Brian Grey Blog

Ever wake up early Sunday morning and actually get your workout in before the spouse and kids are really up and at ‘em?  And then come back to the house with a cup of coffee, the NY Times and all the excitement about how much you were going to get done that day because, after all, this was a Sunday when you had absolutely *nothing* planned?

No youth sports games on the docket.  No birthday parties (uh, see below) on the calendar.  No local family obligations.  Nothing ahead but a free and clear Sunday.  Man, this was gonna be awesome.  Get some more stuff done around the house, get back ahead of the curve with various work things bouncing around in my email and in my head.  I couldn’t remember the last Sunday that held this much promise.

But alas, like all well laid plans of mice and men…or something like that…this Sunday went off the rails pretty fast.

So, where was I?  Oh yea, just getting back to my house — a 12 ouncer from Philz Coffee in one hand, the NYTimes firmly gripped by the other.  I wasted no time getting the hot shower and clean clothes thing taken care of so that I could sink in to the living room couch with my java and paper when, sure enough, about three paragraphs in to the SundayBusiness NYTimes story about how the “organic foodies” have begun their latest assault on Big Farming (e.g. “we’re coming after you Mr. High Fructose Corn Syrup!”), there was a knock at the front door.  It was our neighbor from across the street, informing us that they had moved the birthday party for her son from a Pacifica beach to their house across the street.

Damn!  How did we forget to put that on the calendar?

Well, off I went to get a birthday gift so that we could waltz across the street to the party just as the rest of the gang was making it back from Pacifica.  So much for the NYTimes today…another $5.43 (after tax) down the drain.  Good thing I’m not stupid enough to actually subscibe to a newspaper that I never read anyway.  Oh wait, that’s what I am doing with the Wall Street Journal!

Ok, so the birthday party that we pretty much spaced on — but got a fortuitous second chance to attend — turned out to be pretty cool.  Our neighbors have a killer rooftop deck, the sun was warm (the wind was blocked out) and the vista of Noe Valley and the Mission districts were spectacular.  Of course, getting a good look at the peeling paint on my house and what appears to be a warped roof weren’t the highlights of my view.

By about 1:45pm we all made it back across the street to our house.  I was gearing up to get some work done.  You know, organize the basement crap — I had visions of loading up our gas guzzler and making dual trips…one to the SF municpal dump and the other to the nearest Goodwill drop off center.  I could unload so much of our junk today that the family feng shui index would sky rocket!

But no, this is where pre-existing project #2 that we forgot was on our schedule arrived.  Turns out that my wife had agreed to sew together a bunch of costumes for our daughter’s 4th grade play.  To make matters worse, one of my daughter’s friends came over to supposedly “help out”, though they didn’t really help with the costumes but instead a full on play date broke out and they did a splended job destroying the cleaning my wife and I had done upstairs earlier in the morning.

By this time I had all but given up on checking in on the NCAA Tournament games or doing anything else that could be described as relaxing.  It was now 3:30pm, our dining room had a damn sewing machine sitting on it (who owns their own sewing machine these days?) and all kinds of fabric store stuff strewn around the room.  That’s right about when our little one starts getting cabin fever.  Bouncing a ball all over the house, whining to play the Wii, you name it.

Off I go on a mission to get her the hell out of the house so she can burn off whatever a 6 year old needs to burn off on a Sunday afternoon.  On her bike she goes, me following her as we make our way towards the dog park with our baseball gloves and a t-ball baseball (the ones that look like a real baseball but are soft enough to not hurt a kid when they misjudge a pop fly and get smacked in the eye socket).  Once at Duboce Park (the one that is typically full of dog shit), my daughter and I launch in to a good old fashioned game of catch.  Watching her go through her mini wind up and then whip her body around with all she has to throw the ball 20 feet is a great sight.  A visual I hope to never forget, especially the fact that none of her errant throws landed in a fresh dog turd.

