dnbrv blogs

Answer by dnbrv for Using only keyboard shortcuts (without button/menu counterparts)

dnbrv — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 18:32:10 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Windows desktop icon guidelines

dnbrv — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 00:58:06 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for What's the best way to allow a user to revert an input field to a default state?

dnbrv — Wed, 18 Feb 2015 23:34:02 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Does it make sense to put search result filters on the left in a table in which each column is filterable?

dnbrv — Sun, 15 Feb 2015 03:00:25 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for How to determine color palettes visible for the colorblind?

dnbrv — Sat, 14 Feb 2015 17:11:31 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for How many atempts should you give a user before invalidating his password?

dnbrv — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 18:20:39 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Best way to register and login within the same form

dnbrv — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 04:01:22 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Should mobile websites show a dedicated area for scroll bar like on desktop websites?

dnbrv — Thu, 12 Feb 2015 14:28:31 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for What is the best way to show conditional fields?

dnbrv — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 19:20:20 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Best practice for inputting a date on a mobile device

dnbrv — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 17:07:01 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Is a higher priority a smaller number?

dnbrv — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 15:39:36 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Should home pages say "Welcome to [name]"?

dnbrv — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 05:34:26 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for What visual metaphor is this checkbox trying to achieve?

dnbrv — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 00:58:08 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Is it bad UX to omit a progress indicator?

dnbrv — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 17:26:42 +0000

holstee: Sorry we’re so behind on catching up with all the...

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:14:29 +0000

holstee:

Sorry we’re so behind on catching up with all the media madness this morning: we were busy putting the finishing touches on our new book!

In all seriousness, imagine our surprise as we got ready for our first working day in Mexico and found the internet (and our inboxes!) abuzz with notifications: writer Paulo Coehlo had posted our Manifesto! Our excitement faltered, however, when we found it was posted without proper credit.

Still, while we are extremely grateful for all those who showed their support on Facebook, we’re also honored that Mr. Coehlo found our words worth sharing! You know what they say: no press is bad press! And who knows, this could be the beginning on an amazing opportunity for collaboration.

No hard feelings, everyone. Coehlo has since apologized, and we wholeheartedly accept.

The Age of the Permanent Intern

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 17:57:04 +0000

The Age of the Permanent Intern:

Articles like this one highlight that we, as a society, aren’t teaching our children the right skills. It’s not about the subjects you study (STEM vs. liberal arts). It’s about being able to read and understand the environment around you and being able to adjust to the changes in the environment, which is also known as entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship isn’t just about starting & running businesses. It’s about knowing your strengths and weaknesses. It’s about experimenting. It’s about solving problems with limited resources. It’s about knowing when to stop doing the exact same thing without any progress.

Until we keep on lying to ourselves that a degree from a good school with good grades + the right internship = a good job, we will keep on hearing the tearful stories of “qualified” young people not being able to find “real jobs”. It’s not a hard problem to solve.

Answer by dnbrv for Visual hierarchy of contact form, testimonials on homepage?

dnbrv — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:23:32 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Navigation that doesn't update the whole page

dnbrv — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:33:42 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Responsive design: Should I go bigger than 1024px?

dnbrv — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 02:22:49 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Why are there two Address lines in Address forms?

dnbrv — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:54:49 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Folding columns of a kanban view

dnbrv — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 08:26:12 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for How can i communicate that certain element of a data-record is only available in newer versions of the data?

dnbrv — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 19:07:47 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Caption inside vs. before the Searchbox

dnbrv — Sun, 08 Jul 2012 18:37:48 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Given CSRF protection, how can I deal with an extremely slow user?

dnbrv — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 04:36:04 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for best way to display phone numbers from various countries?

dnbrv — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 18:15:18 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for What do you do when you have too many choices in a checkbox field set?

dnbrv — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 14:23:34 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Do spinner-based date pickers on iOS & Android detract from the user's experience?

dnbrv — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:57:36 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Is it good UX that in Windows 7 & 8 the "windows" of the same application are automatically grouped into one button?

dnbrv — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 13:24:00 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for Ratings: 3 stars vs 5 stars. Why 5?

dnbrv — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:29:48 +0000

Where should form instructions or hints be placed?

dnbrv — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 18:30:46 +0000

Answer by dnbrv for checkout: combining billing and payment screens

dnbrv — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:20:44 +0000

"Basically, the Republican strategy for the past three years has been this: 1. Do everything humanly..."

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 06:33:58 +0000

“

Basically, the Republican strategy for the past three years has been this:

1. Do everything humanly possible to prevent the economy from recovering.

2. Wait for 2012.

3. Run a campaign focused on the fact that the economy is lousy.

”

- Kevin Drum (via wilwheaton)

"Nuclear weapons and overwhelming force don’t add up to much if they can’t be used and..."

Fri, 18 May 2012 13:13:07 +0000

“Nuclear weapons and overwhelming force don’t add up to much if they can’t be used and don’t deter.”

- I don’t think there’s a better way to summarize Israel’s military strength & security concerns than this quote. In fact, the whole article is mostly well-balanced until Miller gets into describing Israel’s actions.

Israel’s Image Revisited - By Aaron David Miller | Foreign Policy

"When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every..."

Thu, 03 May 2012 22:18:15 +0000

“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.”

- John Lennon (via foreverahimsa)

Such a powerful quote!

This shot glass birthday card is brilliant!

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 23:09:23 +0000

This shot glass birthday card is brilliant!

I kid you not. This is a real screenshot of DOJ’s federal...

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 21:47:00 +0000

I kid you not. This is a real screenshot of DOJ’s federal Victim Notification System (I have access because my 401(k) was raided by its trustee). Now, I want to know where the fuck my tax money went. Assyria ceased to exist as a country in the year 608 Before-fucking-Current-Era. And there had never been “Angola-Egyptian Sudan” - while Anglo-Egyptian Sudan has not been a country since 1956. That list also has such gems as West Prussia (no more as of 1922), Benelux (customs union), and Aden (a city in Yemen), “China, Peoples Republic of (Communist China)”, Latin America and Siberia (both are regions) as well as a few US states, most of Canadian provinces and states of Mexico among the 518 options of countries. The CIA World Factbook includes many autonomous regions of federative countries and some supranational entities; the list has only 268 items.

Please reblog to spread the word of how our public money is being spent on sub-par services.

Added: According to DOJ’s audit report from 2008 (PDF), the system was developed by AT&T Government Solutions in 2000-2002 at a cost of nearly $10MM. Outrageous!

Dear Google, Windows notifications design guidelines...

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:46:58 +0000

Dear Google, Windows notifications design guidelines aren’t rocket scinece. Please get them straight and don’t scare us.

How can animations be depicted in wireframes effectively?

dnbrv — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:38:38 +0000

How 'Massive Leak' Changed the Launch of Modern Warfare III | Ad Age Digital

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:54:32 +0000

How 'Massive Leak' Changed the Launch of Modern Warfare III | Ad Age Digital:

What a great story on how to keep a cool head during a crisis and turn things around to your advantage.

"Ensure that laptops during meetings are used for notes and not email (do the lunch check: if someone..."

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:23:33 +0000

“Ensure that laptops during meetings are used for notes and not email (do the lunch check: if someone calls someone out for checking email during the meeting and they are right, the person checking email buys the other person lunch and vice versa if they’re wrong)”

- Startups Should Default to Laptops for Employees – David Cummings

"I need to get some sleep. People on the Internet will still be wrong tomorrow."

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 21:50:26 +0000

“I need to get some sleep. People on the Internet will still be wrong tomorrow.”

- Jim Treacher (@jtLOL)

Some of these numbers are disturbing and others are reassuring...

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:47:47 +0000

Some of these numbers are disturbing and others are reassuring to the respective industries. (via Which Channels Do US Consumers Prefer Using?)

Responsive Image Hierarchy - Dave Rupert

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:27:16 +0000

Responsive Image Hierarchy - Dave Rupert:

A cool set of CSS tricks to preserve visual importance of images in responsive sites.

"The future isn’t measured by years or technology, but by how it disagrees with the past..."

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 17:17:15 +0000

“The future isn’t measured by years or technology, but by how it disagrees with the past about what is and what is not important.”

- Carlos Bueno in Steampunk, Progress, and You

Five Best Disk Defragmentation Tools

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 09:50:55 +0000

Five Best Disk Defragmentation Tools

Google Reader Getting Overhauled, Removing Your Friends

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 11:09:04 +0000

Google Reader Getting Overhauled, Removing Your Friends

(via Report: 2011 Temkin Trust Ratings « Customer Experience...

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 11:58:31 +0000

(via Report: 2011 Temkin Trust Ratings « Customer Experience Matters)

Do you really expect people to spend money when industry trust scores are so low?

"Your entire multi-year, six-figure education is reduced to a simple check-mark used to get past..."

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:27:34 +0000

“Your entire multi-year, six-figure education is reduced to a simple check-mark used to get past impatient screeners on the other end of a Craigslist ad.”

- 8 Steps to Getting What You Want… Without Formal Credentials

"According to RadioLab from where I first heard about whale falls, the ecosystem continues on for..."

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 00:50:09 +0000

“According to RadioLab from where I first heard about whale falls, the ecosystem continues on for another 50-75 years; another full lifetime of life based on what the whale left around.”

- What happens when a whale dies. | The Startup Foundry

I think this is the most appropriate eulogy for Steve Jobs.

