No, not Dark Cloud referring to my current role responsible for Microsoft web strategy in Middle East Africa…although did steal repurpose the LATAM team’s sig”): and for me…in the midst of sunshine & invisible ash. (Yes, it’s been sunny throughout although the last time I heard quietness without planes was in Manhattan).

When you text friends, you need only query but once. Not a hundred times refining as you do with Search. With text, all you do is wait for the results to come back. If only Search worked this way.

After being grounded in Copenhagen for several days due to The Grand Pagaille, as the French are calling it – The Big Mess -  I ran a quick survey with my colleagues on how they are managing to get the minute by minute updates on which airports have re-opened. 

Ostensibly, the Danish choose to serve their news in Danish(!), making it a challenge for a non-Danish-yet-Rosetta-Stone-Danish-owning-wondering-what-to-do-for-updates-when-stranded-because-of-volcanic-ash individual.  So this is what we found in the….

Volcano News Index (VNI) shows that word of mouth & texting is more powerful than Search or Social Networking for local, non-English news

Assuming an individual cannot read the local news sources, we looked at 4 categories – Search, Social Networking, Analog Word of Mouth & Text Messaging as a way of getting localized data quickly.

For this index we measure:

• retrievability – how fast can you get information
• reliability – how accurate is that information
• effort – how much time, stress, and energy it takes to get this information

	Search	Social Networking	Word of Mouth (taxi drivers, shawarma sellers, & kind hosts)	Text Messaging
Retrievability?
Reliability?
Effort
Commentary	Searches for News in major search engines yield non local sources with significant lag time.	Twitter trending topics were inconsistent. Too much noise. Facebook searches unreliable rumors.	A bit disjointed and non-focused in scope, the information from locals was very current and up to date. We credit the Danish news (in Danish) as the source and our taxi drivers for translations.	Notifying friends of the dilemma, they reach out to their networks. The geometric progressions of information are fast, reliabile and work on a push model. When you text friends, you need only query but once. Not a hundred times refining as you do search. All you do is wait for the results to come back. If only search worked this way.

You can try the first 2 categories for yourself but sample results from last 2 prove to be quite informative:

• Text April 18, PM “flights will resume Tuesday out of Amsterdam. They are flying the planes at 41,000 feet above the ash”
• Text April 19 AM “Rome athens madrid open. Czech republic open at noon today. Vienna and stockholm open with limited service. However seems chaotic and unreliable overall”
• Taxi Driver April 19, AM: “The volcano ashes have shifted over to Denmark. A bus ride to Oslo is 8 hours. It is open”
• Shawarma Seller April 20, AM: “They are opening air space today, I am sure of it as they have nearly finished their test flights.”
• Text from April 20 PM  “U want austrian air via vienna @10.45am biz class tom for $2029. HURRY n let me know as that cancels in 8 minutes”

How can we build a search engine that gets us this type of tightly scoped, reliable answers to a single query “Help I am stuck in Copenhagen”?  Open for comments.

A story of the perfect example of what LEGO calls the Clutch Power of bricks – the ability to stick yet easy to let go.

Copenhagen Denmark. April 12, 2010. – Observe the lovely painstaking handcrafted Scandinavian charm bracelet which I took with me to Denmark. Pieced together from vintage 1940s charms, I have yet to wear the bracelet. Not until I had seen the sights on the bracelet – specifically the Little Mermaid, which appears 4 times in the finished bracelet.

After a canal tour to Langelinie with my Lille Hund Littles – I spy the rocks which the Little mermaid sits. But she is gone. In her place are 4 teenagers with piercings smoking cigarettes.  Apparently, someone (who I was coincidentally to encounter the very next day), brokered a deal with China to swap out the Little Mermaid in exchange for some digital art. She was sent off days before my arrival. “But where’s the digital art?”, someone asks, pointing to the smoking teenagers.  “It hasn’t arrived yet”.  Hamlet’s opening quote may ring true and the bracelet remains unworn.

If you are looking for a dog friendly destination, look no further than Denmark. And if you have kids, even better – then go to Legoland in Bilund – about 2.5 hours by spectacularly scenic train from Copenhagen.

Bilund is the heart of Lego headquarters and a center for peace, tranquility and…. a lot of creativity thanks to LEGO. Plus the bakery in the center of town is one of the few bakeries outside of Paris which matches the smell of the bakery to the taste of the items inside the bakery.

Booking a hotel room at the Legoland hotel guarantees you admission into the park. Although keep in mind, the park is not open every day. Either call in advance or look for the waving Lego figure statue. If he’s waving, it’s open. If not, try again. Again, best to call in advance. Legoland’s original theme park is not only Pølser (hot dog) friendly but also canine friendly.  When you do arrive, bring your four legged travel friend with you. You will not be able to ride on the rides with your friend, but the rest of your explorations will be with canine friend in tow.

If you have a small pet, the Legoland hotel next door to the theme park may seat include your pet for dinner (up to the discretion of the waitstaff and mild mannered nature of your dog). It is not certainly unheard of to hear the question posed to a party of 3 humans waiting to be seated for dinner: “You mean party of four?” pointing discreetly at the Chihuahua who is nonchalantly patiently waiting to be noticed.

Only Turkey and France thus far compare to seating a dog at the table, but so far Denmark is beating all canine friendly standards offering a custom meal specifically for our hovering hound. “Delicious Pølser!”, twitters Littles in a dog eat dog world.

October 22, 2009. New York City. Times Square.  NASDAQ celebrates the Windows 7 launch with Microsoft executives and partners ringing the closing bell.  Well ringing the closing bell is maybe a misnomer – pressing the button in a glass studio on a corner in Times Square is more like it.

NASDAQ is a purely electronic exchange, and thereby has no trading floor. Instead, you stand on a small raised dais underneath electronic ticker tapes flashing the latest closing prices centering on the stock being honored. ‘

This entire ceremony is broadcast live on the studio’s external walls…..

…. which also serves to illuminate and entertain the audience in Times Square.

As 4 o’clock approaches, a countdown accompanied with triumphant music begins to blast from overhead and eager faces eye the stock price cheering up ticks and silently glaring at drops.  Picture taking, people shuffling and lots of ceremonies ensue.

Promptly at 4 the bell is rung and confetti falls from the ceiling amongst a rally of cheers.

At one point Bob McCooeylooks around the room noting all the black Window7 shirt wearers. He looks down at his suit and tie “Hey, how come I don’t get a shirt?”  I reach into my bag for an oversized shirt (more later on how to redesign those extra large beltless shirt dresses that all techie companies love to give out) and toss it over to Bob.

“HEY! That was my shirt!” proclaims Caroline. Too late, Bob has already removed his suit jacket and dons the Win7 shirt over his button down.

Bob got to keep the shirt, but not before he signed my Windows 7 shirt which I promptly gave to a now satisfied Caroline.

Find out more about the amazing features of Windows 7 – the greenest operating system that uses considerably less power and resources than any of its predecessors.  And it was all your idea!!

LIght up your applications on Windows 7!

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