Microsoft Envisions the World in 2019

<br/><a href="http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?vid=a517b260-bb6b-48b9-87ac-8e2743a28ec5" target="_new" title="Future Vision Montage">Video: Future Vision Montage</a>
This is a pretty cool video that Microsoft pushed out showing how they envision our world in 2019. Some of this stuff you can see the seeds of now, or at least the discussion forming.

Speaking Through Pictures

Digital Marketing Strategist Brad Kay has an interesting series going on over at his blog The Third Place called "Speaking Through Pictures."

This one in particular stood out to me... I tend to agree that the most interesting people are the ones that are the most interested in learning about other things.

The Rural Alberta Advantage at Pianos

One thing I really missed out on writing about in January was the night I headed over to Piano's (map) to see The Rural Alberta Advantage, a band I'd never heard of before outside of a recommendation by Fred Wilson.  There are several reasons why this was an awesome night:

1. The RAA are awesome - I went from never listening to them to listening to them almost exclusively for the last month (check out Edmonton and The Ballad of RAA posted over on Tumblr by Fred Wilson)
   
2. Piano's was a great place to see live music.  I went there at 10PM on a Tuesday, saw a pretty interesting opener The Loom that I'd also never heard of, and then a great show by The RAA. The small room was packed to the edges, but it wasn't so bad.  The crowd is there for the music, which is something you just can't say anymore about the crowds at Webster Hall etc., and even when you're in the back you really aren't very far from the stage.  Pianos is the kind of place I want to see more bands at, and spend more time at.  It's nights like these that make me love music again.
   
3. I actually ended up getting to meet Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist / New York & new music evangelist who's reading I've been absorbing diligently for the last few years.  I wasn't the only one who ended up at the concert because of him, but he was happy to meet everyone - and a lot of us ended up trading stories about the concert the next day right on his blog.

You can check out a few more videos I took of Rural Alberta Advantage over on YouTube.

My Personal Blogging Hiatus

I've been silent for a over a month now on my personal blog k.b.skobac - it wasn't necessarily intentional, but it's just that I've been dedicating my time to different projects.  For starters, as the recession has slowly taken over my company as much as others, it seems like everyone has more work to do (in addition to leading the online planning for the Office Of National Drug Control Policy, I am also now on Fisher Price Friends and Patanase Nasal Spray).  Also, I've been spending time writing for another project that I hope gets unveiled soon - I'm excited about it.  In the mean time, I really want to get back to writing more here again, about non-work related things.

Liking What You Do

Image via Wikipedia

Seth Godin contrasts his conjecture "It's more important that you be passionate about what you do all day than it is to be passionate about the product that is being sold" with his statement "All that statement "I've never met a great marketer who wasn't passionate about what she sold. In the case of marketing, it's not just a nice combination, it's a requirement". What do you think; can you be really great at a job that you are exceptionally skilled at but really don't care about the mission? A lot of really skilled people fail to accomplish great things because they just don't care about what they're working on - I'm guessing more often than not, lack of interest and passion in your product will overshadow your ability.

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Picture of the Day: Santa Cruz Birds Watching

California Summer 2008
Originally uploaded by kskobac.

This picture I took at Santa Cruz Beach in California. I'm always amused by the reverse perspective - instead of us bird watching, it seems as if the birds are watching us (in this case the surfers).

Working on Being Greener (Part of my ‘09 Resolutions)

I got a head start on one of my new years resolutions tonight – I am trying hard to get rid of all of the wasteful paper that comes to me in the mail from banks, credit cards, etc.  I turned off all monthly paper printed statements for Chase here and switched to Paperless Statements on my Amex through the account options.  I also emailed my investment manager to request that he turn off my monthly statements as well.  As far as I can tell, I won’t be receiving any monthly financial statements in print mail in 2009.

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Making My Parents a 2009 Calendar

Every year my brother and I make a calendar for my parents for the upcoming year.  We post pictures on Flickr from the year previous, trying to capture photos of the two of us with and without our parents, cousins, etc.  Then print the calendar from Qoop.  Qoop is easy to use and the quality is really pretty good, and with shipping the cost of 2 printed calendars is under $37.  It’s fun to go back through the whole year’s photos, and my parents love it – one for my kitchen and one for my dad’s office.  It’s a great Channukah gift.

Here’s the photos Andrew and I chose this year: