Monday, December 26, 2016

Revisiting the Lost Colony - North Carolina’s Roanoke Island

On a visit to Outer Banks, North Carolina we decided to take a trip to Fort Raleigh and the Elizabeth Gardens. Its a 30 mile drive and after visiting the Fort Raleigh Historic Site many of the members of my friends and family were a tad bit disappointed. The key phrase here "Fort Raleigh National Historic Site protects and preserves known portions of England's first New World settlements from 1584 to 1590." From the National Park's website.
1585 is probably  as old as it gets. Sir Walter Raleigh believing that " favorable location for the first English colony in North America" was the Roanoke Island" 

There is no museum or well preserved structures and you have to close your eyes and imagine the adventures of these voyagers as they tried to establish a colony. This was a disappointment to many of my family members as we were visiting the site.
Washington Post 's article -"The Lost Colony of Roanoke loses its portrait of Queen Elizabeth I" brought back the memories of this visit

'The rare painting of the English ruler in the last years of her reign resided for more than 60 years at the site of the “Lost Colony.”
I don't think we went in to the Elizabeth Gardens and so lost the opportunity to see the rare painting of Queen Elizabeth I. Nevertheless visiting a historic site and  imagining what these explorers faced was a thrilling experience.

Sunday, December 04, 2016

Rohit Bhargava's Non-Obvious Trends for 2017 Released on Amazon Today

Easily Find the Internet History You Wanted to Forget





For the past 20 years, The Wayback Machine and Internet Archive has had our backs, or rather backed us up. Put any url into the search and it is likely you can get versions of the website from wayback, like the first Google snapshot from Nov 11th 1998. That was only about 18 years ago.

Now instead of searching for just a URL you can search for websites archived using keywords. This feature is now in beta and to check it out you should go to https://web-beta.archive.org/#/

Curious about Mark Zuckerberg's first post on the Facebook blog, here is what i found and that was in 2006 only 10 years ago. Have fun and don't forget to donate to the Wayback Machine. Let me know how you used it.




Friday, October 28, 2016

EVENT: Solutions to Engaging Millennials in Associations - Nov 1st

I am going to be sharing my views at this event on how millennials can challenge conventional methods and strategies with in Associations. Together the panel will give you views and guidelines on how-to effectively approach this market, gain support, stimulate engagement, and retain their valuable membership.

Date: November 1st, 8am-10am

Venue:  1875 Connecticut Ave NW Floor 10, Washington,D.C. 20006

 Register here  #EBInsights #EventBank”

Special Option: “Buy One, Get One” ticket option using promo code EBBOGO

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Flying Emirates 232 from Washington Dulles to Dubai - Review

Emirates flies the Airbus A380-800 from Washington DC to Dubai

There was a time that flying between India and the US meant a stopover in London, Frankfurt, Paris or Amsterdam (I loved Amsterdam). However in the past decade this has changed dramatically. Now `Emirates (Dubai) Etihad (Abu Dhabi) Qatar Airways (In Doha, Qatar) have taken over these routes with their new aircraft and great service.

From Washington DC, Emirates is an outlier, it flies in the morning at 10.55 from Washington Dulles Airport (IAD) and reaches Dubai at around 8.30 a.m. Other flights, Etihad, Qatar and flights with European stopovers take off after 9 p.m at night.

I love this timing but it does cause a disagreement in my house. My wife prefers to fly Eithad due to the timings. My wife's viewpoint is that it is difficult to sleep on the Emirates flight since it starts in the morning. I enjoy the morning flight. My game plan is to sleep less for a few days to my Emirates flight. Once on the flight, I divide the 13 hours into 4 and sleep for 2 quarters of the flight. I also set my watch to the destination time and arrive fresh in the morning to Dubai.

The second reason my wife prefers to fly Etihad is the layover in Dubai for the onward flight to Hyderabad on Emirates is about 7.5 hours. I love this layover even though I feel that the layover kind of circumvents the Emirates facility of a hotel to passengers with more than 8 hours layover. 

I have friends in Dubai and my routine is to effortlessly pass through Immigration (US citizens get visa on arrival) and meet friends. 



This visit :

We spend about 4 hours out of the airport and were back in comfortable time to our flight to Hyderabad. Now the flight to Hyderabad reaches at 8.30 p.m Indian Standard Time and it was time to sleep again. In my opinion this flight makes jet lag minimal and you get to visit another country albeit for a short while.




Emirates Flight Experience


The seats on the A 780-800 seem to have adequate space and I love the ICE entertainment system. Loved the choice of new movies and watched 3 movies in the 13 hour flight.



Food 
We had asked for a HNML meal that excludes beef from the menu. The first meal from Washington DC was bland with chicken, noodles and beans. I am not sure about the catering at Washington DC but I had hoped the meal was tastier.

