The Best Of ... January 21, 2007

Over on my other, now-defunct blog (link omitted on purpose) I used to have a feature I called "In the News: People Who Are Completely Missing the Point" in which I'd take a quick tour of the week's (or, as it ended up being, the month's) headlines that smacked particularly of silliness (for example, then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert's interpretation of "Do as I say, not as I do.")

More recently I've been getting into reading a bunch of the tech evangelist blogs - Anand Iyers' Artificial Ignorance, Chris Pirillo, Jason Kottke, Tim O'Reilly's O'Reilly Radar, David Pogue's Pogue's Pages, Rory Blyth's Neopoleon, Robert Scoble's Scobelizer, and Seth Godin, to name but a few (I have something like 150 feeds in my Google Reader right now.  I'm going to have to trim some feeds, cause it takes upwards of a half hour to go through everything, but that's another post altogether).

In particular, I've been intrigued by Chris Pirillo's weekly featured links (the most recent of which you can see here) and Robert Scoble's Link Blog (which makes use of Google Reader's Share feature).

In the spirit of those and other blogs, I thought we here at OwenBloggers.com - or maybe just me here at OwenBloggers.com - might perform a similar service.  So here, in no particular order, are a few links from around the web this week that I found interesting.

• Most Overlooked Tax Deductions (via Lifehacker, original post on HRBlock.com)

  Since tax season is right around the corner, and being a good MBA student is all about maximizing ROI (or is it return on capital? return on assets?), you might want to check some of these out.  Personally, I'm toying with the idea of deducting all my clothing expenses as "work-related uniform expense," seeing as my beloved business school requires business casual attire.

• How to Annoy People Using Instant Messaging (via Web Worker Daily)

  Chuckle-worthy tongue-in-cheek send-up of the annoying IM-er.  Raise your hand if you know someone like this.

• President Bush set to announce a shift in health coverage (via WashingtonPost.com)

  As part of the Health Care MBA program here at the Owen School, I've spent quite a bit of time thinking and discussing the distinction between patients and health care consumers.  A central theme of Dr. Keckley's Introduction to the Health Care Landscape class, the topic has been touched upon in all three of our other core HC MBA classes (HC Clinical Immersion and HC Business Immersion, both with Dr. David Owens, and HC Business Fundamentals with Dr. Larry van Horn).  As a matter of fact, this very issue came up, by my count, thrice last week alone.  My point?  Its pretty cool to be taking classes that are so "real time," classes that don't have any textbooks because by the time you write it down and publish the book, the lion's share of health care policy and thinking have changed.

• A little iPhone humor never hurt anyone (via The Unofficial Apple Weblog)

  seems more like a Microsoft strategy, to tell you the truth, but still funny.

• Top 10 Marketing Podcasts (via Guy Kawasaki's How to Change the World)

  Just last week my Product and Brand Management class here at the Owen School (taught by new professor Steve Hoeffler) touched on the rise of new media in marketing.  I was intrigued by the idea when it was mentioned in class, but, as per normal, my attention was drawn by other things the moment class ended.  Later that day I stumbled across Kawasaki's post (for those of you that don't know, Kawasaki was the first Apple Evangelist ever).  Although I'm not the biggest fan of PodCasts (I always seem to leave my iPod on my desk at home), it did make me think about how, now that web advertising is so incredibly pervasive, things like Podcasts, blogs, and evangelism are being used to influence brand perception.

• Vanderbilt Commodore Men's Basketball team beat the Kentucky Wildcats for the third time in a row (via VUCommodores.com)

  and for the third time this season the 'Dores had me on the edge of my seat until the very last second. What a game - Cage, Foster, Byers, and Gordon were all on fire.

• Download Coffee (or at least its effects) (via Download Squad)

  Somehow I don't think Starbucks is all that worried.

 

What are some of your favorite links for the week?

 

 

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