Just one question...

Taken at Greenphoneservice.com

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Google + ..notifications

Short and sweet.. I have my gmail web client open all the time ...love how there is a little box in the upper right hand corner of the page that "notifies" me when and how many "things" have happened (someone commented on a thread I'm in or added me to their circle etc..etc). Great feature. The offer remains.. email me with a request (pegoss@gmail.com-the same place to make a donation to the eco-charity currently raising money for water conservation and delivering clean water to places on earth where there is none). I realize many do not have access to G+ yet, but you're gonna love it! There are some improvements needed and they have been noted on various sites. There are a bunch of tech geeks on G+ providing great feedback to Google on the platform. 


Wall Street seemed to like it (today).. Dow up 1.25% and GOOG up 1.77% to 506.38

Best of all, Google senior management/founders are active and accessible.. for now.. what a great way launch a product with everyone pushing.. hearing that next week Facebook with release something awesome... no kidding? There is a lot of buzz around G+.. one of my friends has received over 1900 emails asking for an invite... my buddies do not understand.. only a few have jumped on. This is how Mark Zuckerberg has responded: 

"Things have changed."

Monday Notes: the "Walled Garden" is Apple's strength ..along with Apps

I borrowed it. Sure.. been thinking about profits and distribution in tech. The Apple stores and the "walled garden" and now HP is introducing tablets with WebOS (it's Palm's right?)..

In October 2009 John Gruber wrote on his blog Daring Fireball:

"Operating systems aren’t mere components like RAM or CPUs; they’re the single most important part of the computing experience. Other than Apple, there’s not a single PC maker that controls the most important aspect of its computers. Imagine how much better the industry would be if there were more than one computer maker trying to move the state of the art forward."

@thorn_waite and I were chatting about the next iPhone on Twitter this AM  noting how an analyst can create a lot of blog hits for various tech sites by claiming to know what's going on inside the apple ecosystem. Thorn believes "Apple will have 2 phones in September, but they will be the 4S and the 4. Those analysts are rarely right, but they generate very bloggable copy.... Apple's "walled garden" is a fair price to pay for a safe, easy app ecosystem." think the point is being made. We have Chromebooks made by Acer and Samsung. Not the same thing but man is there a transition going on. All about mobility and thin and light.

Steve said: "This is worth repeating. It's in Apple's DNA that technology is not enough. It's tech married with the liberal arts and the humanities. Nowhere is that more true than in the post-PC products. Our competitors are looking at this like it's the next PC market. That is not the right approach to this. These are post-PC devices that need to be easier to use than a PC, more intuitive."

Saw my good friend Pete Cochrane working on a beautiful pen and ink piece (pictured below) at Starbucks in Prunedale and I noticed he was watching a movie on his Mac Air.. looks like that's a device that will be another another home run with additional horsepower..we chatted about the ultimate mobile device.. any thoughts?

Slides?

Taken at Greenphoneservice.com

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Chandler

Taken at The Treehouse

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Rory McIlroy

So much written and said.. much of it gratuitous of course.. my thoughts from a tweet by Eamon Lynch who is the

Executive Editor at Golf Magazine. Born in Northern Ireland, lives in NYC. He tweets his own opinions, not those of his employer.

http://www.eamonlynch.com

Eamon has been known to express an opinion or three over good scotch. He doesn't drink poor scotch and knows where to play his golf.. loves Bandon!

@eamonlynch Every compliment paid to McIlroy this weekend - gracious, humble, friendly - has a glaring subtext: that Tiger Woods is none of those things.

I wish Rory luck.. we need a new world order in golf.

Here's another good piece written by Alan Shipnuck (@AlanShipnuck) who writes some great stuff, lives nearby and knows where the pirates buried the treasure at Spyglass Hill. His latest book is: 
The Swinger.. with Michael Bamberger (amazon link)

With U.S. Open rout, Rory McIlroy feels like second coming of Tiger Woods - Tours & News - Golf.com

Nine Field

Taken at Salinas Golf and Country Club

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Peace of Mind: Hard to say... I say..

What's new here? anything? Hard to say.. real hard to say.. markets go up and down. Hang on long enough and everything grows ..a little.  
Somewhere out there (or is it in here?) waiting on a hunch there is an ocean of wisdom. Enlightenment. I muse and have caught glimpses for 40 years while meditating, running, singing, playing music. A sense of DejaVu (CSNY). At one with. We grasp for and reach out for and never seem to get it.. whatever it is. But every now and then there is this sense of peace. And I'm grateful I've experienced it so many times. It sure seems there are many who have no idea what I'm trying to say. Tell me what you know. Thanks!

Up the Hill to the 6th

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Seeds

Taken at Home Sweet Home

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Eco-Friendly Home and Long Distance Service

We going to use it.. why not use it responsibly? A telephone system that runs on low-eco impact servers comprising a less than 30m2 footprint and a web-site that is 100% windpowered. 

Green Phone Service is working hard toward the goal of a FULLY WIND-powered telephone network. Meanwhile, what little energy used is recovered by carbon offset credits and the significant donation of net proceeds to organizations such as the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society. Customers already help counter the release of approximately 2,660 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to planting nearly 2,390 acres of trees or cutting 6.1 million miles of fossil fuel driving per year. All billing is similarly digital only, no paper; if paper is used, it is hemp or 100% post-consumer recycled printed with soy-based ink.

