Kidd’s Contract Dispute

Jason Kidd is my favorite player in the NBA and I was disappointed to read today that the Nets refuse to deal with him fairly. It is so sad to see a dispute like this force a great player to these lengths (sitting out with a fake Migraine headache reportedly).

Why can't Rod Thorn (the owner of the NETS) just sit down and deal with Jason fairly? He's a great player and all he wants to do is win. Just sit down at the bargaining table and negotiate with him to retain and hire a great supporting cast or trade him and forget about it and rebuild!

Why would Rod Thorn and the NETS organization seem to think that they can hold somebody like a slave. What makes employers like this think that this is a playable hand? One word -- "lawyers". Its bad advice but I think lawyers drive much of this kind of thinking.

My advice to Rod is to play the players hand and the fans hand (a so-called WIN WIN). Nobody is going to stay on the team without Jason. Nobody is going to watch a team without Jason. Period!

Our 2007 Oxygen Halloween Party

Steve (the scary spongebob) and Olivia (the scary pirate)

Originally uploaded by sl_morgan

Here's our photos and video clips from the 2007 Oxygen Halloween Party that Phyllis and I hosted on October 26, 2007. It was great fun!

Here's a link to the whole photo set on Flickr.com and a link to the slide show format. Please send me links to any of your photo sets from the party and I will list them here as well.
This video is on Youtube.com and is part of our traditional Karaoke contest. This one is Chiara, Jeanhee, Phyllis and Kathie.

This one is Meredith, Lissy, Zach, Olivia and Samantha

Stephen Colbert for President

Colbert, what if you don't win?

Stephen Colbert appeared on Meet the Press today with Tim Russert talking about his run for President of the United States. I usually try to avoid politics on my blog but it was so hilarious that I have to link their video in honor of this spoof.

What I Want in My Next Gig

Given all the news this week its a good time for reflection about what I want in my next gig (aka job, work, assignment, etc.). Granted things are a bit up in the air right now so that could be with Oxygen Media, NBC Universal, or anywhere really.

First and foremost I want to be a part in a great team of people just like I am now. The most important quality here is that I want to work with professionals that are dedicated to getting A's in their craft.

Second, I want to work on and build products that are consumer facing. While there are great jobs and careers to be had farther back in the supply chain, I have been awakened for the second time in my career about the excitement with consumer products.

Finally, I want a real "seat at the table" with the business to help reach a successful outcome with these products. The marketplace is tough. I recognize there aren't easy answers to getting significant returns with the consumer. Nevertheless I want the challenge to help create this value and return.

All industries have their proven business models but these models are changing quickly due to technology advances. I don't want to work for a place that doesn't recognize this changing dynamic and has a bunch of sloganeering and jingoism about the "established business model". The business model is where some of the most interesting innovation will need to come in order to be successful in the marketplace of the future.

Should I Pace My Lifestyle to Games of Chance?

I really like games of chance. I enjoy playing card games like Texas Hold'em with my wife Phyllis and my good friends Ilio and Keith. On occassion, I even enjoy going to a big time casino like in Atlantic City or Las Vegas and shooting some Craps or playing a little Black Jack. I play the lottery at home and with my good friend and colleague David M.

In all these games, I would of course love to win but I don't expect to win. I don't plan my budget around winning. I don't pace my lifestyle like I am going to win. Why not?

It's because of course none of these games of chance are predictable at all. I also am not an expert at any of these games either making it even less likely that I would plan or pace my life around doing such games. That would be absolutely insane.

How do I pace and plan my life? I do it just about like everybody else. I have a plan that I think is reasonable. I follow the plan based on my skills and needs and what I think is truly attainable. Of course there are set backs and I adjust as needed in an agile way.

Nintendo really gets it…Sponsor your own hack / crack event!

Yesterday I had the pleasure to take my son Zachary and his best friend Michael to a really cool event. Nintendo and ToysRus had teamed up to do a nationwide Pokemon meet up event.

