I’ve been using dvdcvll@yahoo.com because all acceptable variations of my name were claimed long before I realized that a funny email address wouldn’t be funny after college.
Now, friends, I’m happy to report I’ve got my dream address. It’s new. It’s easy. It’s me. It’s dcovell@ymail.com. Today we’re launching ymail.com and rocketmail.com to the world. Get your new e-ddress and ditch that crappy Hotmail or Gmail one.
You can get a lot of stuff in a box (NSFW), but a king-sized mattress? You can if you get a mattress from Keetsa, as I just did. I bought a super-high quality foam mattress (think Tempur-Pedic) for a fraction of what they’d typically cost.
It’s either an innovative business model or a really clever marketing effort…or both. I like a good value, I like eco-conscious products, and I love a good night’s sleep. Tonight is the first night to test the latter. I’ll let you know how it goes.
In the meantime, if you’re curious, you can check out the bed unboxing on my Flickr site.
One Laptop Per Child founder Nicholas Negroponte said, “It’s an education project, not a laptop project.” I encourage you to read about the project. Its goals are ambitious and its path has been long and sometimes bumpy, but they’ve reached a big milestone: they’re now manufacturing inexpensive, durable, connectable, efficient laptops to help educate children in the developing world. Color me inspired.
To support and raise awareness about their work, they’ve got a special giving program just in time for the holidays called “give one, get one.” It’s simple: spend $399 (~$425 after tax and shipping) and they send one laptop to a child in the developing world on your behalf and send you another one for you to give to a child in need in your life. I can’t wait to give one of my very own! Bonus: $200 is tax deductible.
Help kids learn, feel good about yourself AND get a tax break. Merry Christmas, indeed.
My friends at Waterfall Mobile launched a service called Futuretxt and I’ve found it incredibly useful…and have used it A LOT as a result. So much so, in fact, that I feel like I’ve shirked my responsibility to tell people about it.
It’s a really easy way to schedule a message to be sent to any cell phone at any time in the future. Here are 3 of my recent Futuretxts to give you an idea of the variety of things I used to forget on a daily basis:
Post-its are SO a long time ago.
When I agreed to do this thing in India, I had reservations about how much I’d actually be able to get done in a short three months. I like to TCB and creating a product management team is a lot of B to TC in a short time.
First, introduce the totally unfamiliar concept of product management to the entire organization and teach a team of people what it is in theory and show them how it works in practice.
Next, start changing the culture at the organization from running lots of little businesses, each with their own customers to running one big business with one set of customers (intellingently segmented, of course) and many different products.
Then, turn the focus from the internal “what we think is right for the business” to the external “what the market and our customers demand.” Putting the customer at the center of a disjointed business ain’t easy.
Finally, define a product strategy, define a flexible organizational structure and staffit with 30 talented folks to execute on that strategy.
Whew. We did it. I’m at the end of my three months and feel good about the team I’m leaving behind. They’re smart, capable, dedicated, have the support of the leadership team and have a well-defined product roadmap in place.
It was–and will continue to be bumpy, as transition always is but these guys will make it happen. I think they’re all excited about the challenge and I’m stoked to have been a part of it. It was a wonderful, memorable, educational professional and personal adventure.
