It is written all over your face!

That didn't take long.

For a moment, the manhunt into the Boston Marathon bombings seemed as if it would last a while. But an amazing combination of police work, citizen involvement and technology yielded big breaks in the case and brought the manhunt to a quick conclusion. And now, the investigation begins - who knew what? Did they have help? Where does all of this lead? It is hard to think that such evil could make its way into the mind of a 19 year old kid, without lots of help.

Within hours of the Boston Marathon bombing, investigators were already overwhelmed. Bloody clothing, bags, shoes and other evidence from victims and witnesses were piling up. Videos and still images, thousands of them, were beginning to accumulate.

Quickly, the authorities secured a warehouse in Boston’s Seaport district and filled the sprawling space: On half of the vast floor, hundreds of pieces of bloody clothes were laid out to dry so they could be examined for forensic clues or flown to FBI labs at Quantico in Prince William County for testing. In the other half of the room, more than a dozen investigators sifted through hundreds of hours of video, looking for people doing things that are different from what everybody else is doing.

It’s still unclear exactly how law enforcement officials zeroed in on the two figures in surveillance footage suspected of carrying out the deadly bomb attack at Monday’s Boston Marathon. But it’s likely that investigators used some form of facial-recognition software as part of their effort. These technologies remain in their infancy, but law enforcement is relying on them more and more.

The FBI is rolling out an ambitious, billion-dollar biometric information system that will include iris scans, voice recognition, and facial-recognition software, developed with Lockheed Martin, IBM, Accenture, and BAE Systems, among others. Law enforcement authorities are uploading mugshots into an image database, which can then be searched against images from crime scenes, like the surveillance camera footage of Boston’s Boylston Street.

The Next Generation Identification (NGI) program won’t be fully operational until next year, and although the images it uses will be mugshots, the software - think of a more powerful version of Facebook image search could be used to match any two images. Civil liberties advocates worry it could be used to track people on the street regardless of whether they’re suspected of a crime. The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and the NYPD have also expressed interest in more exotic technologies, including one that analyzes people’s gait for clues as to whether they’re carrying a bomb. Programmers are developing machine vision techniques that can link images of the same person across different video cameras or spot behaviors that are out of the ordinary for a certain setting (e.g., leaving a bag unattended in a public place).

Anything that you Tweet, Post, Blog, Video or share via the Internet (in any way) is fair game for analysis. The government scanned “millions” of phone calls, listening for any words that might have been linked to the bombing. If you called home and said “Did you hear about the Boston Bombing” there is a very good chance your phone call was analyzed. But now, simply walking the streets of a major city puts you (your face) into play. This is the world that we now live, and this will continue to get more complex and more intense. I would think that everyone who attends the upcoming Super Bowl in New York will have their face scanned dozens of times, long before even entering the stadium.

Mass surveillance is the pervasive surveillance of an entire population. It has been widely criticized on several grounds such as violations of privacy rights, illegality, and for preventing political and social freedoms, which some fear will ultimately lead to a totalitarian state where political dissent is crushed. Such a state may also be referred to as an Electronic Police State. According to what I see on prime time TV ("the machine") mass surveillance has been going on for some time. 

The technology of “big data” is here, and the Genie will never be put back into the bottle. Google and Facebook’s billions in revenue are all based on big data, algorithms, and super-computing. I love the idea that facial recognition is being used to combat terrorism. But to think that this same ever-improving technology can track people with past due parking tickets, or any other minor civil violation simply by taking a picture of their face makes me pause. 

We have no privacy - none, zip, nada.

Yes, that didn't take long at all.

Slap Shots and Moon Shots

PITTSBURGH, Pa. – The Quinnipiac University men's ice hockey team lost to Yale, 4-0, in the 2013 NCAA Frozen Four Championship Game in Pittsburgh, Pa. The Bobcats finish the year at 30-8-5 overall, good for the most wins in program history.

Man's landing on the moon in 1969 was our greatest technological achievement. The Apollo 11 mission was truly the stuff dreams are made of. For the first time the human species walked on a celestial body other than our own. Even more remarkable was their ability to make it back.

Few people know how close Apollo 11 came to being a disaster. The President had a well-crafted speech all prepared, to inform the world that the men who landed on the moon would not be coming home. Thankfully, that speech was never read as the Apollo 11 mission had a happy ending, and the rest as they say, is history.

