I’m chagrined to admit that I recommended a Dell to a family member the other day. She’s considering the options for a laptop computer for her daughter to take to college. And I recommended a Dell.

Yes, I agree that Apple provides a better value than Dell in Apple’s selected consumer niches. And yes, I would probably recommend an Apple over a Dell desktop. But my experience is that college is an accident rich environment. And AppleCare doesn’t impress me.

Apple does not cover damage due to accident, abuse, neglect, or misuse. That may be acceptable in a benign home environment. But I’d like something a bit more robust for college. Dell CompleteCare covers most accidental damage (spills, drops, surges, breakages). That’s a big difference.

What the heck was that? I pick a home game against the lowly 2-10 Miami Dolphins as an opportunity to skip a visit to my local sports bar (the East Side Cafe in Norwalk, CT). And the Broncos respond with a stinker, eeking out a 20-13 win on a 50 yard field goal with 2:50 remaining in regulation.

The MasterMind needs to start correcting some disturbing trends. The Broncos are in the midst of yet another late season slump. The Mile High home field advantage has disappeared at the new Invesco field - the Broncos are only 22-9 at Invesco field, 7 losses came with Denver ahead or tied in the 4th quarter. And Jake Plummer continues to display a lack of composure when the game is tight.

I’m beginning to question the Portis-Bailey trade. We have replaced Portis’ yards, but we haven’t replaced his sure hands, toughness and nose for the end zone. And with the new emphasis on letting receivers run free, I’m unsure whether it is wise to invest so much salary cap in a defensive back. But I still give Shanahan the benefit of the doubt on the trade.

Shanahan is the best head coach that the Broncos have ever had. But he still needs to show me something as a GM. His next big decision comes this off-season with Plummer due a $6 million bonus if he stays with the team. I don’t know what the right call is. But the MasterMind had better if he expects to keep his name.

One of the trials of assembling a Whole Product Solution is remembering that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Like many others, I think that weblogs can form the foundation of a knowledge management solution. But I differ from most in thinking that the primary contribution of weblogs will come from making content easier to find rather than promoting its creation.

Most companies have plenty of content. They just don’t know exactly where it is located or what it is about. The conventional technological solution is to use centralized storage with metadata to describe the content. And the usual sociological response is to ignore both whenever possible.

If a practice of weblogging can be established, then weblogs and link analysis can locate and describe content. Manually entered metadata tends to be sparse and out of date. But accounts of how content is used in the context of work are descriptively rich and current. It works for the internet. Isn’t time to see if it works on the intranet?

17 Dec: Integrated Search for Knowledge Blogging

The BCS is a mess, and as long as The Associated Press football poll is part of the problem, the Observer has cast its last vote.

Truth be told, I’m not all that happy with the BCS either. But while it’s easy to come up with a playoff system that determines the national champion, it’s hard to come up with a system that does that while making money.

Repeat after me: the college bowl system is all about money. If you want to change the system, then you need to find the money. Here are your constraints:

1. If you extend the playoffs into January, then you’ll go head to head with the NFL playoffs. From a network perspective; if there are no net new eyeballs, then there are no net new dollars.
2. If you move the playoffs forward into December, then you’ll overlap with Christmas. How many fans will want to travel that week and how many will be able to find affordable airline tickets?
3. If the playoffs overlap with any bowl games, then how many people will pay attention to those bowl games and how will you replace the lost revenue from those games.
4. College fans will travel to one post season game. In the current bowl system; the fans take their winter holiday, take several days off, and do serious partying. While a true fan may attend multiple games, they’ll budget their money more carefully and their net outlay will probably not increase.

Wow, the NHLPA proposes a 24% salary rollback and a luxury tax in an attempt to break the current impass. I have to say that I started this brouhaha on the side of the owners. I was convinced that the owners were losing money and I knew drastic measures were required to save the NHL. But with this offer, the onus is on the owners.

The NHLPA has compromised by proposing a luxury tax, now it’s time for the owners to compromise on cost certainty. I have two problems with their current stance. First, it’s a very fine line between cost certainty and guaranteed profit. And I’m not guaranteeing any profit until they guarantee winning seasons. Second, I didn’t need to see the books to believe that the owners had lost money. But if they’re going to be hardnosed on cost certainty, then they’re going to need to show us the books - each and every year.

The NHLPA has a proposal that rescues the owners from past mistakes (24% rollback) and adds a strong incentive to avoid future mistakes (luxury tax). It may not be perfect, but it’s a big step in the right direction. The owners need to take a big step in the right direction as well.

