Self-indulgent Introspection

Incredibly, the marriage of the old and new, has finally happened. It may be the beginning of the end, even though I hope not. Trinity Church in NY is going to be using Twitter for the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday. That’s right tweets about the Stations of the Cross on the holiest of holy days in the Christian faith. Kind of crazy to think that the Pope is now on YouTube and Trinity church is on Twitter! It goes to show you that everyone needs to connect with their customers in every way possible, even high powers.

As many of you know, Steve Jobs has said that he is taking a leave from Apple to deal with health issues. It makes complete sense and he needs to take care of himself, but what does this mean for apple. Wall Street is obviously going to punish apple, because they believe he IS apple. Without him it doesn’t work. I think this raises a question about how much one person can mean to an organization. I think in most cases one person isn’t the end all be all, unless that company is built in their identity. In Apple’s case, Steve Jobs is everything to that company. He is the visionary and the puppet master. Apple is Steve Jobs and Steve jobs is Apple. Can the two work without each other, probably not especially since if someone new were to take over eventually they would do things they felt were right which in turn would change the identity of the company. It will be interesting to see what happens down the road and obviously I hope Steve Jobs gets better quickly, but I hope for Apple’s sake he gets better quickly.

I never recounted my incredible food weekend. As I mentioned it started at Felidia’s in NYC. It was an all around great experience. Here is a recount of what we had. We shared a couple of dishes and then got our own entrees. We started with Polipo all Griglia and Gamberi al Limone. The polipo (octopus) came in two forms, grilled and then a mosaic on the bottom of the plate that was thinly sliced and in a lemon type sauce. I felt that the grilled octopus was good, not amazing as I have had it in many different ways. However, the mosaic octupus was very flavorful and really a great way to present the octopus. The Gamberi al Limone was a definite win. The combination of the creaminess and the citrus was perfect and made this a flawless dish.

For our second course we tried two of the signature pastas, Ravioli con Cacio e Pere and Krafi. The pear ravioli was very tasty but the explosion of flavors of the Krafi were unmatched. These two were extremely successful in my opinion but if I had to do it again I would get the Krafi.

For our main courses we got the following: (Merluzzo, Pappa al Pomodoro, Baccala Mantecato), Zuppa di Pesce con Fregola and Carre di Agnello, Collo “Ossobucco”. The were excellent dishes with my favorite being the Merluzzo, Pappa al Pomodoro, Baccala Mantecato. It was a perfect combination of flavors. Look out for North Fork Table & Inn coming up soon.

Talk about bringing back great childhood memories, Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animations are going to bring the little guys to the big screen. How exciting! I know I am a little old to be so interested, but it’s crazy how much joy and entertainment those little smurfs gave us. They were just a huge bundle of happiness! 

Sony Captures ‘Smurfs’ For the Big Screen

I can’t wait to see billboards start targeting messages based on the person that is looking at it. Isn’t that the holy grail? I would have to say that in the end I may be dissappointed because I like to see what all the messages are since I am in marketing, but I don’t think that most people care to look at ads. However, when an ad is something that is of interest to them, they pay attention. As new generations get older I think that will only be more true, because they grow up being bombarded with ads so I think they have “selective receptivity” to advertising. They will only take note of things that are of interest to them. I guess subconsiously they see all ads, but only the ones that mean something to them is noticed. This article starts to put some of the components together needed for this. It will be very interesting to see how it evolves.

Billboards That Look Back

By the way, I don’t know if it has been used for marketing or advertising, if not I am hearby coining the phrase “selective receptivity” to mean people choicing which ads make an impression on them.

It’s a very exciting today in our household. Today we are getting our first delivery of our weekly vegetables from our CSA, Golden Earthworm. In case you don’t know what a CSA is, it is community supported agriculture, where people can buy a farm share for the growing season which runs from June through November. Every week they deliver a box of prduce from the vegetables that are ripe and ready to be harvested. It’s great because the vegetables are fresher and taste better than anything you would buy in the store. In addition, our CSA is organic so we have the added advantage of that. This weeks harvest includes lettuce, spinach, arugula, radishes and rhubarb. I have already decide to make some pizza with the arugula and the rest we’ll probably make into a salad. Rhubarb is always interesting, but I think I am going to make a rhubarb pie this year. Check out you local farmer’s market, you’re likely to find info there.

I am a little excited about next weekend. I am going to two restaurants, one which I have never been too and another which I have to say is my favorite restaurant on Long Island. On Friday I am going to Felidia, which is Lidia Bastianich’s restaurant. I have never been but I have always heard great things and I am excited to eat some quality Italian food. I will post a recap after I go.

On Saturday I am going to North Fork Table and Inn as my wife and I are taking my cousin Mercedes here for her birthday. We have been here twice and the menu is just always amazing, the food is so fresh and local, and the atmosphere is just perfect. I can’t wait to dive into the always amazing meal.

When I was looking for a new SUV I was deciding between the VW Touareg and the BMW X5. I ended up with the Touareg, but in my research I cam across this video of the BMW X5 in a Rally and almost flipping over.

Check it out:

There are times you see things that make you go hmmm and this was definitely one of them for me. I was reading an article in the NY Times about College Alumni Magazines and their competition with Facebook. Essentially, it comes down to the fact that colleges are losing their alumni magazine eyeballs to Facebook because people keep in touch through Facebook. Well I think this is a great opportunity for Facebook and Colleges. Why doesn’t Facebook and Universities work to create official alumni/school pages on Facebook.  There are currently college networks on Facebook, but if the colleges were to create official pages they may actually get traction with alumni and vice versa Facebook gets a strong following into the future. It becomes another way for alumni offices to keep in touch with alumni. Just an idea.

College Alumni Magazines Struggle to Compete With Facebook

Fascinating how airlines outside the US realize that people still want to be treated with a certain level of respect, for lack of a better word. Flying shouldn’t be just a way to get from point A to point B. Obviously, certain legs of flights you don’t need extra pampering, but here is a novel idea, instead of cutting all the things that make airline travel tolerable and sometime enjoyable, offer it as an option. Airlines have decided to succumb to being seen as a necessary evil to travel between locations. How about customizing travel for people who are willing to pay say $25-$100 more to have various options, like priority seat choice, meals, beverages and perhaps video and movie choices not accessible to everyone. It could make the flight a little more personal for each person. Just a thought, you need to focus on engineering and logistics of airline travel, but maybe thinking about the customer and marketing may just make an airline stand out from the rest.

Check it out:

10 Appetizing Airline Meals