Another disappointment was that Emirates no longer carries the beer VB - Victoria Bitter which was special to me. Now they carry Heineken, Amstel Light and Budweiser.

Service:
This is one of the best things about Emirates, great service and this flight excelled.

Exceptional Circumstances:
Our flight was on the same day that an Emirates airlines flight crash landed in Dubai causing disruption. Our flights were relatively on time and Dubai airport marveled in their communications to passengers. All Emirates passengers got free food and were well taken care of . Kudos to Emirates and Dubai airport.


I am looking forward to my return flight in a few days on Emirates.


Saturday, June 18, 2016

US Navy Develops Futuristic Diver Augmented Vision Display (DAVD) Technology


VR(Virtual Reality) AR (Augmented Reality) and a mixture of technologies are going to hit the consumer market soon with Facebook's Oculus Rift, Microsoft's Hololens and Google's Magic Leap. 


The US Navy has released Futuristic Diver Augmented Vision Display (DAVD) Technology that  provides navy divers real-time operational data enables them to be more effective and safe in their missions, providing expanded situational awareness and increased accuracy in navigating to a target such as a ship, downed aircraft or other objects of interest.  Instead of having to rely on pre-dive briefings alone to determine what they are looking for, how specific items should appear and where they may be located, the DAVD system places the information right before divers' eyes with a look and feel comparable to a point-of-view video game display.

Through this display the Divers can get data from sector sonar (real-time topside view of the diver's location and dive site), text messages, diagrams, photographs and even augmented reality videos. They can turn the display off whenever they need.

See this US Navy page for more information on this technology.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Monday, March 14, 2016

Free Atlanta Small Business Event - ExCom 2016 - Brent Leary & John Lawson

John Lawson and Brent Leary are organizing an an event in Atlanta next Thursday (March 17th) around the future of customer experience and commerce, called  ExCom 2016 for small business. Register now before the event is sold out/

What: ExCom 2016 - Actionable Insights for Engaging Modern Consumers

When: Thursday March 17th 8:30am-4:30pm et

Where: Georgia State University Student Center Ballroom  55 Gilmer Street, Atlanta, GA 30303

Price:  Free (Breakfast and lunch provided on first-come first-serve basis)


Registration Link: http://excom2016.com

Featured Sessions Include (full agenda at http://excom2016.com):

Real Sports: The Link Between Fans and Brands

Most professional sports franchises are small businesses too, with limited budgets and employees. Atlanta Hawks SVP of Marketing Peter Sorckoff & Atlanta Braves VP of Marketing Adam Zimmerman are doing fascinating things to create great experiences for their fans, which may help you build better relationships with your customers.

Using The 3 Cs to Create Great Experiences for 13 Million Customers

GoDaddy Editor-in-Chief Shawn Pfunder will share how the organization is using a variety of tactics and strategies to extend the level of engagement with their customer base.

The Subscription Business – Journey to $1M in Annual Recurring Revenue

Moderated by Small Business Trends Publisher Anita Campbell, two small business execs discuss the tools, strategies and tactics they deployed to create thriving subscription based businesses in less than a year. Rohan Gilkes of WetShaveClub.com turned his $4,000 investment into $350,000 in revenues and grew his customer base from 12 to 1,500 monthly subscribers in less than a year. Sangram Vajre of SaaS platform Terminus hit $1 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in nine months.

Carvana: How Used Car Vending Machines Are Disrupting How You Buy

Used Cars Carvana.com allows people to browse and shop for used vehicles online, then delivers the car straight to the customer. CEO and Founder Ernie Garcia will share how Carvana’s business model allowed the company to grow from $4 million in revenues in its first year of operation in 2013, to over $150 million in 2015.

Customer Engagement Isn’t CRM, But…


Paul Greenberg, author of the seminal book series CRM at the Speed of Light, clears up the confusion around the relationship CRM has with customer engagement and customer experience, and the changing role CRM has in a multichannel, big data world of continuous interaction.

How IoT Accelerates Customer Expectations & Disrupt Companies Who Can’t Keep Up


Ray Wang, founder of Constellation Research and author of “Disrupting Digital Business“, shares why it’s important for companies to transform their culture and prepare for the full effect of digital disruption. And why even companies like Amazon.com need to move faster to fully embrace what’s ahead in order to keep up with customer demands for great experiences.

Saturday, March 05, 2016

For Men: Hair Perception VS Reality From TheWeaveWhisperer


For tips on hair styles you should follow my friend The Weave Whisperer. I really posted this as a class project for my Marketing Analytics Class.

AI generated summary of 60 minutes AI edition

In a 60 Minutes interview that aired on April 17, 2023, Google CEO Sundar Pichai warned that artificial intelligence (AI) is advancing rapid...