Bob's Blog

I was helping my dear friend Steve with his career transition from the Big Apple to lovely Ann Arbor Michigan. Steve was asking if I knew the area and could recommend some good Kosher steak houses. Having spent a few years teaching at the University of Michigan, I knew the area well. In fact, through a weird strange of events, the reason that The Archer Group is headquartered in Delaware is due in large part to the fact that the University of Delaware and the University of Michigan have identical football helmets!

The phrase ‘Bowling Alone’ refers to the comprehensive book of the same title by Robert Putnam. His book does an in-depth look at how the rise of television led to the decline in participation in community activities, including PTA, church, and bowling. He does a great job defending his argument and discussing the impact on society.

Dr. Putnam wrote this book before the rise in online social networking, where people can connect based upon interests, rather than simply geography. This leads to strong associations of people who have a passion for a single subject and connect along those lines. Anyone who has been to a neighborhood function and had to listen to someone drone on about his love of depression era glass knows what I mean about single subject passion. While I wont argue with Dr. Putnam’s conclusions regarding the impact on geographic based functions, such as local government, I do think that the Internet offers the ability to meet people that would have been previously unknown. The success of eHarmony.com is a perfect example of the Internet’s impact on Social Networking.

Back to Steve and his trip to Ann Arbor. I pointed Steve to Yahoo’s trip site, Travel.Yahoo.com/Trip, where he set up a details on his trip to Ann Arbor. His trip would be shared with other Yahoo visitors who could add comments on where to go and what to see while in Ann Arbor. He could trade messages with previous visitors or locals to learn more. So while Steve might not be bowling with these people any time soon, he has certainly gained some friends. And who knows, maybe there will be some bowling!

Best of luck to Steve!

I was having dinner at the lovely Old Parsonage with my dear friend Jonathan Zittrain while in Oxford. JZ is a brilliant professor in the area of Internet Governance and Internet Law and the founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Over a great bottle of single malt, we were celebrating the success of his recent paper being featured in the New York Times . JZ’s paper brilliantly discussed the rationale behind Stock Spam.

In addition to the spam asking for our help from Nigerians with princely sums locked in Bank Accounts, our collective inboxes have been overflowing with ‘hot stock tips’. I just figured most everyone deleted these messages, not giving them a second thought. JZ’s paper painted quite a different story, in fact, one that highlights why spam continues, because people respond to it.

JZ and his team did exhaustive research into the timing of these stock tips and the price of those stocks. These stocks were thinly traded ‘pink sheet’ stocks that fly below the radar of Wall Street. These spammers would take a position in one of these stocks and then unleash 100 million emails reporting it as a hot stock to unsuspecting recipients.

As crazy as it may sound, enough people call their brokers or hop on e-trade to buy the stock. Being a low volume stock, this surge in volume drives the price up, giving the spammer a nice return when he or she unloads the stock.

While there is some debate regarding who actually said ‘There’s a sucker born every minute’, I would like to add ‘and they all have an email address’ ☺.

I always give my dear friend and co-worker, Lee Mikles, a pair of Lee jeans for the holidays. He always returns the favor by giving me some archery related item. Last year I think I came out on top when he gave me a tickets to the Archery World Championship in Göteborg, Sweden. These finished up last week and were a delight. And no Lee, I wasn’t asked to hold an apple on my head for any of the events. After the great time in Göteborg, I flew over to Paris to meet some friends.

I almost thought Lee was playing a prank on me when we strolled through rue des Rosiers in Paris. All along the sidewalk were Lee Jeans on the street posts. On the ground was an image of a Lee Jeans button. It was quite a site!

We quickly learned that these jeans were part of a geurilla marketing campaign for the new Lee Jeans store in rue des Rosiers. Of course we had to stop by after this and look around.

And I can now check off one very special person from my gift list this year!

When I was little, I used to stay up nights listening to my dad’s Hallicrafter SB-40 shortwave radio. What a treat! In the winters, I would take off the cover and get close to the tubes to stay warm. It was great to listen to shows and news from around the globe. During the cold war, I set up my own neighborhood Deputy radio watch where we would transcribe transmissions obviously sent by spies and attempt to crack the ‘codes’. My father promptly de-deputized us all after we successfully notified the local FBI of what we thought we heard and were paid a visit by G-Men.

Later, I moved the shortwave radio into my study and would relive my youth with the radio and some of my father’s favorite scotch. One thing I absolutely enjoyed listening to were the broadcasts from BurningMan. For those who don’t know about BurningMan, it is a week long festival in the middle of a desert in Black Rock, Nevada. People dress up, camp out, sing, dance, and generally have nun. I swear that a space ship could crash there and the people there wouldn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. The week ends with a wonderful party around a 40-foot high bonfire of, wait for it, a burning man. Quite an experience that I heartily recommend to those interested in a once in a lifetime experience.

Wanting to experience what I heard growing up, I enjoyed BurningMan with my dear friend, Matt Cutts. Matt is now a chief mucktity-muck at Google. The backrubs and on-site dental care haven’t changed him a bit. ;-) Seeing news from BurningMan this year got me thinking about the time with Matt at BurningMan. I asked Matt for his thoughts on BurningMan, which I copied below. Matt also posted it on his blog, which I highly recommend if you are interested in Google and search engine optimization.

Okay, Burning Man just finished up last week. A few years ago I went to Burning Man, and I thought I’d share some advice to keep you out of trouble and make it more fun if you decide to go.

1. Don’t take your own car. Burning Man is a temporary camp on a desert playa. That means dust. When I took my 1994 Ford Escort a few years ago, I never did get the dust completely cleaned from the car, right up until the day the car died. Save yourself the stress: rent a car or a van.

2. Don’t agree to drive someone who buys gallons of yellow body paint. I’m looking at you, B. I never did get those traces of yellow body paint completely cleaned out of my car either. This advice also applies for red body paint, blue body paint, and green body paint. Really, any type of body paint.

3. Take a digital camera and a normal camera. Taking pictures of naked people? Use the digital camera. Taking pictures of art installations or the scenery? The normal camera is fine.

4. If it’s your first time, don’t go on a Monday. I know that you want to get the “full Burning Man experience.” But the fact is that you’ll be out in the desert for days, and that can get old if you don’t know many people. Go on Wednesday or Thursday and you’ll still have plenty of time to see the art cars and watch the Man burn.

5. Keep your eyes open and try new things. For example, when I was there, I kept seeing trucks driving around every few hours, but didn’t pay much attention to them. On the last day, I realized that the trucks were spraying water as they went. Smart people keep their eyes open and spot opportunities, whether it be free water showers or a chance to talk to someone new.