The idea was that kids come to the store armed with their Nintendo DS devices. When we arrived there were probably 200 kids in the store with their DS's and pokemon games running. You walked up to counter and each kid was quickly given two sealed character cards with a special code attached. This code talked to a local wifi server they had staged in the store and allowed the kids to download two new super charged characters -- Manaphy and Electivire.

So what was in it for both companies? For ToysRus obviously the hope is that you are in the store and buy more product (and indeed we did). For Nintendo obviously they can sell more product too but there were other beneficial behaviors that I observed.

Kids of all ages (6 to 18) were interacting not only with their new characters but several were making deals and exchanging other characters from their devices over the wifi connections in the store. Of course there were also many discussions about specific game strategy and tactics. Many of the kids were discussing how the DS system interfaced with their Wii systems at home and uploading and syncing characters on their devices to the home systems.

Overall the event felt like a bricks and mortar viral event that was truly authentic!

OpenID and related XFN matters

I have to say that I have been a fan of OpenID since our leadership in the development team (Luke and Ken) both turned me on to it. The concept is a fantastic advance and beside that I have long been a fan of a client side solution for identity management called Roboform.

The latest article on the O'Reillly site is very interesting in that it points to an even further advance using XFN to create what is called a social graph using XML. I really like this idea as social networks proliferate. One of my favorite applications that me and my CEO have taken a liking to on Facebook is the Interactive Friends Graph application. It allows you to dynamically see all your friends and your relationships and connections between them and you. I highly recommend it!

I am looking forward to seeing what more fun can come from OpenID and XFN.

Our new grandson Zane

Our new grandson Zane

Originally uploaded by sl_morgan

This is a collage of our new grandson Zane (and other members of our family Allison, Emily and Emma) made with Ript. He was born on September 1, 2007 and weighed 9 and half pounds and was 22 inches long.

Zane my new grandson is born

My first and only grandson -- Zane was born this weekend on September 1. I wish I could share pictures with all of you but i haven't got any yet (come on I need my Flickr uploads).

So as a place marker I thought I'd load up my Ript page about the baby name Zane from babynamer.com. Allison and Skip (Zane's parents) had quite a time choosing my grandson's name but I am very happy with their choice. I definitely wasn't crazy about their second choice Tyson.

Zane originates from the great heritage of the name John which means God's grace.

The other vitals. Zane is huge -- nine and a half pounds and 22 inches long. Mother and grandson are doing great. Pictures to come soon.

Our First Mets Game

We went to our first Mets game on Friday 8/24/07. I have to say that it was a fantastic game as the played the Los Angeles Dodgers (orginally from Brooklyn). It was a win! Carlos, I know you are loving this!

We sat in the Bear Stearns box seats right next to third base and had a great view. My daughter is a huge fan of David Wright while my son is a fan of Jose Reyes. Both kids got what they wanted which was a very close up view of their favorite player. It was such a great family experience compared to Yankee Stadium which we visited last year. I have to admit it.

Even though most of my family are still Seattle Mariner fans, I have to admit I am still a tried and true fan of Yankee baseball. I hope my team can make the playoffs this year. I will keep my fingers crossed.

M&A and Financial Shenanigans

There are all kinds of rumors swirling around possible financial transactions about my current company, Oxygen Media. This post on Dilbert.com reminded me about the kinds of games that can go on around such events.

While most of the company is swirling around gossiping about this potential transaction, I am very pleased to see that my team(s) are just "hunker'd down" and doing their jobs respectively to a very high level. It is such a breath of fresh air. As a matter of fact, we have released our best product to date on Ript.com™ and several other great ones under development -- stay tuned.

My hunch is that this is because all of them live in their own skin (I know I do). By that I mean, they are all very confident (and rightfully so) and understand that their individual skills and talents are so valuable no matter what the future holds at Oxygen or any other company for that matter.