As I watched the Broncos-Chargers game last Sunday at my local Sports bar, I wondered whether it would be possible to hear the game as well. It would require some integration with the satellite box, but I would think that the audio could be broadcast as a low power FM signal. Then patrons could bring portable radios with headphones to listen to the games. It would certainly be better than listening to inebriated fans rant about calls that I neither understood or cared about.

A salable solution is both useful and repeatable. Personal weblogs qualify on both counts. A weblog is a great way to establish a personal presence on the internet and expound your viewpoints. And the road map exists for repeatable weblog success:

1. Define the coverage of your weblog and identify the information sources that you would like to engage by reviewing these questions every 2 or 3 months:
   1. What are you interested in?
   2. What information sources do you follow in keeping up with your interests?
   3. What are you willing to write about?
2. Identify potential topics for the day’s blogging by reviewing these questions everyday:
   1. What new events are your sources discussing in your coverage area?
   2. What have you personally learned or experienced during the past few weeks in your coverage area?
   3. Can you add anything new concerning those recent events or personal experiences?
3. Write. Write early, write often.

Of course, a lot depends upon your definition of success. I consider your weblog successful when it acts as a catalyst to focus your thinking.

17 Dec: Integrated Search for Knowledge Blogging
14 Dec: They Also Serve Who Index and Link

Tough, tough loss for the Broncos in San Diego. The Broncos fall 2 games back of the Chargers in the AFC West at 7-5, putting the division championship virtually out of reach. Any realistic playoff chance depends upon a wild card where the schedule (Miami, at KC, at Tennessee, Indianapolis) makes them a favorite over Baltimore (Giants, at Indianapolis, at Pittsburgh, Miami) for the final spot.

The story of this game was turnovers and field position. All of San Diego’s points were scored on drives that started on Denver’s half of the field. On average, San Diego’s first half drives started on Denver’s 48 while Denver’s first half drives started on their own 35. Both of San Diego’s touchdown drives started with a turnover and Denver’s best chance to win the game ended with an interception in the end zone with 3:39 left in the game.

Despite the loss, Denver showed me something this week. The defense came up big in the second half - holding San Diego to 3 point to keep the Broncos in the game. Jake Plummer almost brought the Broncos back in the second half - despite the absence of a rushing game and continuing fumble fingers from the receiving corps.

Returning to the MasterMind, Jake Plummer still displays bad judgment. The ball that resulted in the critical end zone interception with 3:39 to play has to be thrown where only Rod Smith can reach the ball. And despite Ashley Lelie’s improvement, the receiving corps continues to play like Rod Smith and the smurfs.

Everyone remembers the Technology Adoption Life Cycle from Crossing the Chasm. But I’ve always thought that the concept of the Whole Product Solution got short shrift. And while they are constantly aware of the difference between technology enthusiasts, visionaries, pragmatists, conservatives, and skeptics; they tend to forget that the whole product solution is an essential piece of the strategy to cross from the visionaries to the pragmatists.

Whole Product Solution is often abbreviated to Whole Product. That makes sense outside of high tech, where it is usually unambiguous how to use the whole product. But in the wonderful world of high technology, you need a roadmap of how to use the whole product as well.

Personal weblogging is close to achieving a whole product solution. Hosting solutions such as TypePad and Radio Userland come close to the whole product. I think that they need to offer an optional bundle with a smart desktop blogging client to get there. And I think there are enough successful personal weblogs to define a process to keep new webloggers on track.

17 Dec: Integrated Search for Knowledge Blogging
14 Dec: They Also Serve Who Index and Link
8 Dec: Solution is Useful and Repeatable

Jim Fassel to stay in the NFL and Notre Dame to twist in the wind. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving set of people.

I was disappointed to hear of Ty Willingham’s firing. He may not have performed to Notre Dame’s standards on the field. But he ran an impeccable program. Notre Dame was going to a bowl. And if you followed Willingham’s progress at Stanford (he started with Bill Walsh’s recruits), then his record at Notre Dame is no surprise.

I assumed that Notre Dame had a back channel deal with Urban Meyer when they fired Willingham. With the current wonder boy of college football at the helm, the negatives of the Willingham firing would just slide off. But with Meyer choosing Florida and everyone else running for cover, Notre Dame is in the middle of public relations disaster. A disaster of their own making.

College football has changed since Notre Dame’s last championship. It’s time for Notre Dame to realize that.