05:00

Photo Credit: "Watering Can" from the book The Hidden Whole by Thomas Merton.

Treat employees like they make a difference and they will.

2010-01-21T10:27:00.004-05:00

SAS ranks No.1 on the FORTUNE '100 Best Companies to Work For' 2010 list.

"SAS starts with the belief that we are in the business of people – whether that is with customers, employees or business contacts." —Jim Goodnight, CEO, SAS

I enjoyed a brief professional relationship with JG and Co. about a decade ago, when the company was making the transition to a web-based solutions outfit. They've earned and genuinely deserve this latest recognition. Kudos to the whole team. And thanks for sharing the power to know with us all.

Here are some highlights from the company news release: SAS offers an environment that inspires employees, allowing them to build long-term relationships with customers and focus on solving their business problems. In the face of economic uncertainty and market consolidation, SAS continues its 34-year history of growth and profitability. Our customers use SAS for everything from minimizing credit losses to improving patient outcomes – and contribute to a lively, active SAS community worldwide.

This marks the 13th year SAS has been ranked on the FORTUNE "100 Best Companies to Work For" list in the US. The more than 400 global offices have achieved considerable workplace awards as well. It’s no wonder SAS is the leader in business analytics: software that allows companies to glean greater value from one of their most important, yet elusive, assets – the huge volumes of data they collect.

Iterating is stupid.

2010-01-19T16:24:00.001-05:00

2010-01-18T15:21:00.003-05:00

This is what greets you when the Pachnoda sinuata, or garden fruit chafer, has its head buried into a flower while feeding. And you wonder if God has a sense of humor?!

Very cool infographic from GigaOm

2010-01-13T17:42:00.002-05:00

see the full 600x4200 graphic.

Who's counting?

2010-01-08T18:33:00.002-05:00

Yep, (product) art imitating life.

2010-01-08T10:04:00.002-05:00

Saw this post on NYTimes Bits Blog this morning and couldn't constrain the smile that it brought thinking back to a bit of musing I posted here on Jan 2 of a year ago. I'm not trying to make a serious connection here. That would be absurd. But it's fun to imagine.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Just a thought in the vein of thinking different.
Sure, it's quite possible that Steve Jobs' health is failing. Then again, insanely great leaders don't just yak about their company or brand strategies, they live them. Passionately. Completely. Just a thought, as I slide my Touch back in my pocket and live on.

2009-12-18T23:36:00.002-05:00

Goodnight Tom, wherever you are. Here's hoping your new wings fit better than your 501s.

Double Happiness in the Land of Cleves.

2009-12-15T00:51:00.004-05:00

So tonight the NBA announced that Tsingtao has been named the Official Chinese Beer of the Cleveland Cavs. Might seem odd, until you consider how big King James is in China. Looking forward to seeing the Double Happiness slogan appearing at the Q arena next year.

And speaking of Double Happiness, also saw tonight, courtesy of a link via Lev Gonick, that Corning (NYSE:GLW) is stepping up, as I'd hoped, to supply product and design assistance to Case Western Reserve University and 40 community partners in a historic initiative to "test the power of super-high-speed Internet access to change people’s lives in inner-city neighborhoods."

Quoting the news release: Other organizations joining Case in the initiative include University Hospitals, The Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth Hospital System, the City of Cleveland, OneCommunity, the Great Lakes Science Center and a coalition of public safety forces. At full capacity, the program seeks to connect more than 25,000 residents of the city. “Sustainable use and adoption of super-high- speed Internet connectivity in our neighborhoods is about basic human needs,” Gonick says. “If broadband doesn’t speak to the urgent needs around public and personal safety, health and wellness and a wide range of educational initiatives, then Internet access will remain largely irrelevant to a large segment of our population. We are aiming high with this initiative and we are very much looking forward to working with Corning and benefiting from their expertise.”I guess that makes this a day of Double-Double Happiness. Oh, wait, I forgot this morning's freelance gig on a certain brand of Happiness. Not to be greedy, but make mine a Triple-Double.

Just desserts around the breakfast table in Orrville.

2009-12-05T10:57:00.005-05:00

It was nice to see this announcement Thursday morning (12/3). I didn't have time to post about it then, but I remember sending out a Tweet to the effect of "The joys of simple plans," linking to the full article.

Reading this article prompted me to go back and revisit the quick pre-invest analysis I posted my way through 11 months prior . It was fun to compare thoughts then and now and to reflect on the value of values. I know it may sound passe, but I never tire of appreciating the strength and undeniability of authentic values stories. This is another shining example, rooted in genuine humility.

A campaign about nothing

2009-11-06T09:19:00.001-05:00

A fun retrospective on the pc wars that hardly seem a battle now.

This rings many bells.

2009-10-25T17:48:00.001-04:00

Digital Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Internet)

View more documents from David Gillespie.

