inhale – be calm, exhale – be helpful; repeat until done.
what i write about: these posts are random and not so random thoughts about business, technology, culture, society at large, politics, economics. i am particularly interested in inflection points, tipping points, shifting trends, transformational individuals/situations/tools and how they impact us individually and as a group.
general interests: in no particular order… wine, rugby union, movies, figuring out people, economics, game theory, power laws, chess, eastern and western spirituality, when faith becomes mysticism, yoga, cooking… oh and i love all things apple.
what defines me: i have two kids i love dearly. i am a humanist. i challenge myself and question everything daily – sometimes not enough. i am very inquisitive. i do that in washington, dc – well bethesda actually. fabulous place to raise kids.
business interests: again in no particular order… crowdsourcing, startups, organizational behavior, team building and leading, mentoring, social media, turnaround situations, virtual organizations, strategic planning, business development…
my business life: i have worked with small sized companies and startups for the past 16 years – was in investment banking prior to that. i absolutely love working in fast paced environments. of particular interest: high growth environment, early stage, team building, mentoring, turnarounds, tipping points, negotiating and delivering win/win outcomes.
a little fun: an ordinary man living in extraordinary circumstances. after having solved chess, the common cold, written bill gates original business plan, bred three triple crown winners – i like number symmetry – and having defeated spectre, dr. evil, kaos and t.h.r.u.s.h. i now long for a quiet life, dedicated towards domestic chores and sophisticated parties about town.
the one thing i really want and cannot find anywhere: a real lightsaber
my superpowers: working on becoming a jedi – long way to go still!
you can soon visit my current business booquet.com. in the meantime you can certainly follow booquet’s twitter updates here we are hard at work on creating the next killer aggregator for the wine industry. i can’t really discuss this new venture now, but suffice it to say that i am hard at work with developing the front end of the web site, the back end, i.e. the technology platform, some business development and marketing planning, and in my spare time loads of investor meetings and fund raising. i already closed our first seed round, next is the angel round. wish me luck. oh and the web site should be up and running this coming july if all goes well. more to come soon!!
inhaling and exhaling should never be taken for granted – a cognizant focus on the action favors emotional and physiological relaxation – watching the snowflakes glide across the bethesdafrog blog solicits a renewed appreciation for the respiratory process – and the content is fun to read too…
Inhaling, be calm
Exhaling, be useful
A budhist mantra…
Pascal, I cannot remember how we linked but anyway… Interesting blog on Pepsico. However, the basic assumption is that the carbon footprint induces anthropogenic climate change (ACC) and that ACC is bad for the world. I completely disagree. The real fights remain pollution and oil replacement. The ACC concept has been created by a couple of leaders in search of job creation, to be subsidized of course, endorsed by engineers looking for jobs and subsidies, and promoted by companies such as Pepsi as part of their marketing budget. We should NOT waste our money on ACC – we should instead focus on R&D for Electric Motors, Public Transportation – and always, Pollution. By the way, Natural Gas and Nuclear are part of the solution, Solar maybe but not as in “polysilicon”, and certainly Wind, Geothermal, Hydro and Biomass. Now, those only solve the electricity problem – only the Electric Car will solve the Oil problem.
frank,
thank you so much for visiting, reading my last post and commenting!
we met at bbh in 92-93. i was straight out of business school, you were then the head of the paris branch, i was slated to go to paris. we had actually met a couple of years prior in paris at your office. i was introduced to you through a common friend or business acquaintance from switzerland. i found you on linkedin recently and requested we link there.
i read somewhere – i.e. scientific university study – that the “meat” industry accounts for over 30% of all carbon emission or was it greenhouse effects, while transportation accounts for only 10% or less. a factor of 3 or more. that is quite significant. this tells me that while we switch from an oil based economy to other sources of energy such as the ones you list in your comment – and i agree 100% with you on that – much can be done to mitigate and lower the human impact on our planet. just think of this, when switched to another source of energy, a cleaner source of energy and another engine than the combustion engine, if nothing is done to either change the way meat is produced or if the level of meat consumption is not lowered, we still will have a sizable problem on our hands.
glad we reconnected.