Mavericks at Work

"A report from the front lines of the future of business. It's not a book of best practices. It's a book of next practices--a set of insights and a collection of case studies that amount to a business plan for the 21st century, a new way to lead, compete, and succeed." -Taylor and LaBarre

From my last readings.

Them Crooked Vultures at Fox Theater

Them Crooked Vultures is a rock supergroup made up of drummer Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, Nirvana), vocalist and guitarist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Eagles of Death Metal) and bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin).

They played the entire album plus "Highway 1". Josh Homme even dealed some vodka during "Interlude With Ludes". Dave Grohl was blasting so hard that his drum kit was moving on stage, even if it was stucked with multiple sandbags. They leaved without any encore, but who cares? It was perfect.
What a great high quality performance. One of the best 2009 shows.

Photos by Laura Musselman.

Spotify rocks with precursor mobile music experience

Spotify is a great music streaming service that allows instant listening to more than 6 millions songs. The application is available on Windows, Mac OS X, iPhone and Android phones.

I was using the free version for a couple of months. It stands to reason that yes, advertising sucks. But the Symbian version has just been released which allows me to use Spotify on my Nokia N95.

As a music nerd, I quite immediately upgraded my account to 9,99€/month prenium version which provides:
- Mobile music with streaming over 3G/2.5G/Wifi in high quality
- Playlists are even available offline
- Access music anywhere in the world and of course no ads

After 24H of use I must admit that I totally love it. This is real innovation in the music industry.
And Deezer is now also into the prenium game. Sorry, but Spotify won this time with Nokia support.

Reality Check

I finally finished this 496 pages great book. A must read for anyone willing to deal with the reality of startups doing business.

A quote from the front flap:

"I wanted to provide hardcore information to hardcore people who want to kick ass, and I wanted it in something you can hold in your hands - a book. Why? Because a book boots up faster than a blog and is not dependant on Internet connectivity, battery life, or the ineptness of HTML printing."

3 Google Voice invites giveaway

Google Voice is a great new phone service that is really innovative. I'm using Google Voice daily since two months and I love it.

Here is some of the nicest features it provides:
  • One number: a single phone number that rings all your phones
  • Free SMS: send, receive & store text messages online
  • Block calls: send unwanted callers straight to voicemail
  • Record calls: record phone calls and store them online
  • Conference calls: join several people into a single call
  • Screen callers: hear who is calling before you pick up

And yes, I'm giving away 3 invites. To get one, just craft a comment below with your email address, you need to be in the US. I will send invites to 3 people of you in a few days.