04/15/2011

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 18:18:56 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Philosophy of Belarusian Dictatorship Explained

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:51:00 +0000

I have been involved in the opposition movement in Belarus for over 10 years now. I know how Lukashenka's regime uses fear, intimidation, and lies to keep a tight grip on the people. I have read my share of political science analyses of similarities with other regimes and whatnot. However, I have never seen a straightforward explanation of the philosophy, a model so to say, that would provide an simple framework to predict at least some of the actions.

That was until yesterday when I came across a blog post by an ethnic Belarusian who lives in Israel and who visited Belarus for the first time in 15 years last summer. Just like Lukashenka, that man grew up in a village is well-aware of the order of life there. His idea is that the former state farm (sovkhoz) director Lukashenka is running the country in the only way he knows – the way he ran that state farm.

I was so amazed with this cross-discipline knowledge transfer that I translated it to English and present in a slightly abridged form (I cut out some of the sarcasm & satire).

Note: the text talks about collective farms (kolkhozes) and Lukashenka's last place of employment before politics was a state farm (sovkhoz). There are certain structural & economic differences between the two forms of enterprise. However, they have been interchangeable colloquially and the management techniques are considered to be similar if not the same.

A collective farmer (kolkhoznik) must be fed but not be rich. When he is hungry he is dangerous. A rich one will not want to work for the pennies the kolkhoz pays; he won't join it. What for is the chairman then? There's no way this will work. We don't need any kulaks. They are too independent and uncontrollable. Thus, they are dangerous.
That's Lukashenka's infamous "a shot and pork rind"¹. It's clean but modest.
All kolkhozniks must live the same way. Villas and mansions are not allowed just in case. One cannot make enough money for a villa in a kolkhoz. So if you are not a kolkhoznik then you are a thief and a bastard. What will happen to the kolkhoz if everyone wants a mansion? Unkempt huts are also undesirable but not critical.
Good loyal workers must be stroked on the head and be rewarded sometimes. This doesn't mean they should earn more. No way! That's the direct road to kulaks with mansions (points 1-2). The chairman must personally toss them bonuses or vacation vouchers. So that they would know whose hands feed them, whom they should serve, and who can take away those bonuses.
The bad, the lazy, and the disloyal must be punished illustratively. Again, the chairman should do this personally so that they know who holds the power.
Foremen and other inferior rabble must be constantly bothered, picked on, and blamed on for as much as possible. They should also be punished illustratively and preferably for other kolkhozniks to see. This accomplishes a few goals:
- First, foremen will be afraid and will know who is the master of the kolkhoz. As a result, they will be obedient and more importantly will not try to plot to overthrow the chairman.
- Second, everyone around understands that the chairman is not guilty of anything. He gave the orders, right? And the foreman didn't fulfill them. The foreman is guilty, not the chairman.
- Third, the kolkhozniks understand the chairman is strict but fair. He can not only whack a tractor driver in the face but also raise some ruckus with livestock specialists. And the show is entertaining. Yesterday, the foreman was yelling at me, and today THE MAN is yelling at him. Applause is guaranteed.
By the way, not every foreman can tolerate such behavior. They either need to be chosen for the occasion or trained.
Overall, what is an ideal foreman? The correct answer is run-of-the-mill. He should be gray and unnoticeable so that he doesn't eclipse or dared to attempt to do so.
Every kolkhoznik is dumb, helpless, and infantile by definition. (The one who is not infantile is a kulak, an enemy, and there is no place for him in the kolkhoz. See point 1.) Because of this inferiority he cannot decide anything for himself. If he tries to decide anything, he will make a mess.
Thus, all decisions must be taken by the smart chairman. He knows the right way and the better way. Sometimes he will even consult with the people in pretense. And if things don't improve, the foreman is there to be blamed. See point 5.
A kolkhoznik must be present at work regularly, have a shot and pork rind, and must not think about abstract matters. For example, how they fit a pencil with lead or why the chairman decides everything. Nobody knows where this thinking can take them, like to independent trade unions, or to separation of powers, or to some other abomination like a parliament.
Do you have your shot and pork rind? So be happy. Generally, they are happy. And any troublemaking thinkers should be punished illustratively (see point 4). It's also good to explain that these thinkers don't care for the people and wrote anonymous letters only to gain personal power, or that they were plotting to poison the chairman.
The kolkhoz should not necessarily be profitable. What for are the district manager and other superiors? That's right: to distribute subsidies. As a good friend you entertain them on Saturdays and they bring you financing and other pleasantries².
The chairman must always demonstrate his intellectual superiority to the ignorant peasants who don't see beyond their own noses. He must have thorough insight and think three steps ahead. To do this, he must squint wisely, look at the horizon, and come up with the Great Project³. The completion of the Great Project brings immediate and irreversible Great Happiness. Well, not necessarily immediate but in the future the Project will pay off with unimaginable perks. Absolutely. Project requirements:
1. The Project must be as much unwieldy, labor-intensive, and mind-boggling as possible.
2. The Project must imply the participation of the greatest number of collective farm workers. The Project is preferably called "people's" or "national". Since the narrow-minded peasants do not understand the benefits of the Project and do not see beyond their noses forcing them into earthwork is allowed. They will appreciate it and thank the chairman later.
3. The benefits from the Project should be absolutely unobvious. There's the chairman to explain all benefits of the Project.
4. At the end of the Great Construction Project a new one must be started immediately. It must be even greater.
It might look like the manager is doing unnecessary and secondary nonsense. That's not true. Firstly, the feeling of a great goal brings the collective farm together. Secondly, a drill sergeant does approximately the same when he orders everyone to march around. Everyone is together and everyone is doing something.

This ideology is very round, limited, and simple like boiled potatoes. The majority of the people eat it and seem to be happy with it. There is no need to think and a house, a shot, and some pork rind are allowed without it. What else is necessary?

Thus, I think that Lukashenka is not any kind of a blood-thirsty monster who is plotting to enslave Belarusians and feed on them. It really looks like he wants to make the country flourishing but in his kolkhoz understanding of the meaning.

¹ – “A shot and pork rind” («чарка і шкварка» in Belarusian) describes the minimal satisfaction of commoners for fried pork rind (or crackling) is a common snack during drinking.

² – Lukashenka's economy has been relying on lower crude oil prices from Russia and loans from the World Bank & IMF.

³ – Lukashenka’s rule has been marked with grandiose construction projects like an ice arena in as many towns as possible, a new audacious National Library of Belarus building, and an annual harvest festival hosted at a new town every year (the host undergoes massive renovations).

Will the Real Tyrant Please Stand Up?

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:00:00 +0000

Image by ¡Que comunismo! via Flickr

Yesterday, I watched a rather biased documentary about the sentiment toward Hugo Chavez during the December 2006 elections called Now the People Have Awoken [Hulu]. Despite the naked support for Chavez and his policies, the film raised quite a few questions in my mind that I had to investigate to make the final conclusions.

I was interested in watching it because Chavez is one of the best friends of Belarusian dictator Lukashenka and the two countries have been compared numerous times. However, I have never had neither a stimulus to look into Venezuelan domestic policy. Now, that I have done it, I see stark differences between Belarus and Venezuela.

In theory, Venezuela seems more or less like an average Nordic social-democratic state less the location and high crime rate. Chavez has created an extensive system of welfare state institutions financed by oil exports by the nationalized PDVSA. Nationalization of large businesses was done through share buyouts and there are no reported state-led persecution of private business. Elections have been relatively free and fair even with opposition gaining sizable support. Venezuela has free press (including at least one private 100% anti-Chavez TV station) despite reports of government pressure on journalists. Other human rights abuses seem not to happen systematically or legally allowed.

The popular support of Chavez, as it is clearly articulated in the film, comes from the fact that he gave the people what had been kept away from them forever. His programs promoted literacy, gave people titles to land, and taught them to start businesses. He is yet to eradicate corruption and bureaucracy but the advances in other sectors of the society seem to make up for that.

There are only a few concerns visible to me right away in Venezuelan system. My personal issue is that Chavez’s platform is based on hatred of the USA albeit, fortunately, he is not calling for active military resistance. The others are the nearly absolute unchecked control of the executive branch, the lack of an independent judiciary branch, high crime rate, and high inflation (though it has been decreasing recently). Of these, Belarus has all and even more except for crime.

After 16 years of Lukashenka’s rule, Belarus has lost government transparency & accountability, inviolability of private property, and the free press. The economy is still primarily state controlled and is centrally planned, and profits from state enterprises go to a special Presidential Fund with its books closed to the public instead of the national budget. The foreign debt has been growing significantly because of the limited exports, and Lukashenka has been instituting a policy of import substitutions by imposing high tariffs on goods that have poor local equivalents. It has not been uncommon for small businesses to been seized under the pretenses of back taxes/improper permits/bribes and the owners to be imprisoned. Despite the proclaimed welfare state, most government subsidies were abolished in 2007 and pensions/minimal wages are raised around elections only to be followed by consumer prices inflation. Nonetheless, the standard of living and the GDP has been growing steadily compared to the turbulent early 1990’s providing Lukashenka with some popular support.

On the human rights front, Belarus is even more fun. The last free and fair elections were held in 1994 when Lukashenka came to power, and spending the day of elections in jail arrested for disorderly conduct has become a tradition for many activists. At least 3 journalists/media people died/disappeared/were murdered under unknown circumstances. The same fate has befallen several prominent opposition politicians & supporters. Minority rights come down to Lukashenka’s statement at the 4th All-Belarus People’s Congress where he claimed that there were no national or sexual minorities in the country.

