Travels -- San Francisco

A view I can never get tired of. My favorite city to visit.

Poking fun at the America's Cup

In a previous life I was paid to pay attention to this event. I even grew up an avid spectator and remember fondly the time my mother drove me to Newport so I could see the Twelves.

But my interest has waned for a whole host of reasons I won't go into.

Each season seems to always bring out a few article poking fun at the event. Most are somewhat unfair but hold a grain of truth.

The latest, by Taki, was published in The Spectator. (I can't find an online copy.)

One of the gems:

(Larry) Ellison got very close to winning it last time. It takes big bucks and
he sure has them. The only thing I have against him — except for his inane
vulgarity — is the fact the rules have been changed. Once upon a time, when my
daddy was hoping to challenge the New York Yacht Club for the cup, one could use
only indigenous boats and crews. No longer. The winning Alinghi team of the last
cup four years ago were mostly New Zealanders, including the skipper. The
winner, Ernesto Bertarelli, is Swiss — with a very cute English wife — and won
it for good old Helvetia. But did he really? I'd say New Zealand was the true
winner.

On this one I agree. Nationalism is what made the Cup great. Watching sailboat racing, even for fans, is a bit of a bore. Add some nationalism and you've got a compelling story. Not any more.

Travels -- Munich

Am in Munich for a day for meetings taking place at the Munich Conference Center, attached to the airport, which is attached to the hotel. My better half is urging me to head out and expore. My jet-lagged half is telling me to go to bed.

Here's a shot of the concourse for the conference center with a sailboat kind of look to it.

Another community abandons newspapers

Add analysts to the list of people bailing on newspapers.

From Bloomberg:

"Being the newspaper analyst is like being the Maytag repairman,'' said Peter Appert, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in San Francisco. Of the nine newspaper companies he rates, Appert has a "buy'' recommendation on one, GateHouse Media Inc. "Nobody calls, nobody writes. There's a very low level of interest right now.''

When there's nobody covering an industry the investors are certainly not interested. Time to man the life boats.

The "struggle" with going online

The headline on this one from CIO says it all: "Newspapers Struggle to Respond to Web Challenge".

An interesting read on the fact that newspapers are finally awakening. But "struggle" they do. They're still married to conventional wisdom and trying to figure out how to keep things as they are while also adding an online capability. Instead, they should be thinking about starting from scratch. What is it they offer and what's the best way to deliver that product?

The print part of newspapers will never die. But it needs to deliver a different type of content -- not breaking news for sure.

Why, for example, do newspapers still print stock tables? Why do they also print sports scores and stats that are easier to view and manipulate (as well as more up to date) than in print?

College newspapers and the future

Mark Potts, a former colleague at my college newspaper, makes a great point: Why aren't college papers abandoning print?

Today’s college students are the most wired—and wireless—generation in history. They’ve grown up with the Internet, eschewing print. It’s a cruel fact of the media business that young people simply do not read newspapers. Instead, they keep up with the world and their friends via mobile devices, podcasts, RSS, IMs and Twitter.

Mark suggests, and I agree, that something he calls "institutional sloth" is partly to blame.

Recent reads -- A Long Way Gone

A Long Way Gone
Ishmael Beah

Much has been said about this book but nothing will prepare you for its impact. An incredible story about surviving the civil war in Sierra Leone told by a boy who survived the war as a boy soldier.

Not much I write here would do it justice other than to point out that if you think you're facing challenges they will pale in contrast. Perhaps what you take from this story is a glimmer of hope, of inspiration and the realization that, I hope, in the end good does prevail.