The Quinnipiac Bobcats' had 30 wins this season. Their 17-2-3 record in the ECAC Hockey is also a program-best. Their success in conference play garnered Quinnipiac's first Cleary Cup, given annually to the ECAC regular season champion. The Bobcats also made it to the NCAA Tournament for just the second time ever and closed out the season as the National Runner-ups, a first for any Quinnipiac athletic program. This Quinnipiac squad will also say goodbye to 11 seniors who helped bring the program to newfound heights this season. Last night was the end of the “best season ever” for Quinnipiac men’s hockey. 

BEST EVER. The young men on that hockey team have just experienced the biggest event of their lives (to date). Many who were on the ice last night will find themselves playing in the NHL. Some might even win a Stanley Cup one day. 

Someone has to come in second place, to make it a contest. 

In life, in business, and in sports, it’s no fun if you don’t keep score.

The Space Race was a mid-to-late 20th century competition between the Soviet Union (USSR) and the United States (USA) for supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957 and 1975, the Cold War rivalry between the two nations focused on attaining firsts in space exploration, which were seen as necessary for national security and symbolic of technological and ideological superiority.

The Space Race sparked unprecedented increases in spending on education and pure research, which accelerated scientific advancements and led to beneficial spin-off technologies. An unforeseen effect was that the Space Race contributed to the birth of the environmental movement: The first color pictures of Earth taken from deep space were used as icons by the movement to imply that the planet was a fragile blue marble surrounded by the blackness of space.

The USA won the race to the moon. How must they have felt in the Soviet Union on July 20th, 1969? I’ll bet the men of Quinnipiac can relate to how it must feel to be so close to the prize and to come up short (like the USSR). The USA was losing the space race, but then the USA came back from behind and was the first to reach the moon. I remember it all like it was yesterday.

During their regular season, Quinnipiac University men’s hockey team beat Yale three times. Last night, Yale beat Quinnipiac. The big difference was that last night’s hockey game was for the National Championship.

Life is a series of wins and losses. In business and in sports, you win and you lose. You have your moments in the sun, and you have days where you have to settle for the silver and not the gold. There can be no first place winner, without a worthy competitor who takes second place.

There would be no iPhone if Steve Jobs had not been fired from Apple. Blackberry was the market leader in Smartphones for many years; today not so much. When I was growing up, IBM completely dominated the computer world. It is the race itself that makes life (and business) interesting, winning or losing is not as important. Competition is what makes life worth living.

I hope that the parents, the coaches and even the President of Quinnipiac University have already seized the opportunity to properly address the men of Quinnipiac Hockey. To come so close to the prize and to come up short is a life-changing moment and a teaching moment.

It is the competition that makes us stronger, not the victory. It is the challenge of the race, not the race itself that molds us. Last night was a teaching moment for everyone, winners and losers. Yale lost to QU three times this season but they won last night. Quinnipiac beat Yale three times, but not last night. And so it goes in sports and in business.

Every young man that was on the ice last night (both teams) are winners, and they have been winners for many years. Their parents know it, their coaches know it, and hopefully after a few days, the men of Quinnipiac hockey who might be feeling a little sad this morning will know it too. History shows that winners can get lazy, but those who come up "a little short" tend to come back even stronger. Some will be in the NHL, some might go into business. 

I would hire every single one of them.

If the USA needs to get men into space today - guess what - we have to hitch a ride with our good ‘ol friends in the former Soviet Union (USSR). Ah yes, they must smile every time we ask them for a ride. Competition is indeed what makes life worth living.

Congratulations to everyone at www.Quinnipiac.edu for a great season! What’s your next challenge?

My Son Tom Jr. in the Quinnipiac Pep Band

Prime the pump!

Do you use Amazon Prime? I've been an Amazon Prime customer for a long time now, and I am still wondering how they came up with the amount of $79 per year for the service.

Prime works like this: For $79 annually, you get unlimited movie and TV streaming, one free borrowed eBook per month, and automatic two-day shipping on nearly everything you buy (with no minimum dollar amount). Awesome, right?

Let's start with the streaming. Amazon has vastly expanded its movie and TV show libraries over the past year, to the point where it's much more competitive with Netflix. However, not everything I found on the latter was available on Amazon Prime. But there is plenty of good stuff to watch, and Prime streaming has expanded to more devices -- including, most recently, the iPhone and iPod Touch. If you're already a Netflix subscriber, there's no reason to join up with Amazon Prime - if you're motivated (solely) by the free streaming.

What about the book deal? Although the Prime Lending Library now includes over 280,000 titles, including the Harry Potter series, they're mostly older reads. I think in my Prime membership, I've found exactly one book I wanted to borrow. And Amazon still makes it a pain to browse the catalog, especially on your PC. So as much as I like the e-book loans in principle, for me the book lending is of no value. If you are a student, this might be a great value.

