I read a blog post a year ago that said you should judge new software after seven days after installation. The writer believed if you had changed your behavior and integrated the new program into your work routine than it was worth keeping. I use that rule alot. Textpander, Voodoopad, and MindManager all passed the test.

I am finding the same thing happening with Add-o-matic. This is a simple metasearch engine that displays material from 18 different sites. Every day when I visit and do my business books keyword search, I always find something interesting. The results change frequently and I find material that I can’t through other search mechanisms, even Google Alerts and Tweetscan.

Check it out and see if you find the same.

This morning they announced getting VC funding from Union Square Ventures among others.

I just started using Twitter.

Coincidence?

I think not.

🙂

I saw a t-shirt today with the symbol pi (π) and it was followed by the decimal equivalent taken out to 50 decimals. You might remember from grade school or high school that pi is a irrational number that appears to have no repeating patterns. You normally use this factor when you are doing calculations with circles and such.

I immediately wondered about the popularity of pi based on the web domain registrations. What I found was more inconsistency than I expected. Instant Domain Search is a pretty cool tool to look this up quickly. Here is what I found:

314 – taken
3141 – taken
31415 – taken
314159 – taken
3141592 – taken
31415926 – taken
314159265 – available
3141592653 – available
31415926535 – taken
314159265358 – taken
3141592653589 – available
31415926535897 – taken
314159265358979 – taken
3141592653589793 – taken
31415926535897932 – taken
314159265358979323 – available
3141592653589793238 – available
31415926535897932384 – available
314159265358979323846 – taken
3141592653589793238462 – taken
31415926535897932384626 – available
314159265358979323846264 – available
3141592653589793238462643 – available
31415926535897932384626433 – available

and from here to 31415926535897932384626433832795028841971 is available.

I would have figured that people would have consistency bought each additional decimal place, but it seems some versions are more interested to people than others.

I still remember the day in high school speech class when we talking about the importance of language. 

Mr. Kaufmann started with the phrase "suum qui qua".

The first step is understanding the language.  In this case, if you skipped out on Latin as an elective, you are going to have a hard time getting started.

Let’s say you took LSL (Latin as a second language) classes and got yourself through the translation.  The next part you would have to get past is understanding the phrase "to each, his own".  This gives you a different set of problems.  We have a nice compact thought that describes a very complex idea.

You may need to unravel this idea for your audience.  It is really about how everyone has a right to their own preferences.  Maybe here you would tell a story of a recent resturant visit with friends and how everyone ordered different things from the menu.  Conversation ensued about various selections and before it got out of hand, you said "to each, his own."

Why the long story about langauage?  I am a big fan of bubblegeneration, but I often feel like I missed the first lecture.  He often talks about edge competencies and I have never understood his use of the word edge.  Here is an example:

In a world of cheap coordination, the edge – the boundary between the firm and the external – is the new core. That’s because, counterintuitively, the strategy that dominates the shrinking core is to leverage the edge: not to simply build complementarities between internal sources of value creation, but between both internal and external sources of value creation.

That is, edge competencies are focused on learning how to utilize the universe of value outside the firm – leveraging value creation external to the firm, and, in many cases, external to all firms.

Enter Eric Beinhocker and his new book The Origin of Wealth.  One of his chapters is on network theory and talks network terminology.  An edge is a connection between two nodes or points on the network.

Now this makes sense.  All of Umair’s work is on the value corporation can generate when they leverage the connections among their customers/users.  Think about what Google has done combining search with ads.  Think del.icio.us with users bookmarking the web and being able to see what everyone else likes. Bingo!  Now I get it.

It is important to communicate in a way people understand.  If you have customers, use their lingo.  If you have small children, slow down and explain what you are saying to them using words they know.  It is amazing the difference it can make.

"The biggest problem with communication is the perception that it took place."
   -a GE manager I use to work with whose name escapes me.