So when the two countries are compared side-by-side, one must be blind not to see that Chavez is almost an exemplary leader against the Man of Minsk backdrop. Yet, US foreign policy is more concerned with him complying with OPEC quotas than with Lukashenka selling arms to Khartoum and Tehran.

My Brand New Lemonade Stand

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 22:02:00 +0000

When I conceived this entry in late August, it was all different. It was supposed to show off how smart-ass I was, how I had everything planned ahead, and how everything would fall into my lap as usual. Now, I am going to tell you how having the right mindset prior to adverse events helps staying put when plans fall through.

The job that I used to have until a week ago was the perfect vehicle to survive the recession: the pay was stable and relatively good given that I was hired to do something without prior official experience, the tasks were not too demanding most of the time, and it was 15 minutes away from my home. However, there was absolutely no growth potential and my “honeymoon” lasted for just 7 months until my first boss quit and I was relegated from doing primarily IT work to doing primarily line of business tasks, government paperwork. The remaining almost 2 years have been a rollercoaster of emotions, adventures, and opportunities that came to a very sudden and unexpected stop.

I was getting ready to slowly phase out of the job by reducing my work hours to free up time for my personal development projects when they fired me out of nowhere. I didn't want to quit right away because I have over $50,000 in student loans and I wanted to keep the minimal income for the monthly payments. In addition, relaying my knowledge and training a co-worker in IT infrastructure & procurement decision-making would have taken some time that wasn’t there when I came to terms that I needed to get off that road to nowhere. Most importantly, I didn't want to be the a-hole leaving during a busy season.

This wasn't the first time I tried to cut the connection. I took a week off in April and it would have been longer had I not gotten invited to the Israel trip. At the time, I was quite upset with the bad timing but now I realize that 5 months ago I would not have been able to separate well (and it's scary for me to think right now how I will reflect on these days next spring). The main reason was and still is my realization that I am not yet cut out for a typical career of working for somebody who has a playbook that needs to be followed.

In the seven years of my “adult” life, I've worked for over half-a-dozen companies in-person (2 were telework — they are different). Only one of them was a large company. In small businesses, I wore many different hats well beyond my main duties, and that was fun until the point when I would feel underappreciated. It wasn't the pay (I did get a few bonuses even from the boss who fired me), it was that no matter how much expertise I had provided nobody would give any authority to me because it was their toys, with which I was playing. And I wanted my own toys if they couldn't share.

The first time the entrepreneurship bug bit me seriously was in the summer of 2006 when I wanted to continue an idea that my friends had given up. I had to table it when faced with the lack of any business education, at the time, and the lack of time to do anything further than some designs (I still have them). The last time the bug started biting was last summer and it hasn't stopped biting ever since: I am getting close to breaking into the third dozen of ideas from lifestyle businesses to humongous multi-national companies. So I wasn't leaving stable pay for nothing.

There are only just a few minor hindrances to my plans of universal proportions: I do not have formal business education (minor in business administration is a stretch) nor I have substantial expertise in any field proven by prior experience (nobody cares about self-education & book smarts) nor I have a track record of personal accomplishments (I have done a lot of behind-the-scenes work on some well-known projects but I never received public commendations for that). Without either of these (or better all of them), no investor will talk to me seriously. And these were the reasons why I had decided that I needed as much free time as possible.

My plan was simple: I would prove my business acumen, show my expertise in marketing & user experience, and create a track record by working pro bono as a consultant with local small businesses and non-profits. The savings I put away for a lump-sum student loan payment upon getting a career job would become my ticket to personal independence as they were enough for about 12 months of maintaining my current lifestyle. And the 15 paid hours per week that I wanted to keep would have covered the minimal payments on the loans.

Had I been thinking differently, I can't imagine how I would have taken the news of complete employment termination. I definitely did not see it coming because my boss had not had any issues with me asking for such an arrangement and because I had not noticed any more complaints toward me than toward my co-workers and I had thought I was rather needed with my IT skills/knowledge. Although the termination paperwork calls it “mutual”, it wasn't nice or pleasant at all. I am still surprised how I managed to keep my cool during the whole procedure including being escorted back to my desk and watched as I was packing up.

On the bright side, this past week of unemployment has been great. Once the initial shock from the situation went away (it took me just 2 days of action & suspense movies), I started planning and executing my goals. I am reading real books, sending tons of e-mails, deciding what I am going to study, and just enjoying the feeling of freedom. To be honest, it is not going as fast as I would like it to be (attention deficit is no jokes for me and some people are less responsive) but at least it is going somewhere.

It might sound surprising but my biggest fear right now is not running out of money because I don't have the anticipated income. My biggest fear is relaxing too much and giving up on an organized routine. I just know that the second I tell myself, “You don't have to rush anywhere,” all of my plans will collapse like a house of cards.

So what's with the lemonade stand? It's nothing more than an allusion to the old saying and a great documentary that every laid-off or fired person must watch to get inspired.

Following Up on E-mails Long Forgotten

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:22:00 +0000

I noticed that some people forget to respond to an e-mail for weeks. Usually, it's because of either poor inbox management (read not following Inbox 0 rules) or simply overwhelming number of messages. Well, if you send plenty of e-mails it becomes tough to keep track of the ones sent weeks ago especially when it the subject isn't urgent.

The old school way would be to go into your Sent Items and look for the message. If you use Google Mail, the task might be easier as each conversation takes only one line regardless of the number of messages involved. However, if you are using any other mail client it becomes a nightmare as you sift through dozens of unrelated messages. Here's a solution: mark all of your outgoing messages for quick review & remove the mark once a reply is received. (This is a relatively known “hack” among GTD practitioners.)

In GMail, you can create a filter for all messages from you and apply a label, say “Waiting for.” To do this, click on “Create a filter” to the right of the search field, enter your e-mail address into the “From:” field, go to the “Next Step,” and select to “Apply the label.”

In other e-mail clients, open your rules dialogue window, mark the condition as the “From” field with your e-mail address in it, assign a category (color or label, whichever your client offers), and finish the prompts.

I suggest you review the content of the assigned label or category every morning to see the statuses. If you reasonable waiting time has passed, simply make a to-do item in your favorite task manager to follow up. If a reply has been received, act on it accordingly.

The Bookstore of Tomorrow

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 01:31:00 +0000

After Seth Godin made a big announcement that he would not publish any more books, the debate about the future of book publishing has come back to life for another couple of weeks. The main point is whether bookstores as we know them will cease to exist taking along the way the culture of reading in comfy chairs sipping on coffee and whatnot to make way for digital book readers & book shopping on computers or on-the-go from Internet-connected devices.

Well, if the bookstore reading culture is such a major thing how about making an effort to preserve it while adjusting to the new conditions? There is almost always a compromising way unless the old system is absolutely broken. In this case, it is the business model not the experience that has problems, so here’s what I’d like to see happen:

The Market

Bookstore as a business where people come to buy books will disappear. Same thing will happen to libraries as repositories of old books. Instead, the two will merge in community learning centers where people rent, buy, or read books as well as engage in all kinds of educational activities. It will not surprise me if audio & video will also be distributed there.

Publishers will just have to accept the changing rules of the game. When Amazon decides to open its first digital learning center (joined by any B&M bookseller), they will have little say. Currently, they are the gatekeepers between authors and printers, and the middle men tend to disappear as distribution comes closer to producers.

The Experience

Shelves will be used only to display the latest releases from publishers as well as self-published books from authors with enough acclaim or who paid for the prominent positioning. The display may even well be just electronic images of covers instead of physical objects.

In order to get a book, a person would bring an e-reader to the cover and a contact-less scanner (either an RFID or a QR-code-like) will recognize the book and download it onto the e-reader. Once the download completes, the person will have the option to rent, check out, or buy the book depending on the licensing. Reading within the building will be free and controlled by some positioning technology.

Libraries would be replaced with computer research stations with e-reader connectivity and most space will be converted into quiet reading spaces & interactive classrooms. This will allow library staff to focus on helping with research.

The Business Model

It’s true that the printing industry will suffer the most from this new fully-digital system, but it will also bring new money-making possibilities. Libraries may be privatized and converted to the freemium model where some services will be free and other will require a fee.

I think that the best revenue model will include free renting (checking out) of books older than, say, 9 months, a membership fee to get the latest releases, and an on-site café. These educational centers will also have the ability to rent out classrooms to private groups and to charge for classes. The competition will be focused around additional activities (tutoring, lectures, films, etc.), equipment availability, staff professionalism, and probably food quality.

The main benefit to both publishers (who will probably become a mix of literature marketers & copyright managers) & authors will be the new “literature-as-a-service” model where learning centers will pay ongoing license subscription fees to the book catalogs. This way out of print books can still bring revenue. Continuing the analogy with the software industry, authors are likely to make more money in this case. However, I am not an expert in pricing & revenue distribution in that industry so I may be wrong.

So that’s my vision of tomorrow’s bookstore. Funny thing is that it’s not revolutionary. All of these strategies have already been tested in other industries. The only “innovation” is the distribution channel but it’s here already so we just need to wait for it to become commonplace.

Promoting Nightlife (and Other Businesses)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 03:26:00 +0000

Last Saturday was my first real outing in NYC. I moved to DC before I turned 21, and every time I’ve visited since then I came for specific events. This time my plans fell through and I found some friends who were just hanging out in Greenwich Village (Bleecker Street area, to be precise).

