News of the Day: Black Friday Starting Before Thanksgiving Ends

If you are one who desires to simplify your life and lead a life less driven by consumerism, avoid television the week of Thanksgiving! I have been amazed at how obsessed the news media is concerning “black Friday.” It is so bad that Thanksgiving has become nothing more than an unavoidable bump in the road to the Christmas shopping season.

Folks, we need to take a step back and realize that there is more to life than shopping. Still, listen to our political leaders, and they will try to convince you that from an economic perspective there is so much riding on the holiday shopping season that everyone needs shop, shop, shop in order to support the economy. Am I the only one who thinks this is warped?

Earlier this week, the Congress failed to agree on spending cuts equalling $1.2 Trillion. No one wants to deal with the difficult reality that this nation is broke. Leaders should be encouraging our people to be frugal this Christmas season and seek out ways to celebrate Christmas without spending themselves into debt. Instead, it’s the opposite. No one wants to deal with the unpleasant reality of financial bankruptcy. As a country, we continually kick the can a little further down the road hoping that somehow, everything will fix itself before the entire house comes crashing down on top of us. Sooner or later, we must draw a line in the sand and say enough. America has become a consumer-oriented economy, and the consumers are broke.

What would happen if the majority (the 99 percent) agreed to shop only with cash this Christmas season? What would happen if the 99 percent agreed to give $1 to missions or a charity for every $1 spent on Christmas gifts? What would happen if the 99 percent agreed to invest one hour in real time with friends and family for every hour they spend shopping or planning to shop?

What ideas do you have to curb the compulsion to shop?

News of the Day: ISU Defeats No. 2 OSU

Wow. That seemed to be the single word the erupted across social media sites as news began to spread of Iowa State’s stunning upset of No. 2 ranked Oklahoma State. ESPN’s David Ubben summed up the evening this way: "Oklahoma State's title hopes? Gone. Brandon Weeden's Heisman hopes? Dashed. Iowa State shook up the college football races Friday night.” As #Cyclones began trending on Twitter, fans from Alabama to Oklahoma (OU) to Oregon began rejoicing that their teams were back in the chase for a chance at the national title.

This game was played at home for Iowa State in front of a sell out crowd and a national television audience. The first half of the game looked like the games was going to play out as expected--OSU led ISU 24-7 at one point. Then OSU began making mistakes and ISU began playing like champions.

Even as the game entered its second overtime, I think everyone watching just knew OSU was going to pull this out. The ESPN announcing crew kept reminding us that ISU had something like a 0-56 record in overtime against top two teams.

Then OSU’s quarterback, Brandon Weeden, had a pass picked off and ISU was able to score in a couple of running plays.

That’s when Twitter and Facebook lit up. Wow. Unbelievable. Oh. My. Goodness.

It was quite an evening for the Cyclone Nation, quote an evening for the state of Iowa, and quite an evening for college football.

News of the Day: Cards Win Game 6 and Obama White House Ties to Lobbies

The St. Louis Cardnals won a thrilling come-from-behind Game 6 in the World Series on David Freese’s 11th Inning home run. Twice, the Texas Rangers had the Cardinals down to their last strike only to see the Cards somehow rally. The Game is already being touted as one of the greatest thrillers in baseball history.Also interesting are little headlines like the one on today’s cover: “Top Obama ‘Bundlers’ Hold Close Ties to Lobbies.” It is oftentimes small stories like this that are just the tip of the iceberg, and lead to much greater, prolonged times of crisis for a White House. Seldom to crises like these blow up on the scene. They are often shrouded in secrecy, and it takes weeks, or sometimes months, of journalistic digging to uncover the full extent of the wrongdoing. This is not to say this is a crisis for the White House, it is simply an interesting observation, and something to watch.

News of the Day: Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

It is fitting that I first learned of Steve Jobs’ death while reading on my iPad. A “Breaking News” alert popped up on my screen. As I reflect on the impact of his life on Global Business, Technology, and Culture, I am truly left without words.

I remember when the first Macintosh computer was introduced in 1984. I was a student at Arizona State University, and the Apple folks setup a display in the Memorial Union with a few Macs available for students to try. The Mac was appealing, but it quickly gained a reputation as a toy compared to the true business machines, the IBM PC running MS-DOS. My only brushes with a Mac over the next two decades would be brief. It was always the “art” guys who seemed to gravitate towards the Mac. The rest of us clung to our PCs, first with Windows 3, then Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, and finally Windows 7.

It wasn’t until 2009 that I finally gave in to common sense and moved into the Mac world. The killer feature that made this possible for me was the move to Intel machines that could double boot into either Mac OS X or Windows. This allowed me to make the transition slowly. Today, in 2011, I am writing this article on my Mac using beautifully crafted Mac software and an operating system that just works.

I think the final A-ha moment for me was in April 2010 when I stood in line to purchase my iPad. For years I had followed from a distance the tablet PC niche within the Windows World. I had always longed for a tablet PC, but the cost was so prohibitive for a computer that seemed underpowered, too heavy to carry around, and had a battery life of two or three hours. Still, tablet PCs were “it” for me.

Then I purchased an iPad, and I saw clearly for the first time the stupidity of tablet PCs.

Jobs and Apple had created a completely new device that did everything the tablet PCs could not. It was light. It was attractive. It had a long battery life. It made sense. That’s the thing I finally realized about tablet PCs. They didn’t make sense. Why try to take a keyboard/mouse-centric operating system like windows and port it onto a tablet? It simply doesn’t make sense. The iPad, on the other hand, made perfect sense. This is when I became an Apple fanboy.

Thanks, Steve.

News of the Day: Labor Day 2011

Labor Day is the official end of summer and the beginning of fall. Weather and politics have dominated the news this past week. Hurricane Irene caused major destruction along the East Coast of the U.S., with most of the damage caused by flooding in New England. Tropical Storm Lee drenched the Gulf Coast States with 10-20 inches of rain. In Texas, wildfires raged uncontrollably. Texas is experiencing its worst drought in decades.Labor Day is also when presidential politics take another step up in intensity. With the Iowa Caucuses currently four months out (the date is open to change), the GOP race is still wide open. Newcomer Rick Perry is quickly gaining the edge in many polls, while Sarah Palin continues to hover around the edge. Palin is like a Category 3 hurricane out in the Atlantic. Hurricane watchers and the media are paying close attention, but it is still too early to tell if she will make landfall. President Obama continues to struggle with finding a voice in the on-going uproar over jobs and the economy. In many ways he looks more and more like Herbert Hoover trying desperately to overcome the economic tsunami that continues to pound the global community. So many factors are simply out of his control.