It’s All About the People Stupid

I remember watching a talk news show after Bill Clinton defeated the first George Bush in 1992. It was James Carville a political pundit announcing to the media why George Bush had lost the 1992 election so badly to Bill Clinton. He said "It's the economy stupid".

That quote sticks with me on the eve of our team's launch of a great new purposeful and playful product that they have developed -- Ript™.

As with any great product, there have been several things that make it special -- the idea, our product owner, the process, etc. The most important to me though is the Team.

Not at my present company but at some places I have been that don't grok technology I have had to remind execs of a similar idea to what James Carville said to the media in 1992 -- that is -- "It's All About the People Stupid". This would seem obvious but to some its not.

I have found throughout my career in technology that it is one of the core truths about Software Development and Information Technology. It is truly all about the people.

Please check out my team members blogs listed here because they have some great stories to tell about this fantastic new product.

judykat hits Lake Couer D’Alene

Our good friends from New York (and Seattle) Ken, Kathie and Mia visited us at Lake Couer D'Alene on their way to Montana.

It was great to see all them. We had a great dinner with all of them (including Ken's mom and my mom and dad).

Phyllis and Kathie got some time on the wet bike while the kids, Ken and his mom got some serious dock time. We even enjoyed a few refreshing ice cold Moose Drool's.

Ken updated me on all the happenings at work as the following Sunday I had to fly back to New York City. It sounds like there are many changes in the wind at Oxygen. It should be interesting to see what happens there.


After a great evening, Ken and his family drove back into the city of Spokane for a nice stay at the Davenport Hotel. Maybe next year we can visit them in the great northwest for a longer period of time.

It’s Hot on the Lake

Wow temperatures hit 100 degrees at least three days in a row here on Lake Couer D'Alene. As they say "beautiful dry hot" but at 100 degrees it's just plain hot.

We are loving the lake. The lake water has warmed up to at least 70 degrees I would bet. The water is fantastic. If you are out of it for even 30 minutes on the dock its time to jump right back in.

Zachary has been catching a ton of fish this week and not just suckers and bottom feeders. Some of them our Rainbow Trout and Fresh Water Bass.

I love these long days on the lake with nothing that has to be planned, executed or completed (can if you want but its totally optional:). This is my kind of vacation!

Vashon Island reminded me once again that “big” is relative

On our way back from Portland to Lake Couer D'Alene, we were invited to visit some of our dear friends on Vashon Island.

 

It was a beautiful day as we drove from Portland up Interstate 5 toward Seattle. Peter had provided us with directions to his home on Vashon Island from the Point Defiance Ferry in Tacoma. As we were waiting for the ferry I took a few candid photos of the kids. From the dock there was a tremendous view of Mount Rainier.

When I lived in Seattle for many years Mount Rainier was a back drop that was so ordinary that one almost just forgot it (not to mention Mt. Baker, Mt. St. Helens, etc.). Since moving to the east coast I have seen many of the great mountains and ranges -- Catskills, Poconos, Appalachians -- but there is truly no comparison.

"Big" is really relative to what your used to whether it be mountains, money or ideas (really anything at all).

We had a great time at Peter's estate on Vashon, walking, swimming, playing bocce ball, volleyball and a myriad of other activities. The compound is really beautiful and is great for entertaining. Peter as usual was an unbelievable host! Thanks.

He invited us back for another visit in the fall which we will consider. It would be great to see the whole family since Jill and kids were away on summer activities this time.

Nyssa’s Basketball Tournament in Portland

My niece Nyssa had a basketball tournament in Portland Oregon. So we all made our way down to the tournament which was held near the Clackamus Community College in Oregon City.

  

It was a great tournament to see. My sister Tami was telling us that in order to get into the NCAA and play first string at the high school level these days independent summer league action is actually required. I believe it for an amateur women's basketball game the skill level was amazing. Nyssa (yellow jersey -- look at that beautiful "D" ) and her team won! They took a commanding lead in the 2nd half and locked it away from the local Oregon team they were playing.