By the time I met with my friends, they got out of a concert where a band they know had played and were deciding where to continue drinking. Turns out, it’s common for New York bars to have a live band and to charge an entrance fee. As we walked down the street, looking for the next place to hit, every doorman/promoter would say, “Yeah, we got cover but it’s a live band and they’re good”. You know, it’s marketing 101: you must differentiate yourself from competition otherwise the market becomes commoditized (i.e. lowest price wins customers).

Music is a matter of taste, and even if I like blues I will not go to any blues joint to listen to a random performer unless I know that either the performer is good or the venue has only good performers. Notice that both of the reasons require some existing intent to attend a live performance. However, if people want to do something else (aka get wasted) they could care less about the music. That’s still marketing 101: know your target market & adjust the message for the audience.

So what can these venues do in order to meet their targets on sales & filled seats? Here are some strategy examples (in no particular order) that require hard work but they bring huge returns:

Create & maintain a reputation. It doesn’t matter whether you are the place with the largest whisky selection, cheapest beers, best music, sophisticated crowd, or naked bartenders as long as you are unique. When you are known for something that draws people, you don’t have to make much effort to bring new customers from the street – word of mouth will do it for you as long as have that gem.
Delegate promotion to someone capable. Unless you have PR access to major outlets or your own Rolodex you won’t be able to reach many people. Instead, you can invite a performer with a large following or hire a promoter with a large contact list. If you so desire to do it yourself, the best ways to compensate is to run paid ads on any platform with demographic targeting or to do search engine marketing (aka paid search results).
If you do charge a cover fee, make sure to give something in return. Going out is expensive already in drinks, food, and transportation. Although a cover fee seems logical from the business perspective, it adds to the cost & prevents people from coming and spending the rest of their budget. The only way to justify it is to offer some additional benefits, such as lower prices, better entertainment, or anything else of value to your target visitors.
Know the public & adjust your message hourly. This is basic marketing. You can’t be selling shampoo to a bald guy. In the beginning of the night, it’s OK to advertise your live performance. As the time progresses, people’s needs & wants change. They become thirsty, hungry, or in need of the toilet. If you know the public, you can manipulate them easily. You are there every day as it is, so take advantage of that.

The funny thing is that these strategies are the same for all kinds of businesses. The difference is only in the execution because different target markets use different communication channels. So find those channels by talking to your existing customers & good luck brining the new ones!

My Birthright - תגלית

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:02:00 +0000

Since the week past was short on anything exciting, I decided to finish my Israel trip recap. Ironically, it is basically 2 months since it had begun. Better late than never.

This was not a leisure trip (as in a vacation). It was a semi-educational program called Birthright in English and Taglit (תגלית - Discovery) in Hebrew sponsored by the rich philanthropic brethren. The trip is free but the catch is that it's open only to 18-27 year old Jews, space is limited, and one trip per person. My application was accepted on the third attempt, so to say I was excited to go doesn’t come even close to describe my high spirits.

I wanted to go on the trip expecting only to refresh my memories because I had been to Israel when I was 10 (we spent some two months visiting relatives and touring the country). I thought my childhood memories were vivid enough. Little did I know how much my view of the world has changed after almost 9 years in the USA.

The Awesome

When people ask me what I enjoyed the most on the trip, it seems they expect to hear about some spiritual experience or seeing something incredible. Well, the whole thing about visiting Israel is a spiritual activity and there are plenty of fascinating things to see there. I loved the two planned physical activities we had.

First, it was the descent from the Masada fortress, a 2-thousand-year-old military complex built by Herod the Great on top of a 400m (1,200ft.) rock in the middle of the desert not far from the Dead Sea. It is known for being the site of one of the few mass Jewish suicides in order to prevent being enslaved. However, my experience had nothing to do with history. There was something refreshingly exciting and empowering in realizing that you can run for over a mile down a narrow winding rocky path in some 100F weather in sandals while balancing a day pack and a camera bag. The real test of primal survival instincts kick in when you are at the bottom of the mountain, you see the visitors’ center, but the path you are on clearly doesn’t lead there and there’s nobody to ask for directions because you are in the middle of a frigging desert. Though cell phones had good signal, we managed to find the way back without using them.

The other one was rafting down the Jordan River. To be honest, that was my first rafting experience and I have not rowed any boats in almost 10 years. The Jordan is a very narrow river (18-20ft wide where we were) and its banks are full of trees and bushes that grow too low over the water and sometimes in the water providing additional physical exercise of ducking and bending while avoiding being hit with branches and snags. The fun ended relatively quickly as my first boat ended up colliding with one of the snags precisely into an old patch. Luckily, there was one last boat behind us so a 5-people crew became a 10-people crowd with four oars, which sort of eased avoiding further dangers and ensured our safe arrival.

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The Enchanting

As I’ve said, there is plenty of sightseeing to do in Israel. Its diverse nature is mindboggling especially when you realize that it’s about the same size as New Jersey (not that the Garden State is uniform). Israel has almost all types of terrain – deserts, forests, plains, mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas – and that’s without getting into subtypes. I realized it will be impossible to capture it all in photographs during our ride from the airport to Jerusalem, so I simply enjoyed it for 10 days. Besides, nowadays all I need is to enter the location into an online image search and get plenty of views to show where I’ve been.

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The Addicting

I’ve liked hummus before but eating it 2-3 times a day for a week made me a total addict. For the last 3 days, our hotel did not have it for some reason and, boy, I was not pleased. In the USA, hummus is apparently considered a delicacy despite its simple ingredients: chick peas, olive oil, sesame seed paste (tahini), and flavor additives (salt, pepper, nuts, etc). This special status results in sky-high prices of $8 per pound in my local Safeway (I’m scared to think what it costs at WholeFoods). Luckily, the DC Costco offers it for half the price.

The new bug though was Edward Maya’s single Stereo Love. The producer & the song are just beginning to take over the DC nightlife but in Israel it was everywhere. Listen to it and you will understand its magic (hint: it’s the accordion).

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The Funny

My collection of ridiculous & embarrassing moments grew significantly within literally 5 minutes. First, when riding camelback at a fake Bedouin camp (it’s a well-maintained tourist attraction) I felt someone lightly pulling my backpack, which was strange as I was in the back. It turned out the camel behind me decided to try a new snack. Luckily, it hadn’t gotten far and the damage was limited to some smelly saliva & shrub remains. Though the worst was yet to come.

You see, the camp is on top of a hill in the middle of the desert and that afternoon was extra-windy. As we have discovered, when you are riding camelback in a windy desert the moisture you feel on your legs is not water from an oasis. Yes, it’s camel pee. Well, it wasn’t as bad as it could sound but it was definitely unpleasant to realize that sweat & dust were the least of my troubles.

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The Annoying

The one thing I hated the most about Israel was how slow it is compared to the USA. The amount of time we spent in lines is unimaginable (including 2-hour check-in on the flight back). This sluggishness is omnipresent even at the busiest of times, which is very strange because Israelis are stereotyped as highly impatient. Here’s my theory: the Hebrew equivalent of “come on” is “bikitzer”; compare that to “hold on a minute” “regah”. Striking difference, isn’t it?

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The Shocking

The most upsetting thing happened the night before last in Israel. A small group of us was coming back from an outing in Tiberius waterfront on Saturday evening when I saw a yarmulke-wearing cleanly dressed man in his early forties with a large plastic bag going through a trashcan looking for empty bottles & cans. This activity immediately brought the memories from my childhood in Belarus of elderly people doing the same in order to have supplemental income to their beggarly pensions.

It wasn’t the first person I’ve seen scavenging through garbage since I left Belarus. It wasn’t the first person I’ve seen in Israel scavenging through garbage. It was the first person who looked like he had no other choice I’ve seen scavenging through garbage. It was the end of my Israel fairy-tale because in a country with such a strong welfare safety net & a developed charity network there cannot be decent people scavenging through garbage.

I could have done or said something and I didn’t. I’m not upset at myself because I never give money as alms (I prefer to donate my time, which I value more). But I am upset at everyone else in the street who could have seen that for not doing anything about the country & the system that drives people to such extreme survival.

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The Disgusting

There was one aspect of the trip that made almost the whole group’s stomachs turn – politics. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a shocker that a program called “Birthright” would contain a fair amount of pro-immigration & pro-Zionism activities. We did not like the Soviet-style execution of those activities. The prolonged speeches glorifying the state of Israel delivered to tourists and the pointless symbolic actions with mandatory attendance for all program participants created unmistakable parallels with the Soviet Union.

Our apogee of this nonsense happed on the third day. It was the day when an incredible event created in the minds of Birthright management took place: they decided that all groups would march for 1km all over the country to symbolize something. Our group was assigned to Lod, a town famous for having a sizable Arab population. Guess where we were marching! That’s right: through a mostly Arab neighborhood! with Israeli flags! almost 200 young people from the Americas! chanting some songs in Hebrew and English! What the hell were the organizers thinking?

Personally, I didn’t care much about the march because my mind was jumping between my sandals rubbing my feet, my freshly-scraped leg (a story on its own), and the lax security at a mass event. However, my less-forgiving & more content-aware peers were quite vocal in expressing their dissatisfaction.

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The Aftermath

Obviously, the trip was a life-changer for me. It didn’t change my love for Israel as a foreign country or myself as a Jew. It changed my view of Israel as a possible immigration destination. I had considered moving there a couple of years ago but I wanted to refresh my memories. Now, that I have seen the present-day Israel, I would not want to move there though it’s a great vacation destination.