By the time we finish our neighborhood jaunt — with a stop at the hardware store to pick up some things, including a camo designed mini flashlight for her, and then a stop by Peet’s Coffee for a steamed milk and a brownie bite — I realize that this Sunday isn’t so bad after all.

Sure, it’s not until about 9:30pm that my wife and I end up eating at the kitchen table, pouring through the piles of paper from the home office that we haven’t gone through and debating which summer camps the kids should do versus which family trips we should be taking.  And then by the time I knock out a couple work related things I need to cross off the to-do list before Monday morning, I realize it’s just about 11:30pm.  But I feel like I spent the day much more productively than I would have had it been just me, that cup of coffee and the NYTimes.  Here’s to my next “nothing planned” Sunday!

Sorry to be repeating myself with the emphasis on “People”.  But I feel compelled because over the weekend I ran across two pieces from a couple of my favorite old media friends — The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times — that highlight again the art versus science aspect of how important the “people aspect” is to the success of any organization.

First up is the Sunday NY Times article “Secrets of the Talent Scouts” by George Anders, highlighting the short list of ways professions ranging from venture capitalists to country music A/R guys go about making their bets on what they hope will be their next hits.  One general theme highlighted in Anders’ piece is the focus on putting your money on young, passionate people.  I agree on this one, especially if we are talking true early stage investing or finding the next sports, music or acting star.  When was the last time you saw a 50-year old starting a semantic Web search start-up or launching a music career?

Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have met with George.  In fact, we chatted just a few weeks ago about the angle of talent scouting in the context of sports scouting — specifically baseball scouting, something I did on a part-time basis for a couple seasons in the mid 90′s for the Chicago White Sox.  It’s too bad George didn’t track down a sports scout for the story — it would have added another valuable dimension to a fascinating, yet amorphous topic.

From my perspective, evaluating talent is largely about pattern recognition.  As with sports, the more repetitions you get, the better you get.  There is predictive power in being able to say “this guy reminds me of that other guy from 10 years ago who flamed out in AAA” or “this team reminds me of those other guys who zigged and zagged before they locked in on their idea that they sold to Cisco for $500 million.”

Yet unlike sports, even with a long history of pattern recognition, you can still fall prey to false positives and false negatives.  Cleary the former can be quite costly which is perhaps why the story didn’t talk too much about such examples.

Another story that I found interesting this weekend was the WSJ’s piece about evaluating the value of college basketball coaches, Matthew Futterman’s “College Basketball’s Bargains and Busts”.  What’s great about this story is the very simple calculation that Futterman does to rank college coaches — at least the guys who make at least $1 million a year in salary.

By dividing each coach’s annual salary by their average Ratings Percentage Index (or RPI, the stat that measures a team’s winning percentage against the difficulty of it’s schedule), The Journal arrives at a simple number that basically calculates what a school pays in dollars for each RPI point.  There you have it — a quick way to figure out is it worth keeping your coach or not!

Now, to be fair, this doesn’t take in to account other factors such as NCAA Tournament performance (e.g. Billy Donovan ranks pretty low on the list, but he has won a couple NCAA Tourney’s in the past 5 years) or how much revenue the coach’s program generates via gate receipts, merchandise and TV revenue (e.g. how many times a year does CBS put Jim Calhoun’s Connecticut Huskies on national television?).

But think for a minute how an approach like this could be applied to CEOs given today’s economic maladies.  What if The Journal published a similar list of S&P 500 CEOs that tabulated their total compensation divided by the company’s EBITDA.  From this simple ratio we could get a snapshot of how much a company is paying their CEO for each dollar of profit.  Sounds simple, eloquent and down right unveiling doesn’t it?  Maybe that’s why the Journal hasn’t done it?

I would love to see companies in today’s environment talk more about “pay for performance” in a credible way.  Maybe a simple calculation a la what The WSJ has done to rank college basketball coaches doesn’t quite cut it, but something along these lines would be a welcome change to the divergent path between these two numbers that we see all to much these days.

