Ego Libre

In the spirit of my quick posts I had to resort to lately, I offer you a follow up on the Microsoft Surface™ that I bashed some time ago. It seems like I was not the only one

The real surface demo via 43 Folders

And don’t get me wrong, I do believe that revolution in personal computers is necessary, but as I have said many times before, Microsoft is not a company capable of delivering it. And lately, I am starting to lose hope for Apple as well. Seems like we will have to do it ourselves

Today I want to simply point out an interesting link: Life is in Perpetual Beta, So Why Not Business? from Micro Persuasion.
It struck me as an interesting way how to look at life.

…you really don’t “ship” until you’re dead.

But from the business perspective, it is interesting that the article does not mention Google. They release betas all the time. Sometime months or years before the “final” product hits the market. So there are companies that get this concept.

Click on the image on the left. Anything peculiar about it? Yes, when you buy a watermelon in Japan it might have a little pack of salt attached to it.

I was surprised to see it (maybe even more than the fact that this slice of melon is 3$), but I can tell you this, it actually tastes good.

And the lessons to be learned? Even if you are a genius marketer, you have to know the peculiarities of each local market. That is why I am not afraid that globalization will destroy regional differences. Maybe I should go to McDonalnd’s today and have my favorite shrimp-burger.

And by the way, speaking of watermelons. My Indian friends in Denmark used to eat watermelon with black pepper on it. Go figure…

Since my hicsuntjapones.com domain is running out soon and I have decided to close down the blog there, I guess if there is something I want to sure about Japan, I have to do it here.

Today’s post is very short. I just read some headlines today and they made me think once again about the big difference between real Japanese lifestyle and what foreigners who never been to Japan think about it. All three articles are so real and all are so sad, each in its own way. (as Leo Tolstoy would say)

• Host club managers arrested for forcing client into prostitution to pay off debts
• Man wearing schoolgirl’s ’sailor’ uniform busted trying to steal women’s underwear
• 8,700 liters of jet fuel leak at Kadena base

And this is not supposed to be some shocking or gossip news, this is normal mainstream stuff. I am glad I do not have to read about any parents killing their children, children cutting off and eating schoolmates finger (cooking curry with it) or somebody finding (again) some part of body somewhere in Tokyo. My favorite quote from Japanese police after finding a severed leg in a river in Tokyo was: “We are trying to determine whether the person has been a victim of a crime.” Go figure. I am not saying that these things are uniquely Japanese, but it just seems that people outside of Japan somehow “forget” this aspect of the life here…

So SAS does it again. This company will never seizecease to surprise me and if anyone can explain to me the merit of their Carbon Emission Offset program, please go ahead.

Here is what I found out. I was looking for some tickets on SAS website and then I noticed an interesting advertisement in their menu: Buy CO2 Emission Offset. As a ecology-minded person I have decided to check it out. To my surprise it is exactly what it says, you can pay money to a company called carbonneutral.com which will invest this money in technologies lowering the global emissions of CO2. It’s so ridiculous that I will have to say it one more time.

You buy a ticket with an airline company, one of the largest polluters in transportation business, via their website you go to a place where you type from where to where you are flying, this website will calculate how much you are going to pollute and offer you to buy an offset - money that will be used in programs that will reduce the emission of CO2 by the amount that you have just burned.

Is it just me, or does this sounds like the worst hypocrisy since tobacco companies started making light cigarettes? So I am paying money to this company that is polluting air and they kindly offer me to pay another affiliated company to offset this pollution (by investing in future technologies yielding unknown results). Now I am all for eco-thinking, but this strikes me as unbelievably short sighted by SAS marketing team.

My pollution from Copenhagen to Prague? 0.1 tonnes worth 1.37 EUR. Could anyone explain to me why SAS on its 150 EUR flight cannot pay this for me? Why does not SAS buy this by default and then tout itself as the most environment friendly airline in the world? Fly with us, all your CO2 emission will be covered! Feel good about traveling again!

Seriously, I am disappointed with this logic. Corporations pollute and we are paying the price. But now they want us to pay again to recover what they created, seriously give me a break and start doing something worth-wile. Like for example gives us back ordinary (and reusable) forks and knives instead of that plastic crap. (Ok, this would probably not save the world, but you get the point. Companies really need to start thinking holistically about these problems and not just outsource the solution to us)

Please note, I am not dissing CarbonNeutral or their activities, I am attacking the hypocrisy with which SAS includes it in its marketing schemes that insults me.