Weekly Accomplishments – Two Month Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 04:07:00 +0000

This idea of doing weekly records of things done & achieved turned out to be much harder than I expected. This hiatus came about because I had been on a 2-week trip to Israel only to come back to a huge event planning mission followed by a festival. So, without further ado the crazy things:

I finally got accepted to go on a Birthright Israel trip with a barely 3-week notice, which resulted in the end of April being spent rearranging my project schedule and getting ready. The “vacation” was May 6-17 but I spent another couple of weeks after it catching up on my business & news reading. I have been working on a separate post about the experience so stay tuned.
Upon return, my DC crowd informed me that our plan to have public viewing of FIFA World Cup games on June 12 was coming along so I joined what was known as Soccer in the Circle where I took care of my usual duties: drafting messages, monitoring social networks, and making random connections resulting in huge benefits. The end result was not really surprising after our snowball fight: we estimate the highest number of viewers present at once to be close to 3,000 people and total attendance to be at 5,000 people. England-USA game was probably the first time I felt proud of being a US citizen (I had been happy & excited about that before) because the feeling of unity was simply incredible.
Digital Capital Week, the first technology culture festival in DC, took place June 11-19. I managed to attend almost every party & happy hour, half a dozen panels, and volunteer as event staff & a social media consultant for a local farmers' market. The main takeaways were the usual a stack of business cards & face time with people who are hard to find otherwise. The festival as a whole had its hits and misses, but it was the first time an event of such purpose took place in DC and many things were experimental, so I’m hoping for an even better next year.
I spent the majority the last week mobilizing people to nominate me for MTV’s search for its first Twitter Jockey. I am not going to comment on the process until the final contestants are announced, but I learned that it is much harder to get friends to do simple things than it seems. The results will be known by July 6.
And as a follow-up from earlier days, my N85 had been to service twice with no success to fix the notorious “SIM card registration failed”/“Insert SIM card” issue. Nokia’s quality assurance department finally replaced the device last week and the new one has been working fine for the last two days.

Pop Culture vs. Zeitgeist

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 16:53:00 +0000

As I dove head first into MTV’s search for the first Twitter Jockey, I began wondering what pop culture is and how well I know it. I have never been up to date with the hottest music, movies, or fashion. Celebrity gossip has never been a source of entertainment for me nor was I obsessed with it. However, I have always been up to date with the current news and trends in lifestyle & technology.

So what is pop culture to me? Well, I don’t want to go deeply into the academic & dictionary definitions but something is necessary to limit the argument. Thus, I see culture as an evolving collection of everything and anything in our lives created by us that define & unify us as a group of people throughout our existence. And pop culture to me is simply a snapshot of that collection adopted by the majority of people at a point of time (usually a generation). I think it is criminal to limit pop culture to only a few of the elements (such as only music, movies, and literature) because our lives are not described by only this or only that but everything working together.

Some people might have noticed that my definition of pop culture is very similar to zeitgeist. Well, honestly, I think they are the same unless, of course, you want to use “pop culture” to describe specifically low-impact cultural phenomena like NSYNC. And, as I’ve said above, that makes no sense because culture is bigger than these short-term fads. However, fads & memes are an important part of zeitgeist as they define very specific short periods of time that take a special place in the hearts of people exposed to them.

And so, by my definitions, I am well-versed in the popular culture. Convenient, isn’t it? Well, the funny thing is that when my views are applied to most people who don’t live under a rock it comes out that they know pop culture, too. There is no way to be an expert in it just because it’s so large. One can be a trivia expert on celebrity gossip, rock music, abstract art, fantasy literature, etc. But the important thing is how that person impacts that section of culture and how much value they bring into it.

All philosophy aside, MTV is accepting nominations for the 2 publicly open spots in Twitter Jockey search until 11:59PM EDT on June 27 (tomorrow). Please nominate me and follow me on Twitter (@dnbrv)! I believe that I can be the best online spokesperson & be incredibly useful for the audience with my diverse views. I’ve got a Facebook page, too.

Social Matchbox – Spring 2010

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Mon, 03 May 2010 04:27:00 +0000

I spent last Thursday night at the Spring 2010 edition of Social Matchbox, a semi-regular gathering of DC-area startup community where some companies launch and others get limelight. This time there were 10 presenters broken up in 2 equal sessions with networking time in around them. While the official event recap (with pictures) is available on their blog, below are some of my personal notes about the products & companies(in the order they presented).

Presentation-wise nobody was anywhere close to decent. Presenters either had horrible slide decks or lacked passion. So unless I point something out it is safe to assume that the presentation was poop.

ShoutReel

These guys are working to create a new forum platform. Their key selling point is that any forum can be embedded on any site and accessed with one login. The money-making side of the business is enterprise solutions, but they are yet to define their niche. From my understanding, ShoutReel can take the space between corporate-oriented microblogging platforms & customer-feedback systems. But the space is very narrow and they need to start working on the marketing copy & tailoring to the paying customers ASAP (the product already works well enough).

Official event notes

CouplesSpark

The idea here might seem interesting – a semi-anonymous relationship issues advice forum – I had a strong feeling that this may have been tried already. (Coincidentally, Killer Startups featured Arguments and Answers on Friday.) While I would appreciate solicited independent advice on my relationship, I have a whole bunch of issues with such a service: privacy of askers (the service is the same as showing the dirty laundry & there’s an option to show the names) and the advice quality (the Internet is full of trolls who are looking for opportunities to defame others anonymously). I am also not so sure about financial viability because I don’t believe that ads alone can pay all the bills & other value-added services (analytics/expert opinion/etc) must be tested with a broad sample of potential customers.

Official event notes

Heliograph

This one made me go “Wow” and I was able to pick up my jaw from the floor only at Q&A. The product (I can’t call it a company yet because I don’t see them branching out much) allows websites to load faster by using a network of servers all over the world and some compression technology. Once the smoke from the hot performance numbers & stellar (albeit absolutely passion-less) presentation settled, the ugly truth came out. First, the technology cannot really be patented because Heliograph is not the first mover (in fact, there are 2 or 3 other competitors). Second, the pricing, at least in my opinion, is off the wall: $39/mo. for the cheapest plan on top of the regular hosting fees. I need to see ROI numbers before I believe in the success of that price because smaller e-commerce players might not win this much and the larger ones have enough resources to create such a system in-house. However, this price is significantly less than what Heliograph’s competition charges so I might be wrong in my conclusions.

Official event notes

Replyz

The problem is simple here (it’s as old as the Internet itself): leveraging the world knowledge to find the right answers to questions. They pull questions out of Twitter for now and will somehow get them answered. That “somehow” puts the whole concept viability under a huge question. In addition, I don’t see much difference between it and any of the existing QA services because all depend on experts participation.

Official event notes

Ringio

They won the Founder’s Award (i.e. received most votes from past participants), which came as a surprise to me. Ringio is a cloud-based phone exchange (PBX) that integrates customer relations (CRM) features. Despite taking the full 5 minutes of the allotted time and not being done, they still didn’t prove their value proposition to me. From what I understood, the unique thing they do is pulling up the CRM information automatically while the phone is ringing by matching caller ID to records, which they name “rich calling”. This saves a couple of seconds per call (i.e. instead of saying, “Could you please hold on while I pull up your account information?”). The only real benefit I saw was routing sales calls to lead owners, which is great when there are no direct numbers. They are also planning to integrate social media streams into the CRM to have some personal connection with customers (I’m not so sure that anyone would like a random customer service rep reference the latest tweets during a call – that’ll be creepy).

Official event notes

Cardagin Networks

This was the most passionate presentation of them all. It’s always a pleasure to see founders who are truly excited about their companies & products because they present solutions to their own problems. So “Card-again” is a mobile application that digitizes store loyalty cards solving several problems along the way: 1) customers never forget their loyalty cards; 2) store owners save money on printing and managing paper cards; 3) store owners get access to business intelligence about their customers they had never had before. I had mixed reactions to this one for personal reasons: I’m excited about business use of QR codes, but I’m somewhat upset because this is a partial competitor for one of my ideas. Keep your eyes open for this one because they will be getting a lot of publicity in the next year.

Highlight of the presentation: the public was in disbelief when during the Q&A the presenter told that Foursquare is crap because it’s only popular in barely half-a-dozen large cities.

Official event notes

Starfish Retention Solutions

All I can say is that it’s a great product with a great mission. SRS makes an analytics system that helps identify students with poor academic performance before they are put on academic probation & eventually drop out. The system helps more people get education and helps schools get more revenue by keeping more people enrolled. I had one unclear point: involvement of social networks, which turned out to be inattentive listening on my part – there are social networking elements for connecting students with help, but no privacy-violating integration with social networks.

Official event notes

WebTaps

I’ll be blunt: this is one of the worst products I’ve seen. They are trying to bring the Internet surfing to TVs. I could understand custom firmware or a small home-theater-PC type box, but all they do is a Mozilla-based browser for regular computers with an integrated on-screen keyboard that needs a mouse to be controlled. Their perceived edge is in the presence of HDTVs & their ability to bring Hulu into the living room. They also claim their on-screen keyboard to be revolutionary so they are patenting it (software patents are a sign of idiocy in my book). I honestly can’t believe that someone nominated & voted for them to present.

Official event notes

Where Mark

Yet another entrant to the augmented reality game, which has become rather popular with the introduction of iPhone. It does the typical matching of the physical world with online streams of data (no fancy mash-ups noted). The edge is in harnessing the power of social connections on Facebook for targeted location-based advertisement. I didn’t get the novelty from their presentation and the website has no concrete info on anything. Another downside is that a Facebook account is required to take advantage of all features (saving & sharing locations). When I asked why only Facebook, they replied because it’s the only 400,000,000-members-strong social network out there, which makes no sense to me.

