larry borsato

The economy lost more jobs than expected last month:
That, plus the larger-than-expected loss of 85,000 jobs in December, put new pressure on the administration to step up job creation.
I know that the economy is bad, but don’t we generally "expect" no job losses? How does one go about deciding what the expected losses will be? [...]

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When I was listening to the pitches at VeloCity StartupWeekend, I noticed right away that I knew of several competitors for almost every product idea. When I was mentoring the students I pointed out that this was just fine. It’s ok to have competition because that validates the market. Being the first company in any [...]

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Robert Scoble describes the two biggest problems RIM has when dealing with BlackBerry developers (I’ve emphasized the important parts):
It’s worse than that if you compare app platforms. At CES last week I met an exec at Research In Motion, the folks that make the Blackberry. He bragged to me that they were building their own [...]

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Apparently we’re experiencing global cooling now:
The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.
So, the hallowed models couldn’t predict this cooling trend but that’s ok. [...]

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From Seth Godin:
Of course they don’t exist to help you plan or execute a career. Most of the organizations with booths are bottom fishing, looking for enough willing and able employees to fill established gaps in their companies. This is hiring on the hoof, wholesale filling of average jobs with people trying to be average. [...]

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You can see that the banking industry is out of touch with the reality of the economy today when they justify multi-million dollar bonuses like this:
“A lot of our folks have second and third homes and alimony payments and other obligations that require substantial current cash,” said one banker, who insisted on anonymity because he [...]

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I’ve spent the last couple of days at StartupWeekend at UW’s VeloCity residence. If you look closely you can see me near the back in green shirt and jeans, arms folded, listening intently.
I’ve watched about 50 students pitch ideas, form teams, write code, describe target markets, and explain how they plan to generate revenue. Actually, [...]

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So it appears that it’s nobody’s fault that the Christmas Day underwear bomber wasn’t caught. It’s all the fault of bad software:
A misspelling of Mr. Abdulmutallab’s name initially resulted in the State Department believing he did not have a valid U.S. visa. A determination to revoke his visa however would have only occurred if there [...]

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Bozeman, Montana is spending about $50,000 in stimulus cash on tennis courts:
The commission approved a contract with Dermco-LaVine Construction in Minneapolis for the courts during a noon meeting on Monday. The company will put in rubber-tiled courts at the park, located along South Church Avenue.
White said the out-of-state company got the contract because there [...]

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I sent a Christmas gift to my new nephew recently. Since I was at the post office, I inquired about the Canada Post Priority Post service. For $40 (including a $5 fuel surcharge – wish I could get away with charging that) they told me they could deliver that package from Waterloo to Calgary by [...]

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