A series of weekly lecture podcast provided by Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Speakers include Larry Page (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Sue Decker (Yahoo) and leaders from various industries such as web2.0, biotech, venture capital, academic and entertainment.
The technology blog TechCrunch has a recent post on Startup Presentation Tips quoting the email from Jason Calacani’s mailing list (the founder of Silicon Alley Reporter, Weblogs and Mahalo). It caught my attention as the topic is relevant to my work and it’s also very useful in many real-life situations.
Other than tips such as “Show your product within the first 60 seconds”, or “Talk about what you’ve done, not what you’re going to do”, I find this particular one amusing:
9. How to handle questions you don’t know the answer to
a) take a moment to think about the question. You can even say “Hmmm… that’s a good question. Let me think about that for a second.” Folks appreciate a little consideration when someone takes a question.
b) if you don’t have an answer be honest and say you don’t. There are many ways to say this including: “I’m not really sure, I’m going to have to think about that for a bit and get back to you,” or “I’m not sure to be honest. What do you think?”
c) feel free to think out loud and brainstorm with the person. You can do this by saying “I’ve never really considered that. Perhaps you can expand the question a little and we can explore it right now.”
d) if you’re not sure of the answer you can always say you’ll cross that bridge when you come to it. “I’m not sure how we would deal with a sudden spike in the cost of bandwidth, we would have to collect more information and answer that question down the road. It is a manageable risk factor I suppose. ”
The worst thing to do when you don’t have an answer is b.s. the person. No one has an answer for everything, except a b.s. artists. So, feel free to say you don’t know–folks find it refreshingly humbleand honest.
This is not completely new. Many years ago I heard the hype from friends about this mind-blowing installation (some call it motion sculpture) piece showing at SIGGRAPH 2001, made from a material called Ferrofluid, a type of magnetic liquid that can morph from fluid to solid via magnetic fields.
I have never seen it in action until catching the interview with the artist Sachiko Kodama a few days ago. “Morpho Towers” is one of her latest projects. It is simply beautiful.
Starting with the summer classic “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” from Roy Ayers and followed by tracks from the “First Lady of the Flute” Bobbi Humphrey, Mizells & Freddie Perren, this is just a small teaser of the incredibly rich genre of 60’s & 70’s Soul / Jazz / Funk music that I have been collecting in the past few years. Check it out.
Image from Amazon.com - Destination Motherland, Roy Ayers
==Playlist 2008.08.14: Roy Ayers, Bobbi Humphrey and the Mizells==
01 Everybody Loves The Sunshine - Roy Ayers 02 Is This All? - Bobbi Humphrey 03 Lil’s Paradise - Roy Ayers 04 Coffy Sauna - Roy Ayers 05 Funk In The Hole - Roy Ayers 06 Everybody - Roy Ayers 07 Where Are We Going? - Mizells & Freddie Perren 08 Harlem River Drive - Bobbi Humphrey 09 Keep On Walking - Roy Ayers 10 We Live In Brooklyn, Baby - Roy Ayers
It’s been almost 10 years since my last visit to Kyoto and the impression was so strong that I can recall almost every single corner I have been, the home-like atmosphere and the warm conversations I had with the grandma who prepares breakfast every morning during our stay, in her own, family-run Ryokan.
On the day we were leaving, she sent us to the front door and half-jokingly asked me and my girlfriend to bring a kid the next time we visit. Years have passed, now living in the opposite side of the world as a father and husband, this place is always the first thing that comes to my mind thinking of Kyoto, even when I am playing around with Google Maps Japan that just went live earlier this week.
No, this is not a cliché story. It looks just like this picture when we said goodbye.
Amazingly crafted insect sculptures made from everyday objects. A step by step demonstration of how it’s been made can be found on the artist’s Flickr page. The choices of colors and shapes are truly inspiring.
I read an interesting article on Read Write Web yesterday about the gradual transformation of the blogging landscape through concepts such as micro-blogging, lifestreaming or widgetization.
I don’t think what’s been described in the article necessarily represents the “future” per se (well, at least not yet), but this one-small-piece-at-a-time, or the bite-sized approach for content generation seems to be a common character and a trend that is hard to ignore.
Yongfook.com (above), one of the websites mentioned, is an new type of blogging format that combines custom widgets and the Twitter-ish, chronologically-ordered content structure. I find this communication style has scary similarities to the Facebook Walls.
Vi.sualize.us is a social bookmarking site for images. Developed in 5 months by Victor Espigares, “a Spanish software engineer who loves photography (as described on the site)”.
I like the simple look and the tone of the early content. Features like Safe Browsing and Tag Cloud are well suited for its purpose. Firefox Addon is also provided allowing users to summit the image in one click via the (right click) contextual menu.
An unexpected consequence of the 2008 Beijing Olympics that solves my dilemma in translating Chinese (food) menu items to friends. The list is 170 pages long according to the NYT (Update: 2425 items).
This month, the Chinese government has officially released its very long list of suggested translations for Chinese dishes in preparation for a tourist-friendly Olympics. … The master list is incredibly helpful because, as it was built through consensus over many drafts, it conveys the optimal translations to bridge the gap between American and Chinese culinary sensibilities. This list will be useful not just in China, but for Chinese restaurants here in America for years to come.
Having read a few pages, I’d say these translations are pretty accurate and descriptive. Here are a few examples showing why the existence of an official list is such a wonderful thing:
Husband and wife lung slices: Pork Lungs in Chili Sauce (夫妻肺片) Chicken without a sexual life: Steamed Spring Chicken (清蒸童子鸡) Ants climb up a tree: Sautéed Vermicelli with Spicy Minced Pork (蚂蚁上树) Braised lion’s head: Stewed Pork Ball in Brown Sauce (红烧狮子头) Saliva chicken: Steamed Chicken with Chili Sauce (口水鸡)
8.22 Audio Player
8.16 WP SEO Pack
8.16 XML Sitemap
8.02 Addthis
8.01 Feed Burner
8.01 Sitemeter
7.10 Google Analytics
7.05 Juno Player
7.02 Font Size Control
7.01 Nexgen Gallery
6.30 My Anobii Bookshelf
