Thomas Keller, the chef behind landmark Napa Valley restaurant The French Laundry (as well as Per Se, Bouchon, etc.) recently gave a talk at Stanford where he shared his disgust with the common usage of the word “passion.”

In the above video he talks about the difference between passion and desire, and ultimately says it’s desire he looks for in aspiring chefs. “Passion ebbs and flows,” he asserts. “I mean have you ever had a relationship with somebody?”

Personal introductions always trump cold emails, but sometimes you may not have a connection or want to burden a friend. When such a case arrises, it’s quite useful to know how to figure out someone’s email address. Below are various tactics to do so.

1) Rapportive – Rapportive is a browser extension that shows additional information about the person you’re emailing. It begins searching for this additional information as soon as you type an email address in Gmail’s “to” field. As a result, one can often find a person’s actual email address by simply trying different email address formats in the “to” field until an address makes additional information appear.

Try using the following formats.
firstlast@company.com
first.last@company.com
first@company.com
firstinitiallast@company.com
etc.

For a personal email account, try the above formats ending with @gmail.com. If the person has their own website (search Google to see if they do), try using that domain as well. Another trick is to take the person’s username(s) from their social media accounts (e.g. “bigjohn” from twitter.com/bigjohn), and adding it to @personaldomain.com or @gmail.com.

Note: Make sure to be extra respectful/cautious when contacting someone through their personal account.

2) Whois Search – A whois search often reveals information about the person who registered a domain (including their email address). If the person you want to contact has a personal website, try entering it here: whois.chromefans.org

3) Company Email Address Formats – Many companies use the same email address format for all of their employees. There are two tools that can help you determine this format. Try searching for the person’s company on Emails4Corporations.com (use the search box in the upper right corner) and Toofr!.

4) Email Verifier – When you send an email to someone, the mail server looks for the MX records of the recipient’s domain, and then determines if the email username is valid. Using this same technique, services like VerifyEmailAddress.org will help you determine if an email address is valid.

5) Check Bios – Sometimes people openly share their email addresses in bios on sites like Twitter and LinkedIn. This doesn’t happen often, but it’s worth checking.

6) Last Slide – If the person has spoken at a conference, there’s a good chance their slides can be found online somewhere like SlideShare. Many presenters list their contact information on the last slide of their deck.

7) Paid tools – If you’re desperate, you might be able to buy the person’s email address on Jigsaw or send them an InMail on LinkedIn.

8) Reach out through Social Media – While it’s not a method for finding a person’s email address, you can often get in touch with people simply by sending them a tweet or Facebook message.

Of course, be careful with all of the above advice. Please be respectful to the person you’re emailing!

Over the years I’ve noticed “It’s good to see you!” is a line often used by famous people and politicians in an effort to avoid hurting the feelings of people they’ve met before (they simply meet too many people to remember them all). The phrase can be said to a new acquaintance without seeming overly weird, and it makes previous acquaintances feel as though they’re remembered from a past encounter.

It’s safer than using the more standard phrase, “It’s good to meet you,” which could be taken offensively by someone they’ve previously met.

Turntable was one of the most buzzed about consumer apps to launch in 2011. At the end of that year I researched the company to get more familiar with the music space, how Turntable was operating, and where the company might fit in the overall music landscape moving forward. I wrote an analysis, which is less relevant now than it was a year ago, but I figured it’s about time I get it off my hard drive and share it with the world.

A few nights ago there was a fireworks show in San Francisco to cap the end of the Golden Gate Bridge’s 75th anniversary celebration. I wasn’t expecting much – maybe just a barge or two setting off fireworks near the bridge – but boy did the city deliver. Watch the full show above to see what I mean.

The synchronized music heard in the video was blasted through speakers setup along the Crissy Field beach.

This ingenious concept pen adopts the eyedropper tool of photoshop and brings it to real life.

Once in awhile I use a tri-color pen to take notes and brainstorm, as it helps to seperate ideas and more clearly articulate my thoughts on paper. This eyedropper pen would take notes/brainstorming time to a whole new level. Unfortunately it’s only a concept for now.

Stepping foot into a coffee shop will never be the same again…

Image Credit: http://www.lokeshdhakar.com

Welcome to PeterSauer.com! I’ve wanted this domain for years, but unfortunately I’m not the only Peter Sauer in the world and one of those other Peters registered the domain before I attempted to. You can see what that other Peter’s site looked like here, courtesy of the WayBack Machine. Fortunately, that person let the domain expire, so at last it’s mine!