Now, let’s talk free two day shipping.

Two-day delivery, with no minimum purchase, no weight limits is the best thing ever. I buy a lot of stuff online, especially around the holidays, and Prime makes this kind of shopping pure pleasure. Not only does it rescue me when I'm late to buy a gift, it also makes impulse shopping a lot more fun.

Recently we made a list of all of the household items that we buy weekly. All the non-perishable stuff like paper towels, soap, dog food, cereal, canned foods, etc. Guess what - you can get all of it from Amazon, shipped to your door, with free shipping and save the sales tax. Now going to the grocery store is a breeze - more than half the shopping list is taken care of with free delivery and automatic built-in savings. No more “coupon clipping” as Amazon does this for you as well. If you find something cheaper, they give you a free $25 Amazon gift card. Sales tax here in New Jersey is 7%, so we are saving $7 per $100. The government might change that one day, but for now, no sales tax for online purchases is 7% off the weekly grocery bills. That 7% makes up for the $79 annual fee fast!

I see a book or a video that I want to watch, I have it in seconds on my iPad. I need a gift for someone, they have it at their door in 2 days, gift wrapped and via free shipping. I have saved untold hours in shopping for groceries, and we never run out of toilet paper.

Got a kid in college? Elderly parent living alone? Amazon Prime makes it easy to setup automatic delivery of goodies to those that you love (like your dog or cat).

Is Amazon Prime worth $79 per year? I say hell yes.

Why is everyone not doing this?  If you are looking for a great gift to give someone, give them a $79 Amazon Prime membership. Why Amazon is not spelling out the guaranteed savings (like the free shipping and the built-in savings in both time and money) is beyond me. Someone in the Amazon marketing department needs to be fired, in my humble opinion.

Maybe I should write an eBook on this topic and sell it on Amazon.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

Business Easter Eggs

Winston Churchill is known for saying “Never, never, never give up,” but it is another one of his quotes that may be more meaningful during difficult and somewhat depressing economic times: “Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.”

Easter is the time of green grass and bright blooming flowers, and it might be the same for your business. Spring always promises the rebirth of budding green leaves and blooming colorful flowers; thus it’s important not to give up on a renewal of sales growth as well.

For me, winter and the lack of color is depressing. I’ll take green grass over white snow any day, thank you. No matter how down and dejected you may have felt about the slow-down of your business growth, it’s important to focus your thinking on the potential business you have an opportunity to generate going forward and simply not give up.

Maybe what you need are some brightly colored Easter Eggs for your business!

Stop focusing on the negative and begin picturing the positive daily. This actually works. It’s what athletes call “mental rehearsal;” seeing things as you want them to be and picturing them vividly in your mind. If you start this exercise every morning before calling on customers and every night before going to sleep and maintain the process for just one month, you will see positive results begin to manifest.

Control what you can, dismiss what you can’t. Whether it’s trying to change an individual who can’t seem to see things your way or a policy that you heartily disagree with, give it up. Focus instead on the many other things that you can control. Your time will be much better spent and your attitude will greatly improve.

 

Smile more. Become extremely conscious of the amount of time you smile. Without even realizing it, people all too often walk around looking way too serious and glum and at the same time expect people to respond positively to them. Wake up and take a reality check. No one likes to do business with someone who appears to lack confidence and seems down on life. Remember the old adage that when you smile, the whole world smiles with you. There’s more truth than not to that.

Avoid hanging out with negative people. Sure, it’s realistic that during difficult times like this there will be discussions involving the problems that may be encountered. But don’t get bogged down in negative, woe-is-me conversations. Spend the majority of your time with people who are positive, looking for alternative ways to hurdle the problems and being innovative in their thinking.

 

Finally, take time to treat yourself; be good to yourself. Maybe that’s going to a movie; abandoning adults and hanging out with the kids; pampering yourself with a suit or buying that new pair of shoes. Get yourself a new iPad, Smartphone or laptop. Most of all, take time to take care of you so you are in the right place to take care of those who depend on you—your loyal customers.

Easter and springtime always brings forth new life in fresh and magnificent ways. Leverage the advent of spring and let it be a time of renewed confidence in your business!

The TV Guide is Missing!

New York World's Fair

In clips below while he was still at NeXT, Steve Jobs captures a lot about life:

Jobs: When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is and your life is just to live your life inside the world, try not to bash into the walls too much, try to have a nice family life, have fun, save a little money.

