Interview with Paul Carroll about Merrill Lynch/BofA. Paul Carroll and Chunka Mui released a new book last week titled "Billion Dollar Lessons: What you can learn from the most inexcusable business failures of the last 25 years". They did a lot of research and came up with a list of common tactics that companies follow that very often lead to failure, such as merging based on an unrealistic belief in synergy (it rarely pays off anywhere near as much as thought), moving into adjacent areas, etc. They also propose ways to avoid such situations. I've heard them give talks about their work, and am halfway through reading the book. I like it enough that I've already bought a copy and given it as a birthday gift to a business consultant friend (I kept my copy).

I saw Paul and Chunka at the Diamond Management & Technology Consultants Exchange conference earlier this week. They had thoughts about the deal between Bank of America and Merrill Lynch that was just announced. I offered to record a short interview so they'd have a podcast version of their thoughts. You can get a link to listen to it by going to my podcast listing for it. They have a written post about their thoughts on their book blog.

Interview with Vice Admiral (Ret.) John Morgan. In March of 2007 I did a podcast interview with Vice Admiral John Morgan, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information, Plans and Strategy. He has been involved in the setting of strategy and worked with Admiral Mike Mullen, now the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Admiral Morgan retired last month after 36 years in the Navy. He is starting to do consulting and speaking.

Yesterday I recorded a 56 minute telephone interview with John. We discussed global systems of cooperation for the betterment of the world, the role of interconnectivity, learning to deescalate conflict and cooperate towards mutual goals rather than escalate and then try to win and defeat, his view concerning the problem of technology helping our enemies as well as us, and much more. I found out that the Navy apparently makes successful heavy use of the somewhat organizationally flat chat-style typed communication rather than the old (and even Star-Trek) hierarchical voice style. (One story he told me was of when he commanded the USS Enterprise battle group right after 9-11.) The way I see it, this is a vote for the usefulness of products like Twitter. He made reference to Clay Shirky's 2005 TED talk about building cooperation into interactive infrastructure instead of relying on institutions and agreed with him. This interview should be useful to people interested in social software, geo-politcal relations, the military, and more.

You will find the recording listed as "VADM (Ret.) John Morgan on cooperation, technology, and more" on my podcast page.

Transcript of interview with John Morgan. I've been experimenting with transcripts of some of my podcasts. I saw that some other podcasters had used CastingWords to do transcripts and I liked how they were set up so I tried them. It was pretty easy and the transcripts look pretty good. (I used their 6-day option and the audio quality I gave them is good.)

The first interview transcript that I am posting is the one I just did with John Morgan. I have not reviewed the transcript, so there may be errors, especially where the audio was unclear or a strange term was used. I paid to include time stamps so you can go back and forth between the text and audio.

See "Transcript of VADMMorgan-2008-09-25.mp3".

Tech Tuesday next week. FYI: The Mass Tech Leadership Council is having another Tech Tuesday this coming Tuesday, October 14 (the second Tuesday of the month), from 6-8pm at the Skellig Pub & Restaurant in Waltham. See the event info page for details, to sign up, and to see who else has already signed up (you can show up even if you don't sign up). After the very successful Innovation2008 unConference this should be a good kickoff for this season and a good way to continue all those conversations. Microsoft is sponsoring so the admission is free to all. Ian of the MassTLC has been working on a new list of cool techie YouTube videos and I'm sure there'll be other worthwhile things to see.

Scott Kirsner's Tech @ The Movies panel video. Scott Kirsner hosted a panel last month called "Tech @ The Movies". He got to celebrate the release of his book, Inventing The Movies, that covers the history of the technology of the movie industry from Edison to Steve Jobs. (The book looks good - I've already bought a copy to give as a birthday present for a techie film buff and he loved it.) The panelists were from EZTakes, Synthespian Studios, Avid, GenArts, and Brickyard VFX, and they showed samples of their work as well as talked and answered questions.

