Andrew Ingram

Two days ago, three Tesla employees died in a plane crash in Palo Alto. I just realized one of them was a college classmate, Andrew Ingram. My deepest sympathies go out to all the families involved.

Update: here's a story about Andrew.

iPad

When Apple announced the iPad last month, two thoughts immediately came to mind:

1. I want one.
2. Would I use it?

The first thought was obvious. It's a new shiny toy from Apple. The Steve Jobs reality distortion field is in full effect. Of course I want one.

The second thought stuck with me for a while. I have an iMac at home. I carry a MacBook Pro with me to and from work. I carry my iPhone with me everywhere I go. Do I need a tablet? Is it practical?

Recently, I've come to the conclusion that it is, in fact, very practical. Looking at all the so-called limitations of the iPad, I know exactly what Steve Jobs had in mind when he started working on the project.

The iPad is the ultimate bathroom reader.

Check it out:

No multitasking. This means you can only run one application at a time. But, in the bathroom, you're already multitasking. Let's not complicate matters.

No Flash. Steve claims this is because Flash is "so buggy." I think Safari crashed on him a few too many times when he was in the john with an iPad prototype.

No USB port. Seriously, can you imagine plugging in USB peripherals in the bathroom? It's not a pretty sight.

No camera. There are some videos that do not belong on YouTube.

So, there you go. What we thought were limitations of the iPad are just the result of good design and good taste.

Seth Godin

On Thursday, I watched Seth Godin give a talk at the St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point. It was a fun event put on by LinkedOC and sponsored by Skip1.org. Thanks to both!

I arrived a little late and parking was impossible: fifty cars were lined up waiting for the valet. I found some nearby street parking though and walked in with time to spare before the speakers took the stage. Without thinking about it, parking on the street turned out to be a great move because the line for the valet after the event was ten times as bad as the one before.

Seth's talk was good. I've watched him present before and this talk was just as entertaining. He was promoting his new book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? He moved through his points quickly--too quickly in my opinion. I left with a sense that he said a lot of interesting things, but it was hard to connect the dots.

The gist of it seemed to be that you want to be indispensable (to your organization). Henry Ford and the assembly line gave us standardized parts and standardized jobs. Parts could be easily swapped out and so could people. The public school system was developed to prepare people for these standardized jobs. (This point resonated with one of my favorite TED talks of all time: Sir Ken Robinson talking about how schools kill creativity.)

These days, even if you're not working in factory, you can still be a faceless cog in the machine. If someone can write down how to do your job, then you're a cog and you will be replaced with the cheapest cog they can find. How do you make yourself indispensable? As Seth says, "[you] invent, connect, create, and make things happen." And, presumably, you go read his book. It's a good thing they gave me a free copy.

After the talk, I grabbed a free ice cream bar from the guys at BoardWalk Ice Cream Co. who had set up a promo table outside. That was good stuff. Thanks guys!

Oh, and did I mention that I didn't have to wait in line for the valet? Bonus.

Hello World

I'm going to try using Google Buzz for my day-to-day short-form blabbering and this blog for my less frequent long-form blabbering. We'll see how it goes.