Me: I was born in 1960. The “Space Race” shaped my world. Technology was to be the savior of mankind - and the savior of the USA in the "cold war" against communism. Who remembers “Tang” for breakfast? If you were living in America during the sixties, you know what I’m talking about. That nasty-tasting, gritty-grainy pseudo-orange powdered breakfast beverage that was a commercial flop until it swept the country after endorsement by NASA. It rocketed to success with the Gemini flights in 1965, followed by many years of ”spacey” advertising tie-ins. Star Trek was also born in the 60’s with the concept of interstellar space travel, robots and computers in the home. I remember the NYC World’s Fair like it was yesterday. Everything was going to be just simply amazing, I could not wait to grow up and claim my flying car.

Jobs: That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader, once you discover one simple fact, and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Me: Having a “remote control” anything was a big deal. We were one of the first families in our town to have a radio operated remote controlled garage door opener. It was so cool that I charged neighborhood kids $0.25 to push the button and make the garage door go up and down.

Jobs: And the minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.

Me: In the ‘60’s our TV only had a few channels, and color TV was a big deal. The big channels were 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13.  I never really counted channel 13 as that was PBS, and there was never anything cool on PBS.

Jobs: I think that’s very important and however you learn that, once you learn it, you’ll want to change life and make it better, cause it’s kind of messed up, in a lot of ways. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.

Me: The most important thing in our house growing up was the TV Guide. Since remote control TV was so expensive, you needed the TV Guide. You had to plan out your TV shows in advance, otherwise you would have to get off the couch and change the channels: 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11 - then back to 2. CBS, NBC, ABC, WOR and WPIX  here in the New York tri-state area, that was all we had. The TV Guide magazine was the most popular magazine in the US, by far. And if the TV Guide ever went missing - oh, the horror. 

THE TV GUIDE IS MISSING!!! THE TEE-VEE GUIDE IS... MIIISSSSSINNNG!!!!!!

New York World's Fair Ride

When I was growing up, not everyone went to college. In fact, I remember people calling young men names like “college boy”. If you went to college, you might be able to avoid the Vietnam war. I was too young to realize it at the time, but there were people going to college simply to avoid going off to Vietnam. College was not for everyone - most people had “real jobs” and worked for a living. And none of my friend's mothers had careers, just like the mothers on TV. You could live very comfortably on one paycheck when I was growing up. Today, not so much.

My oldest son just graduated from www.Quinnipiac.edu with a degree in Computer Information Systems. His world has been shaped by the “space race” of his day: the Internet. Just as I watched the magic of technology shape my world (and took things for granted) so will my son. Taking things for granted is inevitable.  The magic of remote control TV and radio-controlled garage doors did not last very long for me. Even sending men to the moon started to become passe.  Everyone with a television tuned in to watch Apollo 11 as man first walked on the moon. It took a near disaster with Apollo 13 to even get people to turn on their TV. Going to the moon had become commonplace, just like we take the Internet for granted. How fast we become bored with even the most amazing things!

Technology changes the way that we live, work, and play, and it has done so since the beginning of time. Just look around you, and you will see the next “TV Guide” and not even realize it. Buggy whips, TV Guides, and now iPads? BlackBerry “owned” the Smartphone space just a few years ago. Anyone remember Palm? What’s the next super cool thing in which we shall quickly lose interest?

Everything has its day in the sun, and then it needs to make room for something else. I love blogging on Sunday mornings, pushing a button and sending a message like this to everyone on the planet who would cares to read it.

I just wish I had some Tang.

Me Lucky Charms

Lucky Charms is a brand of cereal produced by the General Mills food company. It first appeared in stores in 1964. The cereal consists of two main components: toasted oat-based pieces and multi-colored marshmallow bits (marbits) in various shapes. 

An advertising company suggested marketing the new cereal around the idea of charm bracelets. Thus, the charms of Lucky Charms were born. Lucky Charms is the first cereal to include marshmallows in its recipe. The mascot of Lucky Charms is Lucky the Leprechaun. 

In 2012, Lucky Charms posted its best year ever. 

The company attributes this recent success to a change in marketing. The cereal moves from appealing to just children, towards one that is succeeding with adults as well. Consumers are also able to reminisce with a jingle that hadn't been used in more than a decade: "hearts, stars and clovers" - Lucky's Litany, in this recent national campaign. The company suggests that the jingle contributed to a rise in sales. 

An estimate of 45% of Lucky Charm consumers are adults. In reaction to the campaign to target "nostalgia," new commercials have been created to accompany it. 