Official event notes

CardStar

This company has gotten its fair share of coverage in iPhone publications. They make a program that replaces all barcode-based store club cards with an on-screen barcode. The software also has the ability to pull relevant store coupons and collect some business intelligence. CardStar has some competition brushing points with Cardagin, but I frankly don’t see them evolving much beyond what they already do.

Official event notes

P.S. I also got my limelight by asking too many tough questions – random people asked me during the networking time how I come up with them. The secret sauce is simple: listen to what is being said and filter it through your current knowledge.

Striptease Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 20:51:00 +0000

A friend who has some traditional marketing background asked me to explain to her how social media marketing is different. While I was giving the usual talk about conversation, participation, and involvement, I realized that SMM is very similar to striptease because the purpose of both is to give a “preview” of skills & abilities in order to produce a paying customer:

Exotic dancers prove their abilities with teasing and seducing, while the conversation in SMM is there to establish the subject expertise.
Strip club patrons order private dances from the performers they like, and the end result of a good blog/promo/conversation is the purchase of a product/service offered.
Both require a relatively cheap though time consuming exposure to the public in order to make a sale.

I think this is the easiest way to explain what social media marketing is all about besides the conversation. Is there?

Made Up “Holidays”

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 02:00:00 +0000

Had we lived in the Soviet Union, today would've been a great holiday (140 years since Lenin's birth). Instead, we have an equally important celebration Earth Day. We are taking so many things for granted that we have to make up "holidays" in order to appreciate simple joys. Why can't every day be an Earth Day? A mother's day? A father's day? A sibling day? A lovers' day? Your favorite old jeans day? A whatever-you-think-is-underappreciated day?

We don’t need this commercialization. We need a conscience. Wake it up by smiling in the morning to a random stranger who seems down on a sunny day, by cleaning after yourself so that the person after you could appreciate the same, by calling your loved ones and telling them how you feel, by telling the whole world what you are thankful for! There are plenty of choices – the move is yours – do what your heart not calendar tells you is right!

Weekly Accomplishments (Apr 12-18)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 04:21:00 +0000

I took most of the previous week off to catch up on reading and to plan out some personal projects for the upcoming summer. Originally, it was supposed to be a 2-3 week break from work but I got some exciting news on Wednesday that made me change the plans (including cancelling the vacation) and put some things off until mid-May. This is inconvenient but some opportunities must not be missed. Nonetheless, I still did some productive things:

I attended the GWU Summit on Entrepreneurship and its main event The GWU Business Plan Competition that took place on Thursday & Friday. In addition to bouncing off my latest ideas off some established business people, I got to see what kind of business plans made it to the semi-finals and later finals. In short, the competition really needs to improve its rules next year and potential contestants need to take Effective Slides 101.
The cool thing about the competition was that the audience was allowed to ask questions if the judges ran out of them. I seized the moment and asked some very pesky questions. As a result, a number of random people (mostly judges from previous stages) commended me on them during the receptions. Now, I am contemplating asking to be a judge next year (though I gotta build up some serious credentials, first).
On Saturday, I dropped by the first public brainstorming session for the upcoming Digital Capital Week, a 10-day festival celebrating the DC tech community & promoting technology solutions to many issues organized by my friends at iStrategyLabs & Shiny Heart Ventures. It was great to see people with many different goals that need tech input coming together. It seems to me that the main themes will be learning DC, solving social & medical issues, bridging the digital divide, and patronizing arts & creativity.
This note is just one of the many that I’ll be posting in the upcoming weeks promoting the event because I’m very excited about it. I am already involved (I signed up as a pro bono teacher & consultant) and I want you everyone else to find a project that seems interesting to them – there are plenty to choose. If nothing is of interest, create your own!

Weekly Accomplishments (Apr 5-11)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 03:42:00 +0000

The good:

A panel discussion between GWU alumni “Confessions of an Entrepreneur: Passions to Profit” where I got some puzzled looks for applauding a presenter who said that he doesn’t use business plans. Luckily, Ed Barrientos (CEO of Brazen Careerist & a GWU alumnus) supported my views during the Q&A/comments session, which ended up rather interestingly since to most students this concept is still foreign. I guess it’ll be a while before lean startup
Bootstrap Maryland 2^nd annual conference where I volunteered to save on the ticket and get some extra time with organizers & presenters. Well, I didn’t really get the extra time with presenters because they were so popular. Now, I’ve got to get their attention on Twitter or at other events. Nonetheless, I did meet a whole bunch of interesting people and got great advice & feedback on my current ideas.
Discussed the reasons for my application having been rejected from DreaIt Ventures. As I expected, it was a combination of the weak team (myself at the moment) & tough potential competition in the market (solvable by good market positioning & luck). It’s good to know that my self-assessment is on the right track. Now, I need to persuade others that the idea is achievable.

The bad:

I had to call in for service on my Nokia N85 for sporadic and abundant notifications of various SIM card issues, which had been occurring for a couple of weeks. Since all DIY fixing failed and the warranty is about to expire, I had no other choice. I shipped it off today and hoping for the best. A $400 phone should not die after 11 months of use. Kudos to Nokia for making it somewhat easy to send the device for service despite the whole experience being far from pleasant.
Got into a huge argument with a group of friends over a link to non-flattering article about one of them that I sent without a comment. They didn’t believe that I had not intended to be offensive, and I received a rather smelly poop-sling into my face (figuratively speaking, of course). Lesson learned: do not send anything controversial with no comments – too much explaining to do later.

Weekly Accomplishments (Mar 22-Apr 4)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:53:00 +0000

Yet another two-week summary. This time it’s not because there was nothing going on, but because there was too much.

The main event was my employer’s relocation to a different office. Although we moved just 2 blocks away, we still had to pack & unpack everything. As for me, I had the fun task of being all by myself for 3 days working 10 hours each first organizing movers, then working with the new phone vendors, and then setting up our LAN. As a result, I was too exhausted to write anything and even had to skip a friend’s birthday party past weekend to catch up on sleep and reading. The party was weekend-long in a beach house. Yeah…
In the personal affairs, I did quite a few things to update and improve my online presence & identity. I updated some items in my LinkedIn profile, combined feeds from all of my blogs into a single FeedBurner feed, and bought www.denisbaranov.com with hosting from DreamHost. FYI, this topic will dominate my April as I have some ideas in the working.
Also, over the last weekend I began studying web coding in order to make a couple of personal projects and to be able to create at least half-assed prototypes of my web-apps. I’m doing this a couple of years later than I should have done, so it’s almost a crash course for me – it’s not only learning syntax but also getting my head back to process logic thinking. Luckily, I found 2 amazing tools that sooth the code writing pain: development environment Eclipse (it’s greatest web-coding component Aptana Studio) and a cool HTML authoring tool KompoZer. All are free, so try them to fall in love.

Weekly Accomplishments (Mar 15-21)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:50:00 +0000

On Monday, March 15, I attended to the strangely-named “Lonely Hearts” happy hour. Despite the name suggesting matchmaking, it was a get-together for DC techies who didn’t go to South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, TX. As I expected, only 5 people including me showed up, but it was mostly blamed on the short notice announcement. The event ended up being a discussion of the things missed at the festival and some general geek-talk about the current trends and projects.
The sorta monthly (we skipped February) dinner of the DC Sandbox Network & friends took place on March 16. Kudos to Paul Gleger and Dan Nechita for finding a great place – Mai Thai restaurant. It was good to catch up with some old friends and to meet prospective members over great Thai food & the Caps beating the Panthers. Though, personally, I think that Sandbox is accepting too many career-minded rather than entrepreneurial people.
Friday brought the end of the ISP nightmare I had been living at my day job. After almost 2 weeks of fruitlessly trying to find out the installation date from Comcast, we cancelled the order and ordered through a smaller reseller. Despite us ordering just one week prior to move-in, they managed to step it up and make the order their top priority. Honestly, I don’t believe in small telecom resellers because they often lack the resources for adequate support, but in the case of Cavalier I’m pleasantly surprised. Comcast failed us badly – even the famed Twitter Executive Support Team didn’t help much (they lost $400/mo.).
And I finally visited my parents up in Brooklyn (haven’t been there since last Thanksgiving) over the weekend. I was supposed to relax, eat mama’s freshly-cooked food, and do my reading, but I ended up translating some technical docs for an export project and doing a last-minute application for a startup incubator. Well, at least I got to play good ol’ Unreal Tournament 2004 on my brother’s 24” screen with 30 bots on all settings maxed out to relieve the stress. =)

Weekly Accomplishments (Mar 1-14)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 04:36:00 +0000

The last couple of weeks have been slow in terms of action, but exciting in terms of other things. Hence, the summary is for two weeks instead of one.