The economic environment has started to shine a light on the private vs. public school decision that three million U.S. families are facing right now as renewal letters show up in mailboxes.

Sunday’s New York Times Sunday Styles section picks up on this theme by highlighting a handful of families wrestling with the economic cost of keeping their kids in private school as opposed to going the public route. As I read the Times piece it struck me how a decision like school choice epitomizes the many difficult decisions families are making these days.

My wife and I are no different in this regard. Let’s face it, I have drastically cut back on spa treatments and wardrobe enhancements. And why have we decided to make the private school decision, especially since we have many public school educators in our extended family?

Well, for a few reasons.

I grew up seeing my parents struggle as teachers to get the resources they needed to be successful. In fact my school district shut down for two weeks during my freshman year since voters voted down our local ischool budget. Nothing says “education is our most important investment” like making your kids sit home in November.

Now that I live in California – you know, that state that just about ran out of money last month – I am constantly reminded of how little we as a country commit our tax dollars to education. So despite already paying for public school through our tax payments, we are compelled to pay even more for my kids to learn music and art; to have PE more than once a week and to fund a curriculum that goes beyond preparing for achievement tests.

For us – and others I am sure – a private school also brings a philosophical or religious approach that is important for parents. In our situation it’s the opportunity to have our kids be a part of a Quaker education and community. (Of course, it is a little embarassing that the Obama’s have now jumped on the Friends School bus!)

This decision doesn’t make us better or more elite than public school. It’s just different – a choice we have made in the belief that it will enrich our children years from now.

And that brings me back to the Times article. What you realize when you read the piece is that times are tough – so tough that parents are grappling with where they rank their children’s education on the priority list. In a way though, these tough times really remind you how to prioritize what is important and how to sacrifice in order to hang on to what matters – especially what matters for your kids.

The end may soon be near for Facebook.com — my mother-in-law just “friended me” on the massively popular social networking site.  That’s it — it’s all downhill from here for Facebook.  I mean, who isn’t going to be on Facebook pretty soon?  The cool factor is gone.

Yes, that’s right.  This past weekend, after spending two nights at our house, my dear mother-in-law had the audacity to not only sign up for Facebook, but she went so far as to friend me.  With, of course, the expectation that I actually confirm her as a friend.  There goes the neighborhood.

Seriously, my whole perception of Facebook has changed.  It was one thing when a couple of people from my Econ 101 class in college or the guy I worked with in a warehouse one summer tracked me down on Facebook, but my mother-in-law?  C’mon, that’s just not right.

Poof!  My last bastion of privacy is gone — the place where I could live my so called semi-professional and personal life shielded from my extended family.  A private club where I could relax in my smoking jacket, post some photos and throw inane comments up on my Status bar or my buddy’s wall.  It was a special secret life I was leading.  Even my wife wasn’t there — she had no interest in Facebook.  But apparently her mom does!

So now what do I do?  Do I dare “unfriend” my daughters’ Nana.  Surely that is the definition of bad karma.  No, I think my special Facebook world is over.  What’s next?  Let me guess — it’s only a matter of days before I get a friend invite from MY mom!

Do you think my family would find me if I snuck over to Myspace?

I’m not exactly sure how Bob Dylan and Robert McNamara — two more polar opposite icons from the 1960s — popped in my head Friday night when the news started pouring in that Hulu had requested its content be taken down from Boxee.tv.  A lot has been written about this — mostly of the tone that Hulu as a front for old media doesn’t “get it” and that they will eventually be overtaken by innovative open source community-based technologies like Boxee.

Well, this is where I guess Dylan comes in …more specifically his 1964 album “The Times They are A-Changin”.  Indeed, the speed of technology innovation and digital social networking seems to create this non-stop feeling that the times are “A-Changin”.  Look at what has happened over the last decade to the music industry.  Look at how prolific social media has become thanks to Myspace and Facebook.  Look at what is happening now with the onset of real-time messaging services like Twitter.  Not even a 15-year old girl with her hands strapped around an iPhone can keep up with it all.

