Archive: April 15, 2009

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have you ever been experienced?

Wednesday,  04/15/09  09:25 PM

My colleague and I had a little time today between a meeting with a customer and our flights, so we checked out Seattle's Experience Music Project (if you've ever been in Seattle, this is the Frank Geary -looking collection of colorful buildings at the foot of the space needle).  This is sort of a hands-on music museum featuring a lot of Seattle history (like Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana, etc.) and some cool ways to try and play instruments.  I really enjoyed the little sound rooms where you could play the drums, guitar, bass, and keyboards.  They have sound mixers you can screw around with too...

The EMP also has quite a collection of rock memorabilia, show banners, costumes, instruments, diaries, etc... and have a large collection of old concert movies.  I really liked seeing and hearing early Soundgarden, for example (Paul, if you're reading this, yeah, they were great) and it was cool to see Pearl Jam, and Nirvana, and so on...  oh yeah, and Heart (Heart!) remember them?  I do, I can remember them opening for Peter Frampton at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A.; I had never heard of them, and there were these two girls (a girl on lead guitar?), and man did they kick ass.  I'm not the biggest Hendrix fan but at some level we're all Hendrix fans because there is no denying, he changed the way people play electric guitar forever after.

I'm going to say it wasn't the coolest thing ever, but it was engaging and interesting and certainly worth doing [once].  If you have kids who are interested in music, or who might be interested in playing music as opposed to merely listening to it, then it would definitely be fun; I could see my daughter Alex having a blast.

 

Wednesday,  04/15/09  09:43 PM

I'm baaack!  Tired, but back.  Tired and happy and way behind on email, blogging, etc., and back.  Whew.

Project Q: zero cycles all week.  And a board meeting tomorrow, and important partner visit Friday.  This is not working people...  crap!

So today I had a flight booked back from Seattle at 6:30, on Alaska, and was standby on an earlier flight at 4:30.  Turned out the only seat available on the standby was in first class.  Oh well!  Alaska's new motto is "North of expected", and they certainly exceeded mine.  Happily enjoyed a glass of Chardonnay (well, okay, two :) and blogged!  No WiFi but plenty of room for a laptop... 

I've flown Alaska before and found them unremarkable.  This time they seemed to have a different, better spirit.  From an admittedly insufficient sample of two flights, it appears the motto has had a positive effect on the employees.  Interesting how that works!

Back to Project Q, well, sort of; the interestingly named InfoQ asks: Is Five the optimal team size?  And goes on to discuss whether it isn't really seven (but certainly not eight).  These discussions never seem to yield genuine insight to me, as the actual workings of a small team are so dependent on the individuals involved.  I guess we can all agree that fifty is not the optimal team size, nor twenty, and perhaps I am discovering that one isn't either... 

Microsoft courts startups to build the next big Windows Mobile app.  Good luck with that.  This is not a situation where 'if you build it, they will come'.  This is a situation where 'if they come, you will build it'.  E.g. see what's happening with the Pre.

 

 
 

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