Saturday, July 9, 2005

I'm coming to like what Jason Pontin is doing at Technology Review, MIT's Magazine of Innovation. I've always liked the magazine, but Pontin has brought it into the 21st century. Pontin was Editor In Chief at Red Herring when Tony Perkins owned it and was alternately thought provoking and enamoured by fancy lunches at San Francisco's most exclusive restaurants. Assuming editorial leadership at TR, he continues his thought provoking ways. Check out his latest editorial, "Mediating Poverty." He discusses MIT's Nicholas Negroponte's idea of the $100 laptop. Think of dispursing 6 million of these things to students around the world with Internet connections and what that burst of inquisitiveness plus communication might do. What could we do to help that effort? 7:49:55 AM    comment []

Media relations people often try creative ways to get the attention of editors in order to gain a little publicity. The biggest problem is when they don't check to see if the magazine is right for them. It makes opening boxes interesting. OK, so here is one that worked, a little. I'm not always up on what's "politically correct" anymore. I was brought up thinking that empires were bad. Maybe not. In the land of political correctness (or as we Midwesterners say, "the left coast") there is an empire--The Inland Empire. This is an economic partnership of many southern California cities that touts the diversity of manufacturing there. So they sent a box full of sample products ranging from wine (of course) to a bottle of Coke (bottle made there) to a, I kid you not, massage pen (dual purpose, when you get strained muscles from writing, you turn it around and a small vibrator massages you--kit even includes a chart of points on your body and what massaging that point fixes). 7:00:39 AM    comment []