A commercial created called "Transportasty" shows a woman rediscovering Lucky Charms at her office. She is then transported to presumably Lucky's magical forest, where Lucky then says, "You're always after me Lucky Charms." She responds to his famous line by saying, "I forgot how good these taste." And good for you, too, right?

 Along with the new commercials, a new Facebook page was also created to have loyal (adult) consumers discuss and reminisce on the changes with Lucky Charms over the years. However, the company is not moving away from kids. A new commercial of kids sneaking into Lucky's magical vault of charms was also created.

Lucky Charms contains:

Oats (Whole grain), Oats (flour), marshmallows (sugar, modified starch/modified corn starch, corn syrup, dextrose, gelatin, calcium carbonate, yellow 5 & yellow 6, blue 1, red 40), artificial flavor, sugar, corn syrup, corn starch, salt, calcium carbonate, food coloring/artificial color, trisodium phosphate, zinc, iron, vitamin C (sodium ascorbic), niacinamide (a B vitamin), vitamin B2 (riboflavin), vitamin B1 (thiamin monontrate), vitamin A (palmitate), folic acide, vitamin B12, vitamin D, vitamin E (mixed tocopherols).

According to the manufacturer, Lucky Charms is 37% sugar by weight. This puts Lucky Charms at the highest end of "high sugar breakfast cereals."

OK all of you Social Media Marketing Gurus out there, let's review:

• They're Magically Delicious! This tag line is the most famous slogan created for a cereal. 
• A cereal first launched in 1964 just had its best year ever.
• They're Always After Me Lucky Charms!
• The cereal is 37% sugar by weight.
• You'll Never Get Me Luck!
• The marketing campaigns were based on magic, cartoons, and kids.
• 45% of Lucky Charms consumers are adults.
• There is a rumor that in 2013 they will test market a free blood glucose level testing kit as the "toy surprise" inside.

On this Feast of Saint Patrick, don't forget to start your day with a big heaping bowl of Lucky Charms!  They go great with lots and lots of green beer. And, if you drink a little bit too much today, just think how "colorful" your evening will be!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Kentucky Windage

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice of advancing clocks so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn.

The modern idea of daylight saving was first proposed in 1895 and it was first implemented during the First World War. Many countries have used it at various times since then. Although most of the United States used DST throughout the 1950s and 1960s, DST use expanded and has generally remained in use in North America and Europe since that time.

But WHY?

Adding daylight to evenings benefits retailing, sports, and other activities that exploit sunlight after working hours. An early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting (formerly the primary use of electricity) in factories and office buildings. So the big boss said we should spend less money to light and heat the factory or the office. Use as much “free” heat and lighting as possible. That was the motivation of DST.

DST presents challenges. They complicate timekeeping, and can disrupt meetings, travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. 

             

Kentucky Windage is an adjustment made by a shooter to correct for wind (or motion of the target) by aiming at a point horizontal to the target's position in the sight rather than by adjusting the sight to compensate. So, it is a method of correcting for windage, gravity, etc., by aiming a weapon to one side of the target instead of by adjusting the sights.

If you know that the gun shoots a little to the left, then just aim a little to the right. No need to spend time and money adjusting the sights on the guns. Just adjust your aim!

When I was growing up, remembering to “set the clocks” was a big deal. We had to run around the house to reset all the clocks on the stove, updating all of the alarm clocks and the watches. We always forgot one or two, and it always took a few days to “recover” from the missing (or the newly found) hour. “Sorry I’m late (or damn, we are early). We forgot to set the clocks!” was the common cry across the country.

Today, not so much.

These days, every clock in or around our house (TV, Kitchen, Computers, Smartphones) are now smart enough to adjust themselves. And, if more than 90% of the clocks and watches automatically adjust, then it is pretty hard to not know the correct time. If you say to someone “Sorry we are late, we forgot to set the clocks” you would sound like a Luddite.

DST was the “Kentucky Windage” of its day. “Just make ‘em come in an hour early!” said the big boss. “We’ll save a bundle on the light bill! And, if we can’t get 'em all to come in early on their own, then we’ll just change all the clocks!"

With current technology, we no longer need the “Kentucky Windage” concept of DST to save money on our power bills. Technology and the Internet has taken care of that for us with smart thermostats and low energy use lighting. But, if you look for it, you still have plenty of “Kentucky Windage” in your daily work and personal life. The better we all use technology, the less the need for Kentucky Windage.

Instead of “fixing” the problem once and for all, how many times do you allow the problem to continue to exist, and simply choose to “aim to the left?” Got a problem at work or at home that needs fixing? I'll bet there is an app for that.