Dan Lyons talks tablet revolution in Newsweek

2009-10-25T08:17:00.004-04:00

Under the banner headline "The Hype Is Right Apple's tablet will reinvent computing" Dan, aka Fake Steve, talks about the inevitability of the iPad (or whatever it will be named) and the impact it will have on media, creativity and life in general. Here are a few key graphs: For people like me, who produce content, this change is both great and scary. Great because the techies in Silicon Valley are giving us powerful new tools for telling stories. Scary because the old ways of telling stories are about to become obsolete, and if we cling to them, we'll be washed away. In the past we've all worked in silos. "Print people" had one way of describing the world. "Video people" had another. But the silos are getting crunched together. It's as if for most of your life you could get by speaking only English, but now you need to learn a bunch of other old languages, and, what's more, you must then master a new language that is evolving out of the DNA of all the old ones.

This is phase two of media on the Internet. Until now, in phase one, we've used this new platform to do the same old thing. We take stories from newspapers and magazines and put them on Web sites. We publish books on Kindle. We put TV shows and movies on Hulu or YouTube. This is what happens when a new medium emerges. When TV first came out, the networks hired radio stars like Milton Berle and produced variety shows—radio with a camera. Over time, people like Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law), David Chase (The Sopranos), and Larry David (Seinfeld) came along and created a new way of telling stories. Oddly enough, those three guys were born within a few years of each other, in the 1940s, just as TV was getting started.

The Internet today is a lot like TV circa 1950. But we are about to take an evolution-ary leap. That's why all this hand-wringing over the dying newspaper business is so misplaced. In 10 years the print newspapers we have today will seem as quaint and primitive as those old Uncle Miltie shows. Heck, the Internet we have today will seem quaint and primitive too. Chances are the cool stuff won't come from people my age (I'm nearly 50) but from the kids who are growing up with these digital tools the way Bochco, Chase, and David grew up with Uncle Miltie. Keep thinking bigger. And bigger. If you see a gatekeeper, imagine what could be when the lock is busted.

I continue to shake my head.

2009-10-22T13:27:00.003-04:00

Core values. Please. Howard. Go back. Before. It's. Too. Late.

Repeat after me: "iDon't mess with iPhone users."

2009-10-22T09:26:00.004-04:00

A theme song for the post-crash, crowdsourced, social media age?

2009-10-21T17:20:00.005-04:00

Always ahead of his time, Martin Mull recorded this song, "Flexible", for his Normal album, released in 1974. This clip is from a recent cover by Ned Rifken. Enjoy.

Great Mary Meeker presentation on mobile web.

2009-10-21T11:05:00.003-04:00

Snagged the link to this presentation from Henry Blodgett @ SAI. Excellent report on the transformation, the juggernaut that is.

Creativity. Are you teaching it today? Are you embracing it today? It's not too late to start thinking different.

8 key trends and some foresights for the next 5 years.

2009-10-20T18:47:00.006-04:00

More great thoughts via media futurist Gerd Leonhard. Here's an appetizer:
1) We will soon see the emergence of many different kinds of iPhone-influenced Netbook-like devices; some will be Apple-made but most will not...In addition to the high-end, fully-loaded and perhaps still rather expensive versions that many of us in the so-called developed countries will gobble up, low cost and more basic editions for the developing markets will be sold in the 100s of millions (think India, China, Indonesia...). These smart gadgets will have very low energy consumption and therefore extremely long battery life, may even sport basic solar-power options, and may ultimately cost less than 30 USD, or even be 'free' (why bother to sell the box if you can make a lot more $ with selling services.... Nokia?)

It is these mass-market yet very smart and networked devices, together with cheap or free wireless broadband that will really revolutionize reading, newspapers, books and education; not to mention our music, TV and film consumption habits. Content commerce will be completely redefined as a consequence. As BTO told us a loooong time ago: "You ain't seen nothin' yet."

2) Very cheap or free wireless broadband - at fairly high speeds, i.e. at least 2MB / sec - will be available in most places, particularly in the booming new economies of Asia, India, Russia and South-America, and a bit later, in Africa. Funded by the likes of Google and by the future 'telemedia' conglomerates, governments, cities and states, wireless broadband will probably reach 3-4 out of 5 people on the globe within 5-8 years. User-generated & derived content (UGDC for those of you that must have an acronym ;), virtual co-production, mobile editing and instant network sharing will explode by a factor of 1000, making control of distribution a very distant concept of the past. UGC or UGDC may make up to 50% of the global content consumption by 2015. Consumers will be (co)-creators, marketers, sellers and buyers, and come in a hundred variations, from totally passive to totally active. Then, indeed, filtering, culling and curation will be the key to success.

3) Collective blanket licenses that legalize and unlock legitimate access to basic content services via any digital network will emerge, and are likely to take over as the primary way of content consumption, around the world (but in Asia, first). Just like water or electricity which is readily available when moving into a new home, the basic access to content will be bundled into access to digital networks, i.e. via ISPs, operators, telecoms, portals etc. This shift is starting with music (as already done by TDC in Denmark, and Google in China), and will be quickly followed by films, TV, books and newspapers.
Read the full post (and more) on Gerd's blog.

2009-10-19T08:53:00.001-04:00

Saw this on an artist friend's blog and had to post it here. Going for a walk now.