I have not been going out (neither entertainment nor networking) much lately as I am trying to catch up with some startup management reading. However, on March 6, I managed to attend a happy hour with the Startup Visa & Lean Startup folks (including Eric Ries) who were in DC for lobbying activities. Despite the late hour and the bar setting, I managed to meet some interesting people, such as David Binetti of 2gov (a company that monitors Twitter chatter for political issues, prepares, and sends the summaries to elected officials based on the ZIP Code affiliation of users) and Nic Perez of ChumBonus (a company that allows people to collect referral bonuses on successful hires even if they don’t work for the employer). I also caught up with some people I know from other DC events.
All of my instant messengers have been off since about March 9. I did it as an experiment to see whether my productivity would increase because I noticed that I had been spending too much time chatting about nothing productive with some people instead of reading or doing something more useful. Well, I can safely say that the experiment is going well. Whoever needed me has sent me e-mails or other personal messages. This way I do not feel obligated to respond right away (even though often enough my AD/HD takes over and I do it). Though judging from the volume of material I have read in the last week, it is still better than IMing.
Finally, I shaped an idea planted by an acquaintance a couple of months ago into a feasible and possibly-hopefully highly successful business. Now, I am trying to divide my time between my regular routine and trying to find industry connections to test my assumptions. Hence, if you know anyone in data mining, market research, opinion polling, or anything related to measuring and predicting the demand for consumer goods, I would like you to contact me by any means with the leads.
Some suggestions where such people could work: manufacturing conglomerates (3M, ConAgra, General Mills, Proctor & Gambler, Kimberly Clark, Johnson & Johnson), retailers (Safeway, A&P, CVS, Walmart, Costco), consulting firms (BCG, McKinsey & Co., The Big Four auditors).
To the curious ones: the business is a shopping management service that allows to predict the demand for specific goods easily, cheaply, and quickly based on demographics and geography. The pay model is B2B2C.

Weekly Accomplishments (Feb 22-28)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:50:00 +0000

The biggest accomplishment of last week was solving my first American crossword puzzle. I’ve attempted to solve some back in the day, but gave eventually gave up even trying because most clues are based not on the “trivial” knowledge, but on the author’s convoluted associations between words. A co-worker of mine who was servicing a conference for a client had nothing better to do but to entertain herself with a puzzle in Express newspaper (a DC local). So when I substituting her for a lunch break she left me to ponder some of the quizzes. Where my mental ability betrayed me, faithful Google was there to help bringing a successful solution.
Wednesday had another first time. This one was the first GWU alumni event I attended in that capacity. I’ve tried to make some before but it never seemed to work out with time. Overall, it was uneventful since it was a general happy hour for young alumni (graduates in the last 10 years). Nonetheless, it was obviously pleasant to see some old acquaintances and catch up with them.
The weekend was my “catch up with the expiring Hulu queue” time. I watched The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982 musical comedy), Blues Brothers 2000 (the 1998 sequel), and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (the 1998 cult classic).
Out of the three, I liked BB2K the most for the amazing music & abundance of witty gags. TBLWIT was funny at times, but the plot lacked dynamics. F&LILV left me wondering who covered the damages to the hotel rooms and how they didn’t get busted since it’s based on real events.

Weekly Accomplishments (Feb 15-21)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:06:00 +0000

This week I unified my “official” online identity to dnbrv. I’ve been thinking about that move for a while as my old Twitter handle @denisbaranov was a bit too long. I have used dnbrv for good 6 months now and I got to like it. It’s a rather unique combination of letters, so it’s much easier to monitor and it’s based on my name. Thus, please update your bookmarks if necessary to my new Twitter, this blog, and my LinkedIn profile. Out of the other services, I will only change my Skype ID but I'm still deciding on it since Skype doesn't allow 5-character usernames.
On Saturday, February 20, I attended Social Commerce Camp DC (SCCDC), my first in a long time professional social media event. Briefly, it was cool to meet industry colleagues and to hear some interesting case studies. I would love to go into more detail, but I’m saving the juicy stuff for a dedicated post, which should be done tomorrow (I’m waiting for the links to all slide decks shown). In the meantime, check out some of my tweets about the event and what everyone else had to say.

Downed Tree on 17th St NW

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:58:45 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Downed Trees at National Geographic Society Headquarters on 16th St NW

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:58:32 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Downed Tree on K St NW Being Cut by DC Services

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:58:12 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Downed Tree on K St NW outside Farragut North Metro

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:57:46 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Thank You, Brave Pioneers!

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:50:07 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Why were people supposed to walk the path? See the same block after Smowmageddon

So Where am I Supposed to Cross the Street?

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:49:31 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

16th St NW toward The White House

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:34:00 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Snowmageddon Feb 6, 2010. The White House is usually visible on the horizon.

17th St NW off Massachusetts Ave NW

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:33:37 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Snowmageddon Feb 6, 2010.

Massachusetts Ave NW toward Scott Circle

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:33:19 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Snowmageddon Feb 6, 2010, just ended. The tower on the horizon is Ascension & St Agnes Church at 12th and Mass (more than 6 blocks away).

Great Plowing

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:33:03 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

The mark of the plow who dumped the snow blocking the crosswalk is clearly visible. I wonder what that genious driver was thinking. Feb 7, 2010.

Who Cares about Pedestrians?

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:32:49 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Definitely not plow-truck drivers dumping all snow in crosswalks. Feb 7, 2010.

Who Can Find the Bus Stop?

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:32:33 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

DC drivers were complaining of bad traffic in the aftermath of the blizzards. City government was encouraging to use mass transit. How in the world could people board busses when plows dumped snow in bus stops?

Fallen Trees at NGC Headquarters on 16th St NW

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:32:18 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Another Snow Dump

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:32:00 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

This block is in the jurisdiction of National Park Service (it's a park with Daniel Webster monument), so I guess plow truck drivers think they can do anything like dumping 6 feet of snow on the crosswalk.

Another Owner-less Block

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:31:55 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Intersection of Rhode Island Ave NW, M St NW, and Connecticut Ave NW.

So Where am I Supposed to Cross the Street? Part Deux

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:31:41 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Intersection of Rhode Island Ave NW, M St NW, and Connecticut Ave NW that serves no other purpose, but be safe crossing spot is blocked until the snow melts.

Weekly Accomplishments (Feb 1-14)

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 03:33:00 +0000

I decided to try being accountable of my life and start documenting anything meaningful or significant that I accomplish each week. To do this I’ll note whatever I do each day and on Sundays I’ll pick 2-3 interesting things to go on the public record. This way I’m hoping to be more motivated to follow up on my own plans (simply stating them to the public doesn’t do much) and to keep my friends all over the world (and stalkers) in the loop of what I’m up to.

For the inaugural post I’m covering the first 2 weeks of February 2010 since some of the things I did crossed the weeks and because the 2 back-to-back snowstorms decreased the number of workdays. Without further ado, here’s the list:

Helped organize the historic and record-breaking (for DC) snowball fights on Feb 6 and Feb 10 in Dupont Circle. For the first one, I also was the organizer of the official after-party at One Lounge. The first snowball fight made all national and many international news for bringing over 2,000 people. The second one was much smaller (no more than 300 people) and gave the opportunity to cover it to other news outlets. (Disclosure: my friends own the venue and I consult them on social media marketing.)
Did my taxes for 2009 by myself. This is more of a personal accomplishment because for whatever reason many Americans are afraid of filing taxes by themselves. I can understand contractors and business owners (been there done that), but everyone else can easily do everything with 1040A, which includes most of the standard deductions (loan interests & pension funds). After struggling with Free File Fillable Forms (the system asked me for papers I should not have had), I struggled with Intuit’s Turbo Tax Online (it likes to upsell and show needless animations) but in the end managed to submit my tax returns online. Being a DC resident, I was lucky that Office of Tax and Revenue also offers free online filing, which took me barely 10 minutes to complete.
Photographed Art Soiree’s Single Valentine party at One Lounge on Valentine’s Day. I haven’t done any photo work at parties for several months and quite honestly I was worried a bit about the quality of the results. The photos haven’t been posted yet, so I won’t know for sure until some time next week. Though I’m content with killing two birds with one stone: the pictures will be used for promotion of both Art Soiree and for One Lounge. (Disclaimer: Tati & Sandro behind Art Soiree are also my friends.)

White-out on Massachusetts Ave

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:00:16 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

Snoverkill zero-visibility blizzard on Feb 10, 2010. DuPont Circle is usually visible at the end of the road.

Protester Van in DC

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:04:36 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

This is the van without the protester who allegedly even threw Molotov cocktails. Police closed K Street to both pedestrian and vehicular traffic in 1 block radius.

Taking on Established Competition

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:35:00 +0000

The chances that you can top a trusted provider on the very thing the provider is trusted for are slim indeed.
Instead, you gain converts by winning at something the existing provider didn't think was so important.

These are the last two sentences of Seth Godin's words of wisdom for Nov 12. To me, these words are very scary because we are building our start-up on the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) principles, which means that at launch our product will have far less functionality than the competitors. Building client-base with a less-capable product is much tougher on its own let alone in a market where some of the competitors have been for over five years. We will need to prove not only that our product is good but also why it is better than others since we are new guys with no street cred.

However, there is some encouragement in those words. If we correctly identified the weak points and our response is well-constructed, then we will cut out our share in the market. I really want to think so because we did notice some glaring issues across all of our competitors. Though only time will tell.

Office 2010 Starter Edition Invite

nobody@flickr.com (dnbrv) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:17:09 +0000

dnbrv posted a photo:

This is a screen grab of an e-mail sent out by Microsoft to current users of Office Live Workspaces inviting them to take a qualification survey for the upcoming beta testing of Office 2010 Starter Edition. The media have previously announced that it will be a free ad-supported edition of Office.

The Shots We Don’t Take

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 05:14:00 +0000

Lately Wayne Gretzky’s “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” has been my daily inspiration. This quote is especially relevant to running a startup, probably the riskiest of undertakings by a recent college graduate in this economy. Though I think it is getting abused when it is applied to every opportunistic situation out there.