As you can see our official team mascot Ruthie accompanied us to the tournament. At our celebration dinner afterward with my family, my grand daughter Emma Jo tried to imitate Ruthie's Perfect Victory Cheer.

On Golden Pond

We took our annual family trip to my parents cabin on Lake Couer D'Alene. We had a great time because my mom and dad as well as my sister Tami and her three daughters (Nyssa, Sydnee and Jynsyn) were able to join us for the first week. My daughter Olivia also brought along her best friend from New Jersey, Meredith.

Our first week this year occurred during the 4th of July holiday which happened on a Wednesday. The bay that we are on -- Windy Bay always features a small fireworks show on July 3rd over the lake. We went and watched that this year and it was short but we had a great close up viewing area.

My son Zachary caught a ton of fish this year. Actually really all the kids were catching many fish. It took my sister Tami, me and Phyllis to keep all their hooks baited up with fresh worms (none of them will bait their own hooks). I was impressed with how the fish population has obviously grown on the lake. When I was a kid you could sit out there on the dock all day and not even get a bite. My dad can attest to this because he sat there with me too for hours.

The kids also had great fun being pulled on tubes behind both the Seadoo and the boat. Meredith even though she was a little scared even made her first ride and I think enjoyed it.

Pigs in Seattle

We arrived in Seattle today for our annual trip to my parents cabin on Lake Couer D'Alene. While in Seattle we bummed around the downtown area a bit and noticed all the painted pigs. They were very cool so we captured a few shots with Phyllis, Olivia, Zachary and their friend Meredith.

 

While many of the cities we have been to New York (cows), Spokane (bears), Coeur D'Alene (moose), the pigs of Seattle were incredibly detailed.

After capturing the pigs of Seattle, we were invited to the home of Sally and Rod (Skip our son-in-laws parents) for a fantastic barbecue. Sally and Rod live in a beautiful home overlooking Puget Sound on the famed Magnolia Hill. It was an incredible meal, fantastic company and picture perfect weather. Thanks so much Sally and Rod.

We had to make it a fairly early evening since we needed to get up early for the 6 hour drive to Lake Couer D'Alene the next day.

Baby Names and the origin story of babynamer.com

About 10 years ago when I lived in Seattle we created a new site called babynamer.com. At that time the owner of the company and me were both having children (as was Bill Gates too who used our site to pick the name of his son Rory).

One of the most interesting properties about names that came up right away as we were researching baby names was what we later termed -- the 'ancient form of a name'. The best example of it is between the modern name Robert and all its derivative name forms and the ancient form Hreodbeorht. You can only imagine what my wife said when I told her that I wanted to name our son who was expected in 2 months Hreodbeorht. NO NO NO.

I was recently reminded of this origin story in a modern context by one of our very talented developers Daniel (who did the recent beautiful rewrite to our baby names site - babynamer.com) and our director of development Luke.


Question: will the origin story for this name in 100 years be Skype - an ancient name meaning a primitive text chat and VOIP communication system?

My Son’s 5th Grade Graduation

I have been working on a photo montage / slide show for my son's 5th grade graduating class from Redwood Elementary school in West Orange, NJ. Its been lots of fun because many of the kids have been in the same elementary school for all 5 years. You can really see the growth and change in the photos.

Because so many of you have asked for a copy of the DVD I uploaded it to Youtube.com and you can see it here. I had to break it into two clips.

Bubbles

This post is gonna sound crazy but I can't recommend enough a new off broadway show for kids if you live or happen to be in the NYC area. Its called the Gazillion Bubble Show

Its a fantastic show about an hour long. The guy who does the show apparently holds many Guiness Book of World Records for the largest bubble blowing.

Seems Like Forever

My grandfather, Warren Morgan, died last week. He was nearly 98 years old. He lived a great long life. I am working on a family photo montage as a tribute to his life for the services next week. This was my grandfather’s graduation picture.

