While many I know on the US East coast were clearing fallen trees from Hurricane Isaias this week, I tried not to be too guilty of the unseasonably cool weather we had in the Midwest, which perhaps made me more open to things around me.

• My friend Jimmy’s brother Bobby was recently diagnosed with a form of cancer, and now his family is facing a financial uncertainty along this unplanned medical journey. A GoFundMe page was setup for him, and if you are so inclined, please help this family in need.
• After watching the SpaceX Falcon capsule successfully splash down this past weekend, I was reminded of an article I read a while back and re-read this week about how Elon Musk and SpaceX use agile.
• I did some brainstorming on how I may do a guest lecture I have been invited back to give to an Interactive Web Management class at the University of Wisconsin – Oshkosh. In the process I recalled a past lecture I gave remotely in 2015 using Personify software. So I looked into Personify again, and learned that literally just a few weeks ago they released a version of their previously PC-only software for the Mac. I am going to evaluate both of their remote presentation apps for options on how I can best present a typically interactive, in-person learning session I have been fortunate to give over the last few years.
• Without getting into any awkward details, the Native deodorant brand is my new favorite.
• My co-working space, World HeadQuarters, announced they are moving to 2 new spaces at the end of the month. I have mentioned this space over time but hadn’t written anything in detail on it, and will do so once they move. The current space, a former ski shop, is very unique but not as functional as what the new spaces will offer.
• My favorite domain name registrar Name.com wrote on their blog about the opt-in security features they offer. As a long-time customer I leverage some of these, and am fortunate I have the choice to do so, unlike other registrars who invoke them without warning, no matter what they say. And yes, the link to Name.com will earn you – and me – a $5 credit if you move your domain names to them like I did over a decade ago.
• Healthcare software firm athenahealth recently rebranded one of its products as athenaIDX. This was nostalgic for me and hundreds others who worked for IDX Systems Corporation back in its heyday. IDX was acquired and went thru corporate selloffs and mergers before athenahealth got the product. The rebranding was extra nostalgic for me as I was involved in the last rebranding of its products that IDX did, as I managed the domain names for the firm, I was one of a few people in the whole organization who knew what the new brands would be before they were announced. I wrote about this a few years back as it was part of the project I didn’t “politically” work on.
• I would have thought the phone system hold music at SiriusXM would have been much better, but alas no. And if you truly want to get the best price from them, you have to commit to canceling, then they will offer it to you.
• I watched the documentary Juice: How Electricity Explains the World this week. It was a well-done presentation about electricity consumption and generation around the world. Even better was that, in my humble opinion, it was relatively objective and had no strong political leanings. And entertaining and educational as well.
• For my last post on book takeaways from The Fight for Four Freedoms I used Temi, the voice to text service I found a few weeks ago. I actually wrote it in a notebook, read it into my iPhone, then uploaded the audio file to Temi. As they don’t charge for your first submission, I saved about $1.50 for the six-minute audio file. Not to forget the likely half-hour I would have spent to initially type it. It still required editing, but the time savings for the initial transcription was well worth it.
• There was a bridge to nowhere, and now there’s stairs to nowhere. Gabriel Lofts are new apartments in a 100+ year old former lodge and furniture store building in Appleton, Wisconsin. The builder said they were going to retain many of the building’s unique features, and one is the above-pictured staircase, though it now leads to nowhere. At the bottom of the stairs at street level is a glass door, so I am curious to how they plan on using this space.

Happy Half-Century Mr. Northwoods!

This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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