Last week, I won a free roundtrip ticket to New Zealand through Air New Zealand’s promotional campaign on Twitter. One might think that it is an amazing opportunity to visit NZ. Well, it’s not as great as it seems.

It comes with some heavy costs and trade-offs. First, the great USA tax code requires me to pay the appropriate taxes on the non-monetary prize, which can be up to $600 if we go by the highest ARV of $1,700. Secondly, the prize covers the fare only from either Los Angeles or San Francisco, and I am on the East Coast adding at least another $400 to the trip. Thirdly, I do not know anyone in New Zealand and I have to look for accommodations instead of working on my startup. Finally, it is just one ticket so I need to find someone willing to accompany me on the trip and to spend over $2,000 on it.

Of course, had I been thinking of a trip to New Zealand in the near future, I would have definitely accepted the price. I could still save good $500 as opposed to buying the tickets on my own. Unfortunately, despite everything this prize came at a very inconvenient time as I cannot really go on a vacation during the first year of the startup (the tickets can be redeemed for a flight within the next 12 months) when I do not have a solid stream of income and my savings are just enough to survive if it all goes wrong.

So there you have it. I am giving up a shot at seeing New Zealand for almost free. I hope this is not the last opportunity for me to go there¹. It is still on my list of places to visit along with Atafu Atoll and I would love to see the Lord of the Rings scenery along with a good camera (another expense put on hold).

It does not mean that I am giving up an opportunity. It means that I am making a justified decision of passing it to someone else (a forfeited prize will be re-drawn) in order to avoid the obstacles in front of me and not to lose my momentum. Just like Gretzky, who is also the greatest hockey player of Belarusian decent, did not literally shoot every time he had a puck but passed it, too.

¹ - Every time I say, “I’ll visit it the next time,” I recall Labor Day 2001 when we did not visit WTC with my dad saying, “We’ll do it later. What can happen to them?”

Schedulr – My New Best Friend for Photo Sharing

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:20:00 +0000

In the four months I had been using flickr as my primary online photo sharing solution, I was yet to find the one and only software that would make uploading a one-step operation.

Since my photo collection resides in Windows Live Photo Gallery (a great simple tool for basic organization, by the way), the built-in flickr upload functionality was great had it not been for the lack of support for multiple sets, and editing of title/description/tags info. I had to upload pictures as private and then go to flickr to edit all the info, which took a lot of time because batch organization does not support adding same tags to multiple pictures.

Flickr’s own Uploadr seemed to resolve most of these issues. It supports drag and drop, batch editing of any info you wish, and upload to multiple sets. The only problem is that I still had to go to the website to add my freshly posted photographs to groups. Bummer.

Well, things changed yesterday thanks to my beloved Lifehacker. It made my life easier yet again. Adam Pash told about the new version of Schedulr, a third-party application that not only does batch uploading and processing, but also allows to schedule posting at a convenient time.

It has all the features I want and I really mean it. The ability to pick any groups before uploading is simply amazing. The application does not need to be installed, so I just put it into my Dropbox folder to make it accessible anywhere I want. The only downside is that scheduling is not a native feature and requires some basic tinkering with Windows Task Scheduler (instructions are provided on the download page). Now, that I am all set a new photograph is uploaded three times a day on the hour starting at midnight. So add me to your contacts on flickr or follow me on Twitter not to miss any.

Screenshots below.

Image Content Search: When Sci-Fi Becomes Reality and Anti-Utopia Knocks on the Door

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:32:00 +0000

Today is a great day for law enforcement and a bad day for careless young people. It is an even worse day for paranoid people, because today Google announced the search feature that will make it nearly impossible to hide online. Today, Google announced what they call “similar image search,” a handy feature for discerning between an image of a jaguar, the animal, and Jaguar, the car, as shown in their example. This is an extension of the previously released “color search.” In reality, the search giant showed the world that the processing power of its servers and its search algorithms are capable of analyzing image content and comparing sets of pixels. This means that eventually users will be able to upload a picture or select a part of a picture and search for “similar images.”

The implications of such a possibility are tremendous. People will be able to do anything with images from identifying blurred or unknown objects in any picture to finding embarrassing pictures of themselves, their friends, or co-workers to discovering people connected to suspects in investigations. This is not sci-fi anymore: Google has already introduced facial recognition and search in Picasa Web Albums, which currently limited only to individual accounts but global search most likely is not far away.

This brings the anti-utopia closer than ever. Bad guys will be looking for good guys and their loved ones. Employers and ill-wishers will be looking for compromising pictures. Spammers will be trying to trick search engines into showing their pictures with unsolicited messages. All of these situations are present in one form or another, and there is no need for a Crusade against Google or for a mass creation of tin-foil hats. Yet, it does not diminish the debate of whether Google is out there to dominate the world with its “anything and anyone can be found” capabilities.

Obviously, not everything is as bas as it seems. Privacy freaks can relax for now. It will be ages of legal debates before image indexing will be allowed into social networks. It will be also a huge business decision as nothing will cause more of an exodus from Facebook than allowing Google to make all pictures searchable by content. Of course, law enforcement agencies will eventually get some sort of courts-granted authorizations to index and search images looking for suspect connections, especially under the “national security” excuse. However, more petty crimes will get solved with such a tool available as small-scale criminals usually lack the sophistication to erase all traces. Nonetheless, the only time “crazy partying” photographs will face any danger of being exposed will be if they are posted in areas of websites that are not password protected (just like the current system of content indexing).

Similar image search is the first step toward probably the biggest government contract a private company will ever receive. I am sure that one of CIA’s investment companies has already provided a lot of capital to Google, but it was covert investing. This time Google stands a chance to receive open contracts to provide image searching services to all levels of law enforcement worldwide as this industry is the one that stands to gain the most out of such capabilities. Google can provide priority access to their servers and integrate law enforcement databases with such servers and across agencies. Such contracts can possibly a greater source of revenue than the advertising business. Thus, it makes a lot of sense to buy Google shares for long-term investment.

Electronic Explorations

noreply@blogger.com (Denis B) — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 04:45:00 +0000

Lately, I have been exploring new music for the first time in about 2 years. Last time that I remember I was checking out new performers was the summer of 2007 when I got introduced to the wonderful worlds of ska punk and folk punk through Gogol Bordello, Flogging Molly, and Streetlight Manifesto. The amazing beat and major (happy and exciting for music-terms challenged) tones made these bands and the similar ones my favorite Pandora station. Yet, even though these were new bands and new styles they still fell under the general definition of rock music, of which I had been a fan since early adolescence. This time, however, I am truly exploring a new type of music.

When I was in Belarus the past new year’s, one of the points of interest that I visited was the largest nightclub in Viciebsk called Energy located in a former factory. The night I was there was a so-called “Retro Night” when “resident” singers were doing cover performances of pop hits of ‘80s and ‘90s. Even though the songs brought memories of my childhood it was impossible to enjoy them because the performers were bad. My friends who knew the club invited me to join them in the electronic music hall, which was located in what looked like a former control room (as it turned out later many of the people who visit the club don’t even know about it). The first encounter with the modern club music turned out to be ambiguous: while I enjoyed the music played, it was too loud for the barely 2,000 square feet room.

Then just over a month ago Bi-2, a famous Russian rock band with roots in Belarus, came to DC as a part of their US tour. The tickets included entrance to the afterparty at a nearby club. Since I went to the concert with a group of friends who were planning to go there, I decided to join them (the no-cover entrance was the deal breaker). I was expecting to hear what I considered to be typical American club music consisting of hip-hop, reggae, and variations there of where lyrics came down to “Shake that booty”. To my surprise, the dance floor where the afterparty was taking place was playing electronic music. Not only I could enjoy listening to it, I even tried to dance a bit when my friends went to actually dance in between their drinking. At that point, a thought ran through my mind that the music might depend on the DJ and the crowd and that I had been to the “wrong” clubs before.

The next weekend there was another club party organized by one of the DC’s Russian promoters where Eastern European DJs were supposed to perform. I decided to check it out to confirm my thought that I could attend such events and have fun there (as my previous club experience was obviously far from enjoyable). Well, the theory turned out to be true. I heard music with major tones and barely any lyrics that I could care about. They even played some remixes of Nirvana and Depeche Mode, which surprisingly found positive feedback from the audience. On that day, I got a new obsession — I wanted to know as much about electronic music as I could.

My quest started at the websites of the Russian party organizers in DC. As I was looking through upcoming events, I came across some of the night mixes they made available for listening and downloading. As I listened to those recordings, I started to discern good quality tracks and mixing. However, I was completely deaf to the differences in styles unless it came down to the presence of lyrics (electro-pop is quite distinct after all). That’s where my buddy Arthur, a fan of trance, techno, and all things electronic, came to help by introducing me to Ishkur’s Guide to Electronic Music. The strange thing is that even after listening to some of the samples and reading style descriptions I am still struggling to discern trance from techno and house. It seems to me that the difference lies in beats per minute unlike instruments involved, tonality, and lyrics as it is the case in most other music genres. Yet, it is very easy to understand whether or not you like a performer because each of them has a unique style of ~~composing~~ mixing their tracks.

So far I liked Arnej, a Canadian DJ of Balkan heritage. What is unique to him so far is what sounds to me as canonical composition style with clear sections and the use of many samples to change the mood of the piece throughout its length while keeping a steady beat, a requirement for trance. Unfortunately, electronic DJs have just a handful of pieces so a full collection is very short, which becomes a problem when forming a taste for this music.

Any suggestions of artists and explanations of styles are welcome!

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