As I look at all the photos of his life, I am reminded of one of my favorite movies with Robin Williams – Dead Poets Society. Maybe we all think we have forever as we look into the camera at all those special moments in time.

My earliest memory of my grandfather was really building the cabin on Lake Coeur d’Alene that my parents now have. I was about 5 or 6 and my hand print is in the foundation of the place. That couple of summers were really rough as my grandfather, uncle Chuck and my dad worked hard just getting the raw materials out to the cabin for construction (let alone the building part). That cabin was just the third on the whole bay at Benion Point at the time circa 1970 (now there are hundreds perhaps a thousand) in that same area. The roads in to the cabin at that time were incredible rough and steep compared with the one that exists today.

What I really remember about the work is how my grandfather actually truly enjoyed the work particularly with my dad. My dad and I have carried on the tradition since every time I go to the cabin I really enjoy some major building project that we do together. As I child I just couldn’t grasp the concept of “enjoying work” particularly hard physical labor.

At that time like most kids my age, I was into play, swimming, crafts, really anything but work. In those days even leisure on the lake took considerable work. You literally had to climb to get to the beach over huge pieces of driftwood, stumps and other lake debris. A far cry from the way it is today with a pristine beach with grass right down to the shore. Pictured here is the first speed boat (one of his prized possessions) my grandfather bought at the cabin (seated left to right is my cousin Laurie, my cousin Mark and Grandma Morgan)

It was really no different in town at their home in Spokane, Washington; Grandpa Morgan was always working / puttering with some kind of project. His favorite work really was his wood shop buried deep in the back of their basement. He had a full size wood lathe that we carved wood bowls and dowels as well as dozens of other saws and special wood working tools.

In honor of my grandfathers passing I am uploading his life story that he wrote in 1997. We will all miss him.

Alternative Energy…Yes But

I had the great opportunity this year to work with three bright young women in building their sixth grade science fair project from left to right, samantha, olivia (my lovely daughter) and meredith. The construction was fun and I think the girls learned quite a bit from the experiment.

Inside an old doll house that we purchased on ebay they installed lighting and other devices that use power. They learned about different wiring systems and how much the different appliances consumed in terms of load and how they can be hooked in series versus parallel.

On the power source side they constructed three separate green power sources that could power all the circuits in the house. 1) Chemical batteries made by hand that were really cool; 2) Solar cells mounted on the roof and ; 3) Hand crank generators that they could crank manually to generate the requisite power;

The girls did a full presentation to their class where they were asked a bunch of questions from their classmates. They handled the questions really well.

As I stood there in my normal role of "tech support" and "dad", I began to wonder will this be the generation that actually once and for all conquers this energy mess? I am optimistic after watching these three passionately talk in front of their peers about it. I hope for the best and would like to do more in my own life to build a green lifestyle.

On Innovation

Wow it has been a while since I have written not because I didn't want to (as I said previously I love this so far) but I have been so busy both in my professional and personal life. This particular post is about my professional life more than my personal life.

There has been a ton of debate at my company recently about "Innovation". Based on this I want to set the record straight about where I stand on the topic. True innovation is a combination of three disciplines (in no particular order technology, business and design) coming together in perfect unity. I constructed this diagram to show my perspective on innovation. It is not just about technology or design. A very key part is the business perspective. Is the idea viable? How can we make money? How can we be honest with our consumer/audience (ie no dirty tricks)? How do we make larger company goals about valuation and yet make a great product. My point is that innovation IS a balance.

Innovation is NOT a commodity. It is hard to get because it is indeed a balance of all three of these disciplines (technology, design and business).
I believe that the key part that we have been missing on a project I have been working on recently is the business perspective. We are largely a B2B company selling advertising and don't have much of a consumer presence. Our CEO has asked us to have a consumer based product line yet we are mainly pursuing B2B opportunities.

