Archive for the ‘Random’ Category

For anyone who already knows who Gary Vaynerchuk is, the title of this post will be a not-so-subtle homage to his mission of changing the wine world whether they like it or not.

Here at the office, we’re big fans of his show, Wine Library TV.

Gary’s intro sets the tone from the word go.  He warns Gretzky before the start of Episode #660, “careful, I’m about to get real loud“.  One might respond, no lie, no lie.

Gary’s got a fantastic take on wine tasting.  Whether it’s describing a wine as “fresh catcher’s mitt” or “dark, no moon, in a cave, I’m scared, kinda dark”, his illustrations get the experience of wine across to people in a way that’s easy to understand.  But, not dumbed down.  There’s play in there as well, always good.  He takes the burden off of understanding wine in a more meaningful way.

Here at Indicee, we’re all about increasing understanding so we thought we would have some fun with Gary’s Ratings Spreadsheet.  “Vayniac” Chris Stanisci (SS Chris) created and maintains the spreadsheet that details all of the wine tasted on the show with rating.  (Based on my understanding of the numbers, you’ll generally want something high 80′s or above.)

I uploaded the spreadsheet into Indicee and managed to generate the following reports on a lark.

Then, with the help of Scott Pledger, our new VP of Marketing, we came up with a value calculation.

Gary’s Score / Price = Value Score

And lastly, here’s a report showing the PRICIEST wines that have been on the show.

Gary’s at the big South by Southwest (#SXSW) Conference this weekend in Austin.  We’re sorry to be missing the party down there, but maybe these reports can be our contribution.  I’m sure the information contained could make for a good conversation!

And a big shout out to SS Chris for being the Spreadsheet Jockey on this!  Good on ya!  But, we do gotta talk about Data Quality at some point.  Ping me.  There’s a ton of potential to generate more reports, but we need to clean up the Data.  Don’t make me unleash the DataFlux crew on you.  Maybe we can farm out some of the grunt work for you.

Want to see the Data live? Join our free public group here!

Enjoy!

If any of you follow my personal quasi-blog on Posterous, you will know that I’m a big fan of the Cohen Brothers movies and in particular “The Hudsucker Proxy“.

While researching for my last post, Think Like a Reporter, I came across the following clip and thought, “that’s the pain that we solve!!”.

If you’re a spreadsheet jockey, this may strike a little close to home and you may not want to watch!  I’m kidding; by all means, watch.

And a HUGE thank you to SnifflesMcGee for the awesome and timely video edits!

Enjoy!

Being a Vancouver company located right in the heart of downtown, we are living and breathing the Olympic spirit right now! We look out our window and see this:

So, hopefully, you can forgive the indulgence of another post with an Olympic focus.

That said, I would like to tie in the theme to something business related.

I’m big sports fan.  I like to participate in ‘em and watch ‘em.  When you strip away all the noise, that’s still what the Olympics are still about – sport.  So, what is sport?  When you get down to the human level, I think it’s the act of pitting our human wills against a standard of excellence.

It’s about DOING.

It’s about being IN THE MOMENT.

And I think we can all identify with the rush that comes from being at our best.  We all maintain our “faith in distinction” and I think most of us practice it everyday without consciously being aware of it.  Maybe you experience it when you’re playing Halo, or Foosball, or even when you’re busting through a stack of month end reports.  As much as we may try and fight it, our work benefits from these euphoric moments, no matter how fleeting they may be.

Have you ever been:

- In the zone?

- In the groove?

- Running downhill?

- Bringing your “A” game?

- With the wind at your back?

- Able to “get out of your own way”?

If you have, I think you can say that you’ve experienced the Olympic Spirit.

What does the Olympic Spirit mean to you?

Go Canada Go!

(Sorry, the clannish xenophobe in me is acting out a bit this week as well.  I’ll try to get back on point for next week.)

A decade long journey has finally brought the arrival of the 2010 Olympics to Vancouver. This past Friday the opening ceremonies officially kicked off the 21st Winter Olympics in our fair city. Canada has previously hosted two Olympics, Montreal in 1976 and Calgary in 1988. I have always watched the Olympics on TV but I have never attended a winter or summer Olympics event. I always imagined that living in the host city provides a very unique perspective. It is not just a 2-week event it is a decade long event that has its ups and downs. There were some significant cost overruns that got their fair share of international press and as you can imagine the construction seemed relentless at times. I admit that I did grumble a bit while commuting to work. But, in the end our city has been transformed: new highways, rapid transit lines, convention centers, sporting facilities, technology infrastructure and much more. I am not going to provide commentary on whether I think the Olympics provides the ROI required to justify such a commitment by a host city. Quite frankly, I don’t really know. But what I do know is that a I am huge supporter of sport in Canada and I think it is a worthy investment by both our government and more importantly corporate Canada. But I digress…back to the Olympics.