A few days before the event Scott asked me if I could attend and record it for a podcast or videocast. I'm glad that I decided to go so that this was saved for others to see. I didn't have time to bring a lot of equipment, but I did bring one video camera and a wireless mike. I put the handheld mike on one channel and the camera's mike on the other. (The camera's picked up room voices but is much quieter - I didn't bring a mixer.) I gave the raw tape to Scott and he just finished processing it and putting it up on Google Video. If you are at all interested in movies or digital effects or editing or seeing some of the cool lesser-known Massachusetts tech companies it is worth watching (it's an hour and 20 minutes long).

To see it, go to Scott's "Panel Video: Tech @ The Movies".

Why hasn't Dan been blogging much?. If you look back at the last several months here you'll see that I haven't been posting much on this blog. There are several reasons for that. I was quite busy working on SocialCalc, "sprinting" to meet some deadlines to add various functionality "under the hood" that is important for its integration into the Socialtext wiki system. In addition, last summer I was working, again, as an expert witness on a patent-related lawsuit (on the side that was being sued for infringement). That lawsuit settled, but then I had another (non-programming) big project that I had to meet a deadline for, and finished that in time by the skin of my teeth a few days ago. This is all in addition to family events and my ongoing podcasting and responsibilities on various boards. (I still have a video recording of Nicholas Negroponte from last month to process and post.) I have been posting on Twitter once in a while (as "DanB"), but even there not too much.

Now I'm back to mainly working on SocialCalc, so things will be a little less crazy, I hope. Maybe we'll even see some postings here on a topic other than Tech Tuesday.

Tech Tuesday is on the 18th this month. The Mass Tech Leadership Council decided to have this month's Tech Tuesday on the 3rd Tuesday of the month instead of the normal 2nd because of Veterans Day. So, it will be at Skellig's, as it has been, but on November 18, 2008, at 6pm. To sign up (it's free and you can show up even if you don't sign up) go to the signup page.

Video of OLPC's Nicholas Negroponte's talk at Vilna Shul. Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit organization, spoke and answered questions for a little over an hour on October 22, 2008. This was another in the wonderful Vilna Shul speaker series organized by Doug Levin. I sat on the front row and made a video recording, which is now available for viewing on Google Video.

Nicholas spoke about the history of OLPC, the trials and tribulations of getting it adopted in many countries, the upcoming Give One/Get One campaign starting November 17 with the help of Amazon.com, why he's happy the XO can run Microsoft Windows, and more.

The lighting, with both a bright screen to show his slides and the low room light on his face, was challenging, but I think being able to see him and his expressions along with the photos adds a lot compared to just the sound. I was able to use a lavalier mike on Nicholas and a shotgun mike for the audience questions, so the sound quality is pretty good.

To watch the video, go to "Nicholas Negroponte of OLPC speaks at Vilna Shul".

We haven't been hearing as much about OLPC for a while, but huge numbers of units have been, and will continue to be, deployed. This talk is a good way to catch up on that deployment.

Tech Tuesday this coming Tuesday. Just a reminder that we are having Tech Tuesday this coming week, on the 18th of November, at 5:30pm. It's at the Skellig Irish Pub again. This is in Waltham, MA, close to 128 and right near the commuter rail that comes from Porter Square. While they serve beer and stuff, like other restaurants all ages are allowed in. Admission is FREE and students are encouraged to attend, too, to mingle with each other, potential employers, and "seasoned" veterans and potential mentors. See the Event Sign Up page for a list of some of the people coming and to sign up (though you can just show up, too).

No Tech Tuesday this month. Just a note: According to Ian at the Mass Tech Leadership Council, there is no Tech Tuesday this month. All the holiday parties, etc., made scheduling the place difficult.

Anyway, the holiday parties are a great way to mingle, at least for people currently in the business or recently looking. A lot of VCs and service firms have get togethers this month. I was at one this week that Matrix Partners put on. It is just a cocktail party where you stand around talking to other people who were involved in Matrix-backed companies over the years while eating a little bit of food (they backed Trellix). Last year I ran into Don Bulens there, who had just made a deal to sell EqualLogic to Dell, and did a YouTube video (search for "Bulens Matrix").