Now map all of this change to what Boxee.tv purports to do:

• create a single interface on your computer that can assemble all media content — that which resides on your local hard drive as well as that which can be accessed via the Internet — combined with social networking features that enable you to see everything your friends are watching.  Then, to make matters more scary for traditional media guys, make all of this insanely easy to plug in to your big fat plasma HDTV so you can experience everything from your living room couch.

Whew!  That’s a mouthful…and at the same time a whole lot of disruption for the offline guys to deal with thanks to one service.

So Hulu’s actions that culminated with Friday’s “takedown” of their content from Boxee pits battle lines once again between the digerati creating cutting edge technologies and the contentorati creating premium content offerings.  Ah, the classic battle between software engineers and TV/movie producers.

So this is where McNamara pops in to my head.  Yes, probably the last guy you’d think of in a classic “us vs. them” matchup like Boxee.tv vs. Hulu.com, but if you happened to take in the 2003 documentary “The Fog of War” which chronicled McNamara’s life up through his tenure as Secretary of Defense, you’ll no doubt remember the 11 life lessons that McNamara delivers while telling his story.

Well one of my favorite, yet least practiced by people today and perhaps most applicable here, is his “Lesson #1:  Empathize with your enemy”.  McNamara makes this point as part of his depiction of the Cuban Missile Crisis and how during the most perilous days and hours of that event it was ultimately important to empathize with Soviet Premier Kruschev to resolve the conflict.

Now, far from me to try and equate the Cuban Missle Crisis to the Boxee-Hulu Crisis, but I do think the lesson is well served here.  You see, as someone who has worked in both Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, and who has worked closely with brilliant and passionate software engineers as well as content producers, I think right now would be a good time for both parties to empathize with their supposed “enemy” a little bit.

For Hulu e.g. NBC and Fox, it’s important for them to truly understand that what they have built with Hulu is their own path of technological change and the embracing of the new ways consumers will want to consume content — premium or otherwise.  However, once content producers wade in to the fast lane of this change, they have to understand there’s no turning back the clock.  Consumers will demand the ability to get content when and where they want it — and as evidenced by the “workaround” developed just hours after Hulu’s takedown, they will do whatever it takes to have that experience.

On the other hand, for the Boxee’s of the world e.g. technology innovators, empathizing means taking the time to truly understand what it takes to create premium content.  The next time they watch the credits at the end of a TV show or movie, watch how many people are involved in creating this premium content experience.  Producing high quality content — the stuff that people really want to watch, particularly on their HDTVs — takes time and money.  Too often the technology folks lose sight of this fact — and the fact that it’s a pretty big drop down from “24″ and “The Office” to the pool of Webisodes and what some think of as “premium UGC” (oxymoron anyone?).

Maybe it’s too Polyanna-ish for me to think that these two sides of the brain can empathize with one another to create a solution that brings the eloquent digital product experience of a Boxee together with the unparalleled premium content experience developed by the NBC’s and Fox’s of the world.  But taking a step back to truly look at what is going on through the lens of the other guy is a really good lesson — particularly when times are A-Changin.

Today I had one of those near misses in life.  My wife and the girls had headed to the North Bay for the afternoon.  A rare non-workday window opened up where I could actually try to get caught up on a thousand things like email, reviewing some pitches that made their way to my inbox last week, reading the latest book I just started…you get the idea.

So how did I experience a near miss?  Well, you see, in the digital world that we live in today, all it takes is one project — or related project — to suck you down that death spiral that I like to call “technorati hell”.  Let me stop here before I go any further to clarify that “technorati hell” has nothing to do with the fine site at http://technorati.com that my friend Rich Jalichandra runs.