I attended the opening ceremonies this past Friday and as I watched the athletes parade into BC Place stadium I couldn’t help but think about the years of dedication and commitment these athletes have poured into their sport. Like Vancouver, the Olympics for them is more than a 2-week journey, it is a life long passion that has and will shape who they are even when they have retired from their sports. The ceremonies left me with immense pride for my country, city and athletes. I have said to almost all of my friends and family that I am surprised how outwardly patriotic we have been over the past month. Dare I say we have a hint of the “American vibe” going on. Flags are flying, chants of “Go Canada Go” and a sea of red and white swag on just about every person walking down the street. If you are not from Canada you may not understand this but our country has had a long internal conflict with ourselves when it comes to defining our identity. It is not that we don’t love our country but we struggle to articulate what makes Canada Canada; and, even if we feel we know we never want to talk about it too loudly. We are humble and at times afraid to say what we believe. For many, the now famous Molson “I Am Canadian” ad campaign gave Canadians something to rally behind without having to say it themselves. Yes, a beer company provided a voice for Canada. Sad but true.

If you attended or watched the opening ceremonies you probably heard Shane Koyczan’s “We are More” slam poetry rant. If you don’t know who Shane is don’t worry. Nobody else in Canada did either! That was his coming out party and Canadians, along with the rest of the world, seemed to love what he had to say. It had the “I Am Canadian” vibe to it but thankfully it wasn’t a beer commercial this time. Here is Shane delivering his poem during his audition for the 2010 games. The version he did in the ceremony was better in my opinion but this will refresh your memory a bit.

There were a few highlights from the ceremony that really stood out for me. The first was the initial short film projected on the big screen showing the most amazing aerial footage of Vancouver, Howe Sound, the Coast Mountain range, the Squamish Chief, and several scenes from around British Columbia. The footage was capped off with a wicked individual snowboard sequence starting from a remote mountain peak, down a steep face of fresh powder, culminating in a live jump through the Olympic rings into the stadium. The footage of Vancouver and its surrounding ocean and mountains resonated with me in a big way. As an avid back country pilot I see our amazing province from this vantage point on a regular basis and it was exciting to see it shown to the world. The second highlight was K.D. Lang’s amazing “barefoot” performance of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Both performer and writer define Canada’s diversity in their own unique ways. Lastly, the biggest highlight for me was the one minute of silence for the Georgian Luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili , who lost his life only hours before the opening ceremony. I know this highlight may seem strange but there was something very moving about 65,000 people in complete silence for that long. Believe me….it seemed much longer than one minute. If you want to watch the entire opening ceremony you can check it out here.

The icing on this cake is that on Sunday night Canada won it first gold medal on home soil. Alexandre Bilodeau squashed the jinx that has haunted Canada since Montreal in 1976 to win the men’s mogul competition on Cypress Mountain which overlooks the City of Vancouver.

So what does any of this have to do with Indicee? Absolutely nothing! It isn’t very often that your city gets to host an event like the Olympics and I felt I needed to do something very “un-Canadian” and brag about it. Vancouver is an amazing city and being a business leader in this city makes me proud to be building Indicee here. We have a long history of creating business intelligence software in Vancouver, both Crystal and Indicee started in Vancouver, and I believe it differentiates us and helps shape our culture. I recently commented in an email to the company that we have team members that participate or compete in just about every possible outdoor sport conducive to Vancouver: skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing, hockey, back country skiing, kiteboarding, surfing, rock climbing and several more. I think we could create our own Olympic team! I wonder if I can convince the International Olympic Committee that Indicee is really a country that deserves a spot in the Olympics. I will let you know how it goes.

In the meantime, tell me what your favourite (that’s Canadian by the way!) Olympic moment has been so far?

Photos credits: Snowboard Ring Jumper – REUTERS/David Gray, Cauldron – Matthew Stockman/Getty Images