Posts Tagged ‘Lifestyle’
SPAM fighting at its best
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009This morning I received 4 unsolicited E-mails. This is a reasonably small amount of junk compared to most days. These E-mails made it past my ISP’s spam filtering program and my personal block list.
Most approaches to fighting spam involve detection and deletion. Auto detection of spam E-mails is not always perfect, running the risk of deleting good E-mails. I know this since I’ve had to rescue the occasional E-mail from the trash.
Are there any alternatives?
Earthweb title page
Science fiction to the rescue! Marc Stiegler wrote “Earthweb” and solved the spam problem in a very satisfying way: he charged people to send unsolicited E-mail. For example, I could set my price for receiving unsolicited E-mail at $10. The 4 E-mails I received today would give me an extra $40. YES! We’ll be RICH! Or spammers will be more selective and send E-mails only to people they strongly believe will purchase their products.
Earthweb is an entertaining book and goes on to vision how the web could be used in a positive way. It covers topics like building trust, facilitating collaboration, and statistics.
All this is presented in a science fiction story line: unknown aliens are trying to destroy humanity and the only solution is to send a suicide team into the alien ship to blow it up. How does the suicide team come up with ideas to defeat the monstrous ship? They use the web which lets the author reveal ideas on what the web could be.
Note: Earthweb was published by Baen in 1999.
Which ideas in Earthweb do you see implemented today?
What price would you put on receiving unsolicited email?
Your Secret Weapon
Friday, August 8th, 2008Growing your business SMART really comes out of living your life with awareness. Today I want to explore the topic of life balance and share with you my thoughts, revelations and inspirations.
As I’ve grown older I’ve begun to look at things like work, after work, exercise, eating, and spending time with friends and family in a totally different way. Just out of University and for many years following I really sectioned my life. I was one person on the job and when that ended I could start my ‘other life’, which included aspects such as friends, family, exercise, etc. In our society today this is how most people function: in essence they become two people, following the rules of business and the professional sphere during the day and then ‘being themselves’ at night.
Take a moment to imagine what it would be like to just stop being your ‘work persona’ and just being the real YOU all the time, embracing your idiosyncrasies and taking the time to develop real relationships with co-workers and clients from a mindset of caring and interest. This change is a matter of a very simple perspective shift, but also a very powerful one. What I suggest is using the real you as your secret weapon that makes you stand out. The real you will attract like-minded peers, partners and clients, providing you a real personal brand that will help you succeed whether you are an employee or business owner. This is not a new concept, some of those who have embraced this idea have been very successful such as Gary Vaynerchuk from Wine Library, Rick Mercer of the Mercer Report and Oprah Winfrey.
As for me, I try to build real relationships in my life without discriminating between work and play. I make sure that my house, my office and my whole life reflect my personality so that there is congruency among them. When I spend time with those around me I am truly interested in their success whether they are loved ones or even my competition. I try to not merely base decisions on the bottom line, but listen to my gut as well. When I look back (and I encourage you to do the same) my best decisions were made by listening to what feels right and what is in alignment with who I am, rather than just the basic facts.
A good book on this topic (although a few years old) is Love is the Killer App by Tim Sanders.
I would really love some discussion and sharing on this topic.
