As I noted a few weeks back, my old colleagues at Gronstedt Group are hosting a weekly “fika” at their “Train for Success” site in Second Life. These get-togethers are a good chance for corporate training people to compare notes, explore, ask questions, and generally socialize themselves to the booming 2L multiverse, which is evolving into a pretty serious business environment.

One of the issues holding 2L back, I felt, was the lack of voice integration. As much as I like the concept, I simply don’t want to try to conduct a Webinar or virtual meeting using chat and IM. Even if I’m a great typist, communicating with the keyboard is simply not the kind of seamless experience I need when I’m engaged in real business.

Now, though, 2L may have turned the corner. (More…)

And now, for a happy story. I bitch so much about how people get it wrong that it’s always great when a company gets it right. (More…)

If you’ve ever been involved in a business of any kind, you’ve probably had occasion to wonder if some customers are more trouble than they’re worth. Whether too high-maintenance, too low-value, or a bit of both, there have probably been times where you thought you’d probably be better off without them. In my case, there have been a couple occasions where I did some informal cost-benefit analysis and walked away from a customer. You hate turning down money, but sometimes it makes sense.

Of course, I’m not a big-time consumer retail and services company, either. If I were, I’d think long and hard about taking the drastic step that Sprint has taken. (More at Black Dog…)

Pope Palpatine is at it again:

Pope: Other Christians Not True Churches
By NICOLE WINFIELD (Associated Press Writer)
From Associated Press
July 10, 2007 11:35 AM EDT

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy – Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches. (Story.)

Maybe later today he’ll issue a clarification on the proper method for burning witches and converting the Jews.

I don’t usually do quick links to other articles, but there’s a new one up this morning that I think is really important. Brian Angliss lays out a broad, well-articulated roadmap for how progressives can counter two terms worth of GOP failure. I’d just about automatically vote for any candidate who set the agenda this sensibly.

Read it here.

If you’ve snooped around the site, you probably know that mobility is coming along a lot more slowly than I feel like it should. For every business out there doing a good job ramping up mobile marketing there’s probably a few thousand doing nothing. Why is a little hard for me to fathom – mobile is a preferred medium for Millennial-aged consumers, who control more disposable income than any generation in history. Why you’d refuse to communicate with these customers on their own terms is beyond me.

Well, maybe not. Mobile is comparatively new for most corporate decision-makers, most of who fail to understand the real extent of its capabilities. Sure, new technologies and practices often take longer to get traction in the marketplace than we’d expect – I remember the result of a poll from about 1996 or so that said less than half the US population had even heard of the Internet, and at that point in time the Net was being dramatically underused, as well.

Recently, though, I’ve noticed a phenomenon that concerns me – (More…)

Whatever you think about reality TV, this would pretty much have cemented your opinion. If you, like me, appreicate how some reality shows illuminate our genuine moral trashiness, then by god, this would be the best you could hope for until FOX debuts Christians v Lions 2007: Payback Time for Kitty. If you’re appalled by that same trashiness, then this would have made you hack up your own skull.

TV show to offer kidneys as prize
Wednesday May 30 05:00 AEST

Those disappointed that reality show Survivor didn’t quite live up to its dramatic title are in luck — contestants on a bizarre new Dutch program will actually be fighting to stay alive.

In The Big Donor Show, which is set to air this Friday, a terminally ill cancer patient will select one of three patients to receive her kidneys.

Viewers will watch testimonials from the three Dutch contestants, aged between 18 and 40, and send in text message advice to the donor to help her decide who should receive the lifesaving operation. (Story.)

Of course, by now you’re probably catching a whiff of Eau de Hoax, huh? (More at Black Dog…)

Indeed – it’s been 40 years since Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. My buddy Jim Booth (who some of you may know as sirpaulsbuddy), a novelist, professor, blogger and former rock musician who got to live through it all, has a great take over at Scholars & Rogues.

In my series of posts on the whole melamine poisoning issue recently you might recall me breaking off the term “e Coli conservatives” in talking about how our regulatory function has been co-opted by people who see protecting industry as a more important calling than protecting, you know, us.

Well, y’all are gonna love this latest development.

U.S. government fights to keep meatpackers from testing all slaughtered cattle for mad cow (More…)

Went to a Chinese place the other night. Good food. Fortune cookie arrives:

Very often you cannot help thinking of somebody.

It’s … it’s … like they know me….

There’s a discussion in a comment thread over at Scholars & Rogues that may interest you, assuming you didn’t see it already. Gavin Chait is promoting the strength of global media (in particular talking about the health of newspapers) and I’m poking hard at a lot of the assumptions underlying the free market argument being made.

Predictably, it circles back around to education. Have a look.

Oh my.

Tom Schaller has a fascinating take today on the evolution of the political center. To use his analogy, it’s evolved from a one-humped camel to a two-humped dromedary, statistically speaking.

The one thing media talking heads agree upon is that the center prevails. Turn on almost any of the nation’s political talk shows and pretty soon somebody will say how crucial it is for politicians to appeal to registered independents and self-described moderate voters. (More…)

:xposted Scholars & Rogues:

President Bush today said that embattled World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz, currently embroiled in yet another BushCo scandal, “ought to stay” in his position. This comes hot on the heels of Bush’s show of support for buddy Alberto Gonzales, whose leadership at Justice has been such a festering embarrassment that even loyal Republicans are howling for his head.

This is all very good news for Democrats, although not all of them seem to fully understand the gift before them. (More…)

:xposted Scholars & Rogues:

It started out as a pet food contamination crisis – dozens of dog and cat food brands associated with Menu Foods were recalled because pets were dying. An investigation was launched, and as these things so often go, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger and scarier and scarier. The latest bit – has melamine entered the human food chain? (Hint – that was a rhetorical question.) What the hell is going on, and by the way, where’s the FDA?

This just in: Thousands of Hogs May Have Eaten Contaminated Feed (More…) (<a href="http://

“>More…)

:xposted Scholars & Rogues: