Corner office here I come!

[Bob is the 2nd most common CEO name on LinkedIn](http://blog.linkedin.com/2011/04/27/top-ceo-names/). Now I’ve just got to get rid of that “Peter” guy…

Or move to Brazil, where the top CEO name is “Roberto”.

KidZania

The perfect business model? Parents pay for their children to work and be advertised to. And it actually sounds pretty fun!

http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/profiles/state_of_play.php

Easy rider

> URBAN cyclists who run out of puff are to be offered a “green lift” up hills in one European city. Working the same way as a ski lift, the new network will pull bikes and riders up the steepest climbs in Zurich, Switzerland.

[Woo-hoo!](http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/04/06/politicians-in-zurich-set-to-introduce-bike-lifts-to-help-cyclists-up-hills-115875-23041027/)

The evolution of sport

What do you get when you mash up downhill skiing and hockey? Crashed Ice.

All sports will be like this in the future. Especially cycling.

Watching the thrill

What thrill looks like. Thrill [documented](http://www.thrilllaboratory.com/experience/oblivion.html) by Brendan Walker, [one of my design heroes](http://www.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=4150).

Interesting and Typical

[The most interesting man in the world](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVwG1t-NVAA), and [the most typical](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2xOvKFFz4&feature=player_embedded).

Though I actually find the typical man much more interesting.

John Cleese on creativity

“We don’t know where we get our ideas from. What we do know is that we do not get them from our laptop.” – [John Cleese](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGt3-fxOvug&feature=player_embedded’)

Lots of other great advice about making space and time to be creative. [More notes here](http://davidmcanulty.com/story/2011/01/creativity-monty-python-style/).

The Rules

Hilarious and spot-on [list of all the “insider” rules of road cycling](http://www.velominati.com/blog/the-rules/). Including this, which still makes my visits to the beach embarrassing:

> RULE 7: Tan lines should be cultivated and kept razor sharp. Under no circumstances should one be rolling up their sleeves or shorts in an effort to somehow diminish one’s tan lines. Sleeveless jerseys are under no circumstances to be employed.

And this, from Greg Lemond, [which I only recently realized applies to many things](http://www.ryskamp.org/brain/?p=261):

> RULE 10: It never gets easier, you just go faster. To put it another way, per Greg Henderson: “Training is like fighting with a gorilla. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You stop when the gorilla is tired.”

The Groupon voice

For anyone impressed by [Groupon](http://www.groupon.com/san-francisco/)’s copywriting (today’s SF offer, “Faces act as gatekeepers for incoming food and outgoing laughter, giving them the power to leave our bodies half-starved or bloated with unreleased giggles.”) and the fact that they can turn out unique copy for hundreds of cities every day, check out [their public “voice guide”](https://docs.google.com/View?id=dmv9rbh_2g92x4scj&pli=1&ndplr=1), which gives tips on how to achieve “the Groupon voice”.

Strategies include “fake history”, “absurd images”, and “highly technical language”. Pretty much the opposite of what you’d do for strict usability, and also pretty awesome.

YouTube Trends

One of the best parts of working at YouTube was the daily “trend” emails, which identified the videos about to become big hits, using a secret algorithm. Now that resource is public, with YouTube Trends.

Good thing it’s the weekend; I’ll be in here a while.