This project is an example of having great technology, great design yet without a business model we cannot truly succeed. We are missing the third leg in my diagram. Furthermore, if we just simply pursue the "normal" business model for the company (advertising) we may not have an innovative product. After all the consumer in an advertiser-based business is the ad agency not the consumer.

OK so my first tool sucked!

Alright, I admit my first tool (bloglines.com) stunk so I have switched to the tool that most of you recommended - WordPress.

It just took me an evening to get it setup on my PHP host. It's looking good although I haven't had time to change all the default templating stuff but I am up and running on a pretty decent template package. Maybe I'll trade services with our design master -- Bob C. to get me some real customized looks:)

I am still dabbling with the Movable Type product as it might work great for my family blog. I am sure I will have plenty of stupid questions to bug my team with about these packages.

I’m Liking It!

3/13/07

My second blog entry – Thanks team for shaming me into this. I kind of like it!

It was the second and last day of our Oxygen Media Ad Sales conference in Miami Florida today and typical of such events there was the perfunctory closing remarks (glad handing, thanks, Rah! Rah!, etc.). Believe me even though this is my first O2 sales/marketing conference, I have been to plenty as I worked as a sales professional albeit in another industry for 5+ years. I have no concerns that this combined team will meet or surpass its goals for the year.

We had a great speaker today about personal performance – Raquel Malo, Energy for Performance. Everything she said about personal performance seemed reasonable. Her biggest point was to make sure you maximize focus/energy for whatever you are doing in life (professional, personal, etc.). In other words make it count. This has always been a personal belief of mine.

My thoughts about her talk was does the same apply to teams? My belief is “yes”. I look at my teams and those of others responsible for creating products at Oxygen Media and I think it’s also true. If teams maximize focus and energy they tend to achieve goals.

The process we use in software development (Agile Development) certainly is designed around this key concept so it supports this premise and indeed I think most would agree that we achieve this at Oxygen.

Another, example that became very obvious to me at this Ad Sales conference was our programming department. Although I am observing this as an outsider it seems like a few years ago that we focused on too many different kinds of programming. In the last couple of years the team has really focused on romantic comedy and reality as a concept (primarily with a few exceptions) and we have really had a few hits and I think the ratings show the results of the focus and energy. Debbie Beece and her team deserve a great deal of credit for this change and momentum.

A counter example though is that I feel our online offering suffers greatly from a lack of focus and building out significant features that our audience expects. The net result is that we are too scattered. We have too many ideas and features none of which is really prioritized higher than any other one. We tend to try and do too many things rather than less of them but really focused on the consumer.

My First Blog Post

My first blog entry – I really can’t believe I am doing this…damn my own team has shamed me into this!

I was fortunate enough to attend our recent Sales Conference for Oxygen Media in Miami Florida. I am told that this year was over the top and even though I can’t judge for sure this year (because it is my first time going at Oxygen Media), I felt the conference was great. Not only was the environmental element impressive (come on what’s wrong with the Mandarin Oriental in Miami Florida for Christ Sake, 82 degrees, not a cloud in the sky, 5 star spa resort, swimming pool, custom white sand beach, you get the picture, if not here’s the link).

I have to say it was a great time to bond with my colleagues from our Ad Sales department, Affiliate Sales department and Marketing (all teams). I was very impressed with not only the people in the departments but their shared vision and outcome. It got me to thinking about the teams I manage (IT and software development) and how we share a vision.

Both of my teams have this strength about sharing a vision and pulling for it but in distinctly different ways. In both cases it works equally well and it’s all about the commitment of the team and the leadership at the top. If either of those is out of whack it doesn’t work. The meetings with all the sales & marketing groups at Oxygen further convinced me that the outcome can be the same if both elements exist – commitment of the team and the leadership at the top.

Indeed my job now is to get my teams to work with these fantastic groups even more than they already do and advertise the product expertise that we have and how that can help sales and marketing at Oxygen. I was inspired by how all these teams work together and how I think we can help them by offering a superior product for them to sell and market.