change: a (new) man bag for (old) man stuff

It's a shame.

"What's a shame?"

I've come to sense the limitations of my Belstaff Colonial Canvas shoulder bag.

"Buh-wha...?"

I've been on the road an awful lot lately, and it's just not cutting it.

"I thought that bag did everything but wash your dishes and stop bullets."

Don't get me wrong, it's a great bag. It's just not convenient for the serious traveler.

"What happened?"

First of all, it's just not big enough. I'm schlepping around a laptop, files, notebooks, my pencil case. . .

"You carry around a pencil case?"

Dude. You need a pencil case. I keep my spare pens, refills, my automatic pencil, a glue stick, all kinds of useful stuff in it.

"You're scaring me."

OK, where was I. Besides the pencil case, I carry an iPod Touch, the wires and charger for it, a phone, and that doesn't start to cover the other bits of crap I carry around, like hand sanitizer, whiteboard pens, a harmonica, a small stack of origami paper. . .

"Origami paper."

You need that for making presents for flight attendants.

"I'm not going to ask."

I've got my worry stone, a pewter acorn from the Morton Arboretum...

"OK, I have to ask. Why an acorn?"

You carry an acorn to bring luck and ensure a long life.

"Really."

I'm not taking any chances. Oh, and then there's my Midori Traveler's Notebook for tickets, receipts, itineraries, business cards and whatnot. And that doesn't include any books I'm reading.

"That's a lot of crap, Bob."

Seriously! If you're not getting on and off planes for a living, the Belstaff bag is swell. But I need something bigger.

"So just get a backpack or carry one of those big laptop bags."

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention. I need a bag for my stuff, not a ballistic-fabric monster.

"Except now you've got more stuff."

What can I say.

"So what man purse. . .I'm sorry, man bag are you looking at these days?"

Funny you should ask. Check out the Barbour Retriever Bag.

"Oh my."

It's waxed cotton so it's light, water-resistant and durable. It's got that nice Barbour tartan fabric liner. It's one big pouch with two small external pockets. And check out the dimensions: 16.5 x 16 x 6.5 inches. That's a good three to four inches longer, wider and deeper than my Belstaff bag. And it's not man-baggy-looking, if you know what I mean.

"Have you read any reviews?"

Come on.

"How much?"

Around $120, maybe less if I get lucky on eBay.

"That's a lot less expensive than the Belstaff."

And get this - there's a Barbour repair center out east in case something unfortunate happens to it. I don't have to screw around negotiating with someone in the showroom to get it fixed.

"Very nice."

I agree.

"Got another picture?"

Sure:

news: my new adventure

I'm not quite sure how to tell this story, so I'll be brief, start at the end, and leave the beginning for another day.

I'm working at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History as the product manager for the Encyclopedia of Life.

A few years ago Edward O. Wilson asked attendees at TED to "imagine an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth." Some brave people took up that challenge and a year later EoL was launched. If you want to learn more you can visit www.eol.org and poke around.

It's audacious, it's meaningful, it's a long way from finished - actually, it will never be finished, and that's part of what makes it so special. If we do our jobs correctly it will change the world. I'm honored, delighted and extremely humbled to be a part of it.

oh: and by the way

A few unrelated topics:

1. After three days in Leiden I'm convinced we'd all be better off if we all rode bikes. I think the Dutch ride bikes in part because being a pedestrian there is a full-contact sport. Curiously enough I didn't see a single person wearing a bike helmet, and yet I didn't read any stories of devastating head injuries. Could it be they've made cities "bike safe"? Or are their heads simply that much harder? By the way a wonderful review of a typical Dutch bike can be found here, with bonus points going to the author for being a Chicago resident.

2. Somewhere over the Labrador coast yesterday I finished Gail Carriger's Victorian-era vampire/werewolf comedy Soulless. It's a fast, fun read that will appeal to fans of the Dresden books (comme moi). It's a little long on the smoochy bits for my taste. The second book in the series is due out later this year.

3. While I invite and value your comments, I am going to delete any comments that include long strings of embedded URLs. I hope my Chinese readers will not be offended by this and will continue to read ack/nak.

definition: what is a product?

I had the opportunity to "define" what a product is to my steering committee last week. I thought I'd share my definition with you.

"Brands make promises to people - products keep those promises by delivering value in consistent, meaningful and delightful ways over time."

You'll note there are a few keywords missing there, such as profitable. It's missing because it's built in to the concept of delivering value over time - products that can't be sustained (by whatever means matters to you) can't be delivered, QED.

This definition works for me, because it aligns the mind around the customer, and it puts products into the higher-order perspective of the brand.

It also works for me because I can say it with my mouth full of food.