What I am referring to when I say technorati hell is that experience we’ve all had where you proudly begin to dig in to your to-do list on a rainy weekend (or in this case national holiday) day, only to end up spending every second on one damn bullet on that to-do list.  Worse, often times that single bullet ends up haunting you well in to the evening after you have slept walk your way through reading to your kids and tucking them in for the night.

For me the challenge of getting Boxee.tv’s alpha to show up on my Panasonic plasma television could have very easily paved my own road to technorati hell.  The day started simply enough — an early morning workout, running a couple of errands with my younger daughter that included a tasty lunch and taking her to a place where she could dart around on her Razor scooter without me be worried that she would get hit by a car.  We fathers are such worry warts.

Back home with my very first HDMI-DVI cable and some other crazy looking cable from the Apple Store that I was informed would deal with the audio since the aforementioned cable only dealt with the video, I launched in to the project.  Getting up and running with Boxee on my MacBook Pro was no problem — though the software did lock up a couple times on me, requiring my favorite of all MacBook Pro moves:  the “forced quit” maneuver.  Boxee is after all in alpha.

Next it was on to the major initiative, trying to take the Boxee experience and get it on to my Panasonic TH-42PD50U television.  (Okay, right there you know I spent too much time on this project given that I can rattle off the exact model number of my TV set!).  Now I’m not going to bore you with all the machinations I went through to get the MacBook to pump Boxee’s video and audio up to the Panasonic, that’s not the point here.  In fact, the point isn’t even the fact that I got it to work — but let me just say, I GOT IT TO WORK!  Maybe I should take a weekend shift with the Geek Squad or hang out with the A-V superstars over at Magnolia Hi-Fi?

No, the point here is that I had come to peace with the fact that I wasn’t going to let this project consume me.  Wasn’t going to let it drag me in to an “all nighter” like so many other tech projects have in the past (yah, I’m talking to you Mr. First Time I Tried to Install WordPress.org Software Up to My Own Web Host).  I had made it clear in my mind that I would only spend a specified amount of time on this project — and if I hadn’t conquered it, well I would do what every good American does:  just quit!  Joking!  I am joking — I would of course come back to the project at a later date, after I had had a chance to ask some experts, you know, people that have a clue when it comes to piecing together the magic that is the intersection of software, hardware and the “Interwebs”.

There you have it kids.  Progress and growth.  Let this be a lesson to you all.  If you are going to walk around with a list of things that need to get prioritized and done, get good at partitioning the time you spend on any one project.  Don’t let one single project pull you down to the depths of technorati hell.  Hey, didn’t we all learn this lesson back when we were studying for the SATs?  You remember, don’t get stuck on one problem, skip it and come back to it later?

Well, now’s a good time to bring that favorite back out of the closet.

New beginnings are exciting — doing a restart can be energizing.  With that spirit in mind, and prompted by a blog post forwarded to me by my pal VCMike, I have decided to do a “Twitter Restart”.  What’s a Twitter Restart?  Well, basically I have decided to sign up anew on Twitter using a new user name.

Why do this?

Well, for one reason, I don’t feel as though I’ve really given Twitter that “old college try” as they say.  I kind of stumbled in to it last summer and then stumbled in a bit more in the fall when I moved back to SF and started up with Polaris.  A Twitter Restart gives me a chance to experience Twitter as a “newbee”.  I get to feel the rush of a user who found out about Twitter at a cocktail party in Pacific Heights — or at a Michael Phelps-esque party in the Haight? — and then raced home that night a little buzzed to sign on to Twitter to see what all the Twitter-hype was about.

I’m so giddy right now…

Another driver for the TR (can I be introducing a new acronym in to the Web2.0 lexicon?) is the opportunity to really put my “true” identity out in the Twittersphere:  bgrey.  You see, “bgrey” has been my Internet moniker since I got my first email address back in 1939 (ok, 1995, but it feels like 70 years ago).  Most of my colleagues from places I’ve stopped at in the past — UCLA, Netscape, Shutterfly, Yahoo!, Fox, etc. — know me as “bgrey”.  So may as well make the TR switchover to the brand people know (and trust)!

