Culture

Red Hot and Delicious Manhattan

Joey deVilla sent this to me. It’s a Red Hot Manhattan.

Vidiot wrote about the details on Cocktailians.

Dave Arnold is the Director of Culinary Technology at the French Culinary Institute. More relevantly to this space, he’s also a mad scientist, with a strong mixological bent.

He’s invented a "Red Hot Poker" that’s electrically heated to over 1700°F, which he then plunges into drinks, caramelizing the sugars and adding a toasty note to their flavors.

…

Next up was the Red Hot Manhattan, which he made with Sazerac rye, Dolin vermouth, and Angostura bitters. This time the flames shot even higher, and the resulting toddy-like drink was very good — still recognizably a Manhattan, with noticeable sweet-vermouth notes, but with the feel of warm whiskey.

Unfortunately, the Red Hot Manhattan is made with Rye. My personal preference is for bourbon. I prefer the sweetness of the vanilla in bourbon.

Looks like a trip to Manhattan to the L’Ecole at the French Culinary Institute is in the future.

Questions for most promising startups

by davidcrow

BCTIA has published their criteria for the 2009 Technology Impact Awards. The submissions are due on March 13, 2009. As a start-up there are tradeoffs about participating in these award programs. Depending on the program there might be a cash prize, introductions to funding sources, press opportunities, etc. Or it could be a giant waste of time. You have to evaluate each program individually. I think the BCTIA program is a good balance of Recognition and Exposure. It is really about growing and supporting the local technology ecosystem.

My favourite part about the TIA awards is the submission criteria. I think every start-up should be able to answer these questions [PDF 48.9kb].

Summarize why this submission should be considered for Most Promising Start Up Award category and explain the relevancy of the business concept based on the following four equally weighted criteria and using the listed questions as a general guideline:

Value proposition
What problem are you solving?
For whom?
How will you make money?

Competitive differentiator
What differentiates your product, service or technology from alternative solutions?
What is your sustainable competitive advantage?

Market opportunity
Please be specific as to the addressable segment of the market you are targeting.
How large is your market?
What is the nature of the competitive landscape?

Management team
Who are the key team members and board/advisors?
Why does your team have the ability to execute on the business plan?

The questions are perfect for early-stage companies to identify the problem, how you’ll make money, the market opportunity and the differentiators. (The application puts a further limitation of 2000 words).

Why not give it a try?

If you’re a Canadian start-up write a blog post that is less than 2000 words that answers the above questions. Send me an email or a tweet, just @reply me, with a link containing your answers to the question. I’ll retweet the submissions and see if I can share some recognition and exposure.

Guilt-free Holiday Reading List 2008

by davidcrow

On my way to the Velocity Project Exhibition in Waterloo, I stopped at the local Chapters mostly because it’s the only Starbucks I know enroute to the University of Waterloo (turns out there’s one at King & University too). There were a number of business books that caught my attention as possible reads when travelling this holiday season.

Anybody read or planning on reading any of these?

	Ahead Of The Curve – Two Years at Harvard Business School by Philip Delves Broughton
	Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
	The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means by George Soros
	Remix Making Art And Commerce Thrive In the Hybrid Economy by Lawrence Lessig
	The Real Price of Everything: Rediscovering the Six Classics of Economics edited by Michael Lewis
	Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era by Mary Jo Foley
	Reality Check – The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging and Outmarketing Your Competition by Guy Kawasaki
	How To Be A Business Superhero by Sean Wise
	Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
	Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin
	Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy by Martin Lindstrom

Ten New Gurus

by davidcrow

The November 24, 2008 issue of Fortune has an article about the Ten New Gurus You Should Know.

BJ Fogg, Founder and Director, Persuasive Technology Lab, Stanford University
Patrick Lencioni, Founder, The Table Group
Rakesh Khurana, Professor, Harvard Business School
Valerie Casey, Leader, Digital Experiences Practice, IDEO
Don Sull, Professor, London Business School
Joel Podolny, Former dean, Yale School of Management/VP, Apple University
Nouriel Roubini, Professor, NYU Stern School of Business
Janine Benyus, Co-founder, Biomimicry Guild and Institute
Dan Ariely, Professor, Duke University
Niko Canner, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Katzenback Partners

Great list of leading thinkers about the changing world of business. They have also written a number of books that are worth spending a couple of flights or evenings reading. These are more inspirational reads than practical hands on advice for entrepreneurs. But they can begin to help entrepreneurs understand the literature that senior executives at companies are reading and how to frame their products and offerings.

	Persuasive Technology: Using Computers to Change What We Think and Do
	Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions
	Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature
	Bailouts or Bail-Ins?: Responding to Financial Crises in Emerging Economies

Browsing the bookshelves

by davidcrow

Stopped in the bookstore to browse the shelves and see if anything inspired me. I’d already stopped and bought Clay Shirky’s new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations and it continues to be the most important book of 2008 IMHO.(If you’re looking for a pleasure read, pick up a copy of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, this book is Orwell’s 1984 for the Digital Generation, I found it worth the sleepless night).

I’m intrigued about the discussion of more in Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More. How people make decisions around needs and desires in North America is interesting. This is the basic studies of economics. For a long time, I had a hard time understanding the connection that Herb Simon made between economics, psychology, computer science and design. But this connection has lead to startups both successful ones and failures, but they have all been around understanding how people make decisions, assign value, and trying to design products and services to enable these decisions. I had a quick read of The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas which did a great job explaining real-world perceptions and misperceptions of the world based on human behaviours.

Toronto is now my home. Having settled in Toronto, I’ve been frustrated by the lack of community. I’m looking forward to reading Small is Possible: Life in the Local Economy, if only to better set a plan for events like DemoCamp and Founders & Funders to better enable our Local Software Economy in Toronto.

Is it me, or does Wired feel relevant again? Wired 16.07 had a couple of articles that were just inspiring to read. The Petabyte Age: Because More Isn’t Just More – More Is Different contains articles about the secondary effects and analysis of data that becomes possible one you embrace big data. Feeding the Masses: Data In, Crop Predictions Out shows the power of GIS and agricultural data developed by Lanworth, it provides the power to enable market predictions. Makes me think I need to find time to read Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers is the New Way to be Smart. Need proof that there’s power in numbers look at the processing by the Idee folks for TinEye or at the relational models of pixels in images for PhotoSynth.

	The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert Frank Read more about this book…
	Super Crunchers: Why Thinking-by-Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart by Ian Ayres Read more about this book…
	Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy by Lyle Estill Read more about this book…
	Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization by Dave Logan, John King, Halee Fischer-Wright Read more about this book…
	The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Demographic Storm by Kenneth W. Gronbach Read more about this book…
	Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads by Joel Best Read more about this book…
	Community: The Structure of Belonging by Peter Block Read more about this book…
	Simplexity: Why Simple Things Become Complex (and How Complex Things Can Be Made Simple) by Jeffrey Kluger Read more about this book…
	Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More by John Naish Read more about this book…
	The Empire of Mind: Digital Piracy and the Anti-Capitalist Movement (Digital Futures) (Digital Futures) by Michael Strangelove Read more about this book…
	Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky Read more about this book…
	Communities Dominate Brands by Tomi T. Ahonen, Alan Moore Read more about this book…
	Generation Blend: Managing Across the Technology Age Gap (Microsoft Executive Leadership Series) by R. Salkowitz Read more about this book…