This Focused Performance Weblog started life as a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective, but is in the process of evolving towards primary content on interactive and mobile marketing. Think of it as about Focusing marketing messages for enhanced Performance. If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Unfocused: Friday Fun: A Band from Brazil -- Great 60's rock from a bunch of contemporary 20-year-olds from Brazil - Garotas Suecas. Found them, along with some other interesting singers/bands on NPR's SXSW Wrap-up.
The Ascent of Money - Niall Ferguson traces the evolution of money and demonstrates that financial history is the essential back-story behind all history.
Mindfuck Movies - "Some movies inform. Some movies entertain. And some pry open your skull and punch you in the brain."
Legacy Locker - Some might not consider this a "fun" link, but given how much of our lives are now online, what will happen to those "assets" when you're not around to maintain them. If you care...
Unfocused: Friday Fun: The 1960s Lyric Edition -- Can anyone point to a better line than the first one in the following?...
I was floatin' in the ocean greased with suntan lotion
When I got wiped out by a beach boy
He was surfin' when he hit me but jumped off his board to get me
And he dragged me by the armpit like a child's toy
As we staggered into land with all the waiters eatin' sandwiches
He tried to mooch a towel from the hoi polloi
He emptied out his eardrums, I emptied out mine
And everybody knows that the very last line
Is "the doctor said, 'Give him jug band music
It seems to make him feel just fine'"
And, finally, going beyond just songs of the Sixties - The Archive of Misheard Lyrics offers up their current funniest of the year - from the Eighties: Robert Palmer's Addicted To Love...
Might as well face it, you're a d**k with a glove.
(Can't guarantee whether that site has real misinterpretations only, but even if concocted, this one's even funnier when you remember that the song came out around the same time that one gloved Michael Jackson was in his prime.)
Bring Your Cell Phone to the Opera, Please
"A coming production of [the Mozart] opera "Cosi fan tutte,"...will ask audience members to vote at intermission for which characters should be married in the opera's final scene."
- Just turn them off between the intermissions.
SitOrSquat iPhone/Blackberry App to be sponsored by Charmin "According to P&G, SitOrSquat for iPhone and BlackBerry is a Wiki for recording and accessing bathroom information, including data on where to find bathrooms, changing tables, handicap access and other amenities--users may add new content to the service and provide feedback on featured toilets. So far, SitOrSquat has compiled information on more than 52,000 toilets in 10 countries worldwide--in addition, more than 1,600 users have downloaded the app to their mobile device."
- I guess if you have Yelp and Urbanspoon to help with the input...
Rocks Into Gold - A parable for our time from long-time blog buddy Clarke Ching.
Sopranos, Uncensored - NSFW - A little diversion featuring very bit of foul language from every episode of HBO's classic series, but not including the curses coming from the audience at the end of the final episode, when they thought their cable had gone out at the most inopportune moment possible. Someone somewhere has too much time on their hands. Surprised, though, that it's only 27 minutes long.
The epic version of a classic from the 80's. The song you know and love starts about 2:15 in, after a weird intro. Apologies if you can't get it out of your head over the weekend.
Google as an in-the-field instructional tool...On one hand, they seem to fit the "dumb criminals" stereotype, but then again, they haven't been caught yet. Maybe they also used Google Maps to make a quick getaway.
Did you turn 29 years old in April of this year? Did your parents live in the New York City area before you were born? hmmmm…
An ad for the internet from Digital Equipment Corp (DEC), 1994...Ah, the good old days of uncluttered, functional design.
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