That post I referenced above is from Max Kalehoff on his blog and Max talks about the importance of not just having a brand voice on Twitter — but also the distinction of having that voice come from a real person versus some “oracle” for the brand.  For example, being able to follow @TonyHsieh talking about Zappos would provide more punch than just following @Zappos.  The former would be authentic, the latter viewed skeptically by Twitterers thinking that it was just filtered corporate speak.

Oh, there is one last reason for the TR.  You see, that mystery “L” that was inserted in to my original Twitter identity has created an issue back on the home front.  Turns out that my dad, for whom the “L” in my middle name comes, feels that I am treading on his brand.  So I am removing it lest I get slapped with some type of Twitter induced trademark infringement lawsuit.  Damn those parents who start paying attention to their own brands in the digital realm!  [Note:  My dad isn't really going to sue me -- he has to learn to type before he can actually use the Web]

So here we go.  A Twitter Restart.  Fresh and new.  An opportunity to dive in to Twittermania again for the “very first time” as Madonna might sing.  Now I just have to figure out how to rewire all the places where my old “blgrey” Twitter account is wired up.

Ugh, I feel the excitement already dissipating…

I recall reading a story several years ago about former Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger explaining why he always read the sports section of the newspaper first. Try as I might (or as Google might) I was unable to unearth the exact quote, but paraphrasing Burger, he said he read the sports section first because it was always full of good news and highlighted the positive achievements of mankind.

Well, Mr. Burger passed away in 1995, and it is probably right around that time that the sports section of your local or national paper ceased as a repository solely of good news and stories of human achievement. Today’s sports section has plenty of stories about bad actors (that’s you Mr. Bonds) who have been taking column inches and words away from stories that make you feel good about sports.

Now that all said, I still start my way through the Sunday NY Times with the “SportsSunday” section. And today, I decided to read it with an eye towards what lessons can come from all stories — whether they be the kind Chief Justice Burger was referring to or not. Here are a couple that made me think about more than just sports:

NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS AND TALENT

Harvey Araton’s piece about the New England Patriots quarterback drama between their long-time hero — but current injured star — Tom Brady and the relatively young guy Matt Cassell who finally got snaps this past season — and by December had become the hottest QB in the NFL — highlights how fickle picking talent in sports can be. The Patriots have made Cassell their “franchise” player and are poised to pay the guy about $6M more this coming season than Brady, even though Cassell may end up back on the bench.

And that’s the amazing lesson here. What talent did Bill Belichick see in Cassell in 2005 when he drafted the guy in the 7th round (one round later than Brady was drafted by the Patriots a few years before) after Cassell had spent five years sitting on the bench at USC behind Carson Palmer and Matt Leinart? Come on, Cassell hadn’t played in an actual game since December of 1999, his final game as a high school senior. Cassell’s ascent to become a top tier NFL QB is not only a testament to his perseverance but also to the phenomenal eye for talent that Belichick and his Patriot staff demonstrate time and time again.

Now how the Patriots navigate the salary cap with two highly paid QBs is a totally different story.

HANK AARON — THE BEST EVER

The all-time homerun king turned 75 years old this week. It’s nice to see that stories can still be written about true sports heroes even when cheaters who broke their records are talked about in stories on page 1 of the same section.

The first book I remember ever reading from cover to cover (not counting “See Pug Run” and other first grade favorites) was the book “Hammerin Hank of the Braves”. I still remember the narrative about Aaron’s upbringing in Mobile, Alabama and the descriptions of his “whip like” wrists as a young hitter. A lot of other guys get labeled as the greatest player of all time (Mays, Mantle, Williams, Ruth, Dimaggio, etc.), but to me Aaron is THE guy you’d want to pencil in as your #3 hitter everyday if you had one pick. Compare Aaron’s stats over 23 seasons to Mays’s stats over 22 seasons.