I hope all of you are well. I'm a week or so (I think) from being able to talk about my new adventure in greater detail.

warning: worst beverage ever

I'm reluctant to name names, but if you should ever find yourself debating the relative merits of, say, a delicious carbonated fountain beverage and a "plain cappuccino" while waiting on line at a branch of our nation's (perhaps our world's) largest chain restaurant, PLEASE G_D select the delicious carbonated beverage. Because if you choose the other beverage, you will get a beverage that will give you diabetes on the spot in addition to burning whole swaths of taste buds as efficiently as if you had licked a simmering cauldron of napalm.

When asked "can you make it less sweet" we were informed "that's the way it comes out of the machine".

And we didn't even get it with the traditional garnishes of whipped cream and brownish sugar ooze (a.k.a. chocolate syrup).

It went unfinished into the garbage can around the corner.

You've Been Warned.

song: ashokan farewell

discovered: saddleback leather company

Readers know I'm devoted to my Belstaff Colonial Canvas shoulder bag.

But it's. . .made of canvas.

Which means it's not as durable as I'd like it to be. It suffers from wearing at friction points. It isn't what I'd characterize as waterproof. It is no friend of pointy things.

So I'm always on the prowl for well-made bags that can stand up to the sort of abuse I'm prone to subject my bags to.

Steve Derricott at Gfeller Casemakers makes lovely bags. But his range is limited to pieces that work for geologists and the like.

The nice people at Ghurka make lovely bags. But that's their problem - they're too lovely.

When Patrick Ng started publishing pictures of a bag he got from Saddleback Leather Company, I had one of those "ah ha" moments.

Go have a look and let me know what you think.

thanks: giving

I have an awful lot to be thankful for.

It has been an "interesting" year. I have had other "interesting" years before, as all of you have. This particular "interesting" year is ending on an up note, with plenty of good things to look forward to.

So it's at times like this that I come to appreciate that Thanksgiving shouldn't be all about "muttering a few words of relief that my life isn't as screwed up as INSERT INDIVIDUAL OR INDIVIDUALS' NAMES HERE." And it shouldn't be all about an organized eating festival.

Thanksgiving is a day, like Christmas and Easter are days, to be reminded of a simple truth.

It is a day that teaches us to say thank you.

We are all beneficiaries of kindness - I know I am. One of those kindnesses is your attention - for which I'd like to say thank you.

I hope you enjoy tomorrow in the company of family and friends. If you can't, I hope you will seek out the company of like-minded individuals. Because it's kindness that makes life worthwhile, and giving thanks for that kindness that makes us human.

considering: what's first UPDATED

I'm waiting.

"What are you waiting for? Godot? Mr. Goodbar?"

I'm waiting for my new job to begin. And by the way, you look for Mr. Goodbar, you don't wait for him.

"Woo hoo! Terrific! What are you going to be doing?"

"Product management."

"Where?"

Can't say. Yet.

"Why?"

Can't say that either. But I can say that I'm looking forward to starting, and I'm considering what to do first.

"What you do first is easy. You sign a lot of papers, you get your picture taken, you shake a lot of hands."

That stuff doesn't count. I'm talking about what's first.

"You've already written about that. You take a document inventory."

Well, yes. . . but. . .

"Come on, don't tell us that you're not going to take your own advice?"

The real world is complicated. Blog postings about product management make everything seem so cut-and-dry and black-and-white. Life is much more dynamic than that.

"OK, so what's first?"

I think job number one is to keep my mouth shut and listen.

"Really."

Really. When I was just starting out as a product manager I remember spending time selling the concept of product management to the new people I was working with, which was more of a telling thing than a listening thing.

"And you don't have to do that?"

I don't need to convince anyone that I know my craft. What I have to do is just do it. And that's going to take a lot of listening. And an absolute mountain of reading.

"But you like to read."

That's true.

UPDATE: Reader Matt, regretting the lack of a decent search facility on ack/nak, asked in a comment for me to cite the article in which I discuss taking a document inventory. That article can be found here.

thinking: about the blessing of mileage

A friend of mine has just started a new business - a genuine wine and cigar "bar" in Brighton, Michigan. It's already getting some great press. You should go there. But that's not why I'm writing this.

I know the guy who owns it. He is, as one of my Irish ancestors would say, a mensch. Such a man as operates this genuine wine and cigar "bar" you will rarely find, even if you lift up rocks in the search for said brand of fellow.

I know him from Way Back When, and I know a little about the trip he's taken to get to where he is today.

I don't envy him that trip.

Looking at the Facebook page dedicated to his new venture there is a picture of this man, smoking a cigar, looking quite content. When I see that look of contentment on his face, I know it's something he's paid for, and paid dearly.

Whatever joys and sorrows have come his way have created a man of substance who occupies a still point in a moving world, as Eliot would describe it.

It's not the years, it's the mileage. Sorry, Indiana, I'm going to borrow that line.

He's earned that cigar. Now you need to go buy one from him so you can reflect on the benefits of the miles you've racked up.