Worth a look! Click here for more info. 

2nd green

Taken at Salinas Golf and Country Club

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What did I learn about running companies?

On the other side of management for 10+ years I struggle to communicate the same things executive leaders, presidents and CEOs. Same issues: Understand basic principles of sales, finance, leadership, management and especially IT as it pertains to marketing. The disciplines that we don't know from our experience. Everyone nods their heads and goes off and does what's familiar and not what works. It's the human condition. It's what we do. I remember being interviewed as a SVP and Managing Director/President. As an SVP of Sales and Business Development, I knew these consultants were great at running meetings but really thought (and I told them so-carefully) that they had little understanding of the nuts and bolts of running a $500 million division of a Billion Dollar public company.. But I do. Now. I hear the same things: "I get it". "I agree". "We're gonna do that" .. and then back to business as usual. Death. The slide down to mediocrity.. It takes time. There is no time to make all the mistakes ("You'll learn from your errors" is the name of a horror movie). We need to read and learn from the mistakes of others and go fast. No choice. And I can keep up now...
Here's where we are: Link to LVI

Committed...

That's it.. May 15th and I miss the issues and answers that made this blog grow. Been dormant too long. That is a warning to both us of. Express Yourself my friend. Tell us how you really feel and what you think. There is of course a difference. Remember there is such a thing as more than you can handle.. Stay as far away from that as you can.. Take good care of yourself and know that good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. Sooner than later, but better than never.

ChromeOS

there is a buzz in SF this morning and it comes from a tweet: @pgoss: Chrome OS: Everything can be saved to the web. That's crazy! I could throw this into a river, and I won't lose my stuff. No need for virus protection. No annoying updates. No patches. No patches for the patches. Man, serious blow at Microsoft. But it's true. -Engadget. More on this but check out the video and know that Businesses can get Chrome hardware AND software for $28/mo per seat. Education & Gov users $20/mo. 
I have long been a "G" adapter (gmail, blogger, wave(!), android (which I think still should run on an iPhone) etc.). This is disruptive and will change everything.
Chromebook: built for the web. Good stuff! "The web is what you make of it."

Seve...

Much has been written by far better reporters and journalists than me. He was a legend to me and I have been thrilled (again) by the stories that have been told. Again the SI guys at Golf.com have contributed some good thoughts here. 

Noticed Greame McDowell and Luke Donald changed their avatars in his honor on twitter. 

Azinger noted that they went after each other on and off the course and when Paul got sick, Seve was the first to call. Class Guy.

Something is missing today!

Our Ocean.

Our Friend David Potigan at Gallery Sur sent these. 

Osama Bin Laden is dead.

@marwilliamson Tonight is a night for sober and mature reflection, not glee. Mindless celebration is both spiritually inappropriate and politically naive.


The end of the war on terror? We could only hope. Historic. Extraordinary.


From the New Yorker: Obama & Osama and some links to thoughtful articles about our apparent relief. You can feel it. And while our relief is real it might be remembered that Al Qaeda is much bigger than Bin Laden. The days ahead will reveal much about the dedication of his followers.  

A Royal Wedding

@joanwalsh The world is divided into people who see kitsch/romance/optimism in royal wedding, and Irish Catholic feminist curmudgeons, apparently.

There are tornadoes killing people and here's the answer for what ails us:

@TheBloggess So #royalwedding is just barely beating #shewantsthedick on twitter topics. Also trending? #whatsthepoint & #strawberrycheetos


Postscript: @DannyBrown  The Royal Wedding Live 4am CST http://twrt.me/t9ty via @ChicagoDesign

Renewed Enthusiasm

LagunitaVentures (our excellent business consulting service) provides developmental support for emerging companies. We have recently wrapped up an assignment with a company that will fail. It will fail because the owner is incapable of doing things differently. We refinanced his receivables, gave him step by step instructions on how to reorganize his business for success. He said to me one day at lunch (we are hands on usually), "you guys think I'm really slow, don't you?". My response was not YES! but that's what I thought. Instead I explained that while some of our vision had been accomplished it was not because he had shown courage and made the necessary cuts and changes. It was because he refused to address the issues and hid them in a corner or in some cases the employee went away (with customer lists and contacts and real bad feelings). He could not understand why they all want to "hurt" him. I learned a long time ago that some guys were a lot smarter than me and I'd be wise to surround myself with them and not hope for the easy way out.. How about you?

How are we doing? Let's start something!

Read the news today.. Oh Boy! Hotel rates have gone up in SF.. maybe LA but here in paradise we are still slipping. We are in a phase of dispersion.. we are selling ourselves short. Can't seem to get around the corner and a new poll says there is deep pessimism about the economy in the country and Obama is to blame.. It all seems to easy to me. We swing from self indulgence to self denial. Everyone seems nervous. We forget to tell ourselves the real truth. Time to start something. Do Something. That's my solution.. we have two start-ups going now. Looking for investors (again). That's my solution.. Start something. No complaints!

Fireworks

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Callaway razr tour irons

Taken at Salinas Golf and Country Club

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Scooter ...again!

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