Aaron is the greatest baseball player of all time — it’s too bad he doesn’t get more air time.

MICHAEL PHELPS AND REEFER MADNESS

This is the type of story that probably didn’t show up much in Warren Burger’s sports sections: Phelps caught in the act working a bong like it was a saxophone. And the Times had plenty of readers write in to complain about Phelps’ actions and how he appeared to come across as an insincere athlete looking to keep is image intact in the name of his corporate sponsors. One mom went so far as to say: “I am a mother of four, ages 4, 7, 9 and 12, and a stepmother to five, ages 11, 14, 17, 19 and 21. How do parents respond when our children say, ‘If Michael Phelps smokes pot, why can’t we?’”.

Well, first off, nice to see Carol Brady has got free time to surf the Internet to see pictures of Phelps toking — or maybe she caught it on her local news or “Inside Edition”? I am guessing a couple of those step kids in the 17-21 year old range have already made their decision about pot smoking?

Perhaps a better line of questioning would take this reader’s concern and broaden it a bit. What would her reaction be if the picture was of Phelps at a party drinking a Bud Light or one of those sassy flavored distilled spirit beverages from a reputable firm like Smirnoff? And let’s suppose for a minute that Phelps had a sponsorship deal with say Budweiser or Smirnoff (maybe both!)? Heck, forget him having a sponsorship deal, let’s just talk about the fact that the lady’s kids watched the Super Bowl last Sunday where they saw plenty of Budweiser ads and the fact that everytime they enter a sports stadium they see beer and liquor ads of some kind (either as stadium signage, on the jumbotron or in the game program).

Dare I suggest that alcohol abuse has done more socio and economic damage to the lives of people – young and old – than smoking pot? I can’t say for sure, but it’s worth spending some time thinking about the question now that Mr. Phelps has been caught at a party with his Speedo down so to speak.

MANNY AND SCOTTY

And then there’s the Manny Ramirez drama. He turns down a one-year, $25 million deal to stay with the Dodgers — and we’re all left breathless as to whether Ned Colletti will blink before Scott Boras, Manny’s agent.

Listen, in these times it is reprehensible to imagine anyone saying that $25 million a year is not enough, particularly in light of January’s employment report. On the other hand, you could argue that this is capitalism at it’s best — good old supply and demand at work — and may the best negotiator win.

What gets me though is Boras’s quote in the Times article: “This [Ramirez] is not someone you add to your payroll…this is someone who pays for himself”. Ok, so the other 24 guys on the roster are just operating expense, pure and simple — Manny is the only guy who generates revenue? Should be a fun clubhouse wherever Manny ends up. But let’s go with Scotty on this one for a second. How about we agree that Manny is so valuable he pays for himself. Let’s see him sign up for an incentive laden contract based on a percentage of the Dodger’s gate receipts (above of course the baseline they were traveling on before Ramirez showed up last July).

I’d love to see a contract like this. Many gets X% of the Dodger’s revenue above a baseline level – stadium and merchandise revenue only, TV dollars are locked in for awhile yet — and we could really see Manny “pay for himself”. Of course, what happens when the Dodgers fall out of contention after the All-Star break and Manny starts mailing it in. Should the contract require that Manny and Scotty pay the Dodgers the same percentage below the agreed upon baseline?

Yes, I’ll keep starting my Sunday with the sports section — seemed to work well for Chief Justice Burger!

Finally got my blog wired in to the new Plinky.com blogging service started by Jason Shellen and team. (Note: Full disclosure, Plinky is a Polaris investment and I am a Polaris EIR, so that means Plinky and I are like second cousins I guess?).

Curious to see whether the uptake is more on plinky.com or via integration in to other services — like in my case WordPress.org. What will be most interesting to watch is the dynamic of how topics get generated by users and how topics and their resultant content can then become relevant for advertisers.

For now, enjoy my three new nominees to Obama’s cabinet complements of Plinky!

George C. Scott

Clearly I am channeling his role in “Patton”, but seems like in times like these we could use a bit more tough love…the kind George dished out as Patton. Obvious choice would be to drop George in to the Sec of Defense role.

Clint Eastwood

While we’re on the topic of tough love, the other guy we should drop in to a Dream Team cabinet would be Clint Eastwood, this time channeling “Dirty Harry” — either from the original or from Magnum Force (where he lit up Hal Holbrook). For Clint, how about Sec of Homeland Security. I know I would sleep well at night!

Warren Buffet

Ok, enough of these Wall Street or former Federal Reserve Bank punks…let’s just pull Warren in as Sec of the Treasury…and Commerce and Labor Secretaries at the same time. The guy’s track record with his fund is pretty obvious. C’mon, compare him to Robert Rubin and it’s a no-brainer.

A couple weeks ago I ran across a picture of Steelers coach Mike Tomlin from a press conference.  His no-smile countenance, close cropped hair, piercing eyes…man he reminded me of someone.  But I just couldn’t place him.  Then it hit me!

Mike Tomlin and Chef from South Park…are they related!  Did the South Park creators use Coach Tomlin as their inspiration in creating Chef?  Check it out:

The potential connection between Tomlin and Chef made me more curious about the Steelers head coach.  What is it about the guy who in his second season could guide one of the most decorated NFL franchises to the Super Bowl?

To be fair, I don’t really know much about Tomlin.  I’ve seen a few interviews and post-game press conferences — most of what I’ve picked up are in those soundbites.  In fact all I’ve read about the guy is what was printed in Friday’s USA Today.  So what is it that makes me like a guy who coaches for a team that I don’t care about (afterall, I am still a Raiders fan despite the fact that they have fallen off the face of the NFL earth), other than the fact he resembles the coolest animated character in the history of cartoons?

Quite simply it’s the fact that as far as I can tell his no BS approach is legit and that his players have bought in to how he goes about pus.  The USA Today piece actually highlights a few of Tomlin’s favorite quotes, the ones he uses over and over to keep his team focused on winning it all:

“Iron sharpens iron” — pretty self explanatory on this one — I would suggest that the application for everyday life is pretty clear.  Challenge yourself everyday.

“More grounded, more humble, more selfless makes us more opportunistic” — this one captures the essence of “team” and getting more people to think this way in their day-to-day pursuits would be a real good thing.

“The time’s coming when we’re going to have to ante up and kick in like men” — sure he pulled this one from a movie (“Glory” starring Denzel Washington), but it hits the beat of accountability and ownership.  Again, pretty important concept these days.

“I’ll tolerate you until I can replace you” — A little too “NFL harsh” this one, but it does cut pretty sharply to the point of how important it is to be optimizing your talent at all times.  That said, you may want to find a more HR friendly way to convey this one to your team!

Now, if all you did was focus on these quotes in the Tomlin story, you’d easily overlook a couple of his own quotes that really capture why the guy has the impact he does on his team:

“People aren’t very good listeners by nature…Part of being a good communicator is recognizing and understanding that and trying to make the complex simple.” Amen!  It’s super easy in today’s world to get lost in data, information overload and the like.  Finding a simple way to consistently deliver a message is a valuable skill for leaders.

“I’m not interested in evaluating my performance, and particularly I’m not interested in my players’ evaluations of my performance…I’m paid to evaluate them.” Again, a little “NFL harsh” here, but the essence is there.  You can’t get caught up in what people think of you as a manager — you have to stay focused on managing your talent and team in the way that you believe gives you the best chance to achieve your ultimate business goals.

“Every morning when I come to work…I walk past five Lombardis, not five rushing titles.” This is my favorite of his quotes.  The only trophy that matters is the one that measures what the team achieves…not the ones that measure what individual players achieve.

So yes, I am a Mike Tomlin fan.  My pick Sunday is Steelers 20, Cardinals 17.  Now I have to get back to researching this connection he has to Chef?