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If you are a nerd, please read and see yourself mirrored in the post. If you’re involved with a nerd, work for a nerd, work with a nerd, or manage a nerd, then read it. Learn to love the nerd.

And remember:

Your nerd has built an annoyingly efficient relevancy engine in his head.

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Wired Magazine is holding a contest for NASA’s new slogan. If you want a good laugh, or want to participate, simply trapse over to their site and join the fun.

My favorite ones so far?

See the moon? Yeah, we hit that.
We still say Pluto is a planet.
Billions of Dollars Spent, And Still No Death Star.

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This is a great piece published by Wired. Just about everything struck home, but the whole thing about people who send back bare replies without the thread….oh man, I can’t tell you how much of my life I’ve wasted digging through old email to regain the context of a thread that spans several days or weeks. Listen, folks, I’m not busy and important, I’m just busy, and you’re not the only person I correspond with. Please, please, for the love of [insert diety name here], read this piece.

Read Now. Do Not Delay.

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Been reading the Culture Code by Clotaire Rapaille. Clotaire combines techniques from psychology, cultural anthropology, and linguistics to drive to the very truth of people’s feelings behind different brands. And not just brands like Jeep, Lexus, or Nike, but also ideas about health, mothers, sex, and more.

Every chapter is full of thought-provoking examinations. At the heart of all of it is a basic (and well-intentioned) mistrust of what we say. After all, we all say that we like this or that on a survey, but when it comes to actually doing (or buying) we deviate from the neat little survey. If you’re doing any kind of survey-based research, you’d better stop and read this book, because the approach Clotaire elucidates will give you better insight into your products, services, and brands.

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Saw this on another site, thought I’d share it with you. And yeah, I can relate with most of it.

You know you’ve been a consultant for too long when…

1. You refer to the yield of the tomato plants in your home garden as “deliverables”
2. You can tell the copier repair person at the client site exactly what’s wrong with the machine and what parts need to be replaced
3. The new client staff come to you for information on how to start the coffee machine
4. You’ve succeeded in memorizing the morning and afternoon schedules of two major airlines’ flights to your client’s site
5. You can execute five complex tasks simultaneously, but you can’t remember what you had for breakfast that morning
6. You have enough “vendor” ID badges for a royal flush and two pair
7. You know all the late night security guards at the client site on a first name basis (replace “security guards” with “cleanup staff” or “swing-shift mainframe operators” as you choose)
8. You use so many acronyms you no longer know which are your company’s, the client’s or the software vendor’s
9. You feel naked without a laptop hanging from your left shoulder
10. The project partner tries to hire you
11. You forego the opportunity to fly home on the weekend, because you really like it in Southfield, MI. (Schaumburg, IL…Bethesda, MD…Norwood, MA…Harrisburg, PA)
12. You say “Whoopee! Half day!” when you leave at 10:00PM
13. Your kids point at the phone and say “…that’s the one that’s broken” when you get home, thinking you must be from the NYNEX, ’cause you sure don’t look familiar
14. You start thinking that life in the US Navy Submarine Corps would give you more time at home
15. You start referring to your PC by a cute name
16. You are upset when you come home on Friday night and the lights aren’t on, the bed isn’t turned down, and there are no chocolates on your pillow
17. You fantasize about zero-billing
18. “Vacationing” is spending an entire weekend in your own home
19. You can call room service and order multiple entrees without looking at the menu;
20. Writers for the OAG call you to verify flight numbers and times
21. You have seen more movies at 35,000 feet than you have at General Cinemas (replace Gen. Cin. with your local movie theater)
22. You have had more phone numbers than Imelda Marcos has pairs of shoes;
23. The media phrases “telecommuting” and “virtual office” have very real (and frightening) meaning for you
24. You forget how to turn on the windshield wipers in your own car
25. New staff point at you and say, “… that’s him, that’s the old guy … ”
26. Your resume’ looks like a phone book
27. The client says your rates are too high, and you blush
28. You introduce yourself to your next door neighbors … again
29. Your spouse flies home (to your hotel) for the weekend
30. You use the word “paradigm” in a sentence
31. You use the word “granularity” in a sentence
32. You use the word “robust” in a sentence
33. Someone mentions a 7:00 meeting and you say, “AM or PM?”
34. You cry when your PC won’t start
35. You carry on a 5 minute conversation about data warehousing, then you ask what it means
36. When other people speak of vacations in warm sunny places, you get a lost look on your face, cock your head to one side like a dog hearing a whistle, and say, “…my last vacation was, um, it was, ah, um, er ….”
37. You have a day off, and you call work because you miss it
38. You write a workplan for your weekends
39. Someone asks you what you do for a living, and you can’t answer the question
40. Before starting the car, you insist on telling everyone where the emergency exits are
41. Before stopping the car, you insist that everyone stay seated until the fasten seatbelts sign is off
42. You call CTG (computer support group) with a support question just for the entertainment of hearing their answer
43. A good dinner consists of vending machine snacks
44. A good lunch consists of vending machine snacks
45. You insist that your friends submit time sheets at the end of the month so you can see what you missed
46. You can tell the hotel staff what their room-rate policy is
47. You believe that e-mail is as good as a conversation can get
48. Instant coffee tastes good
49. You can remember 15 client and hotel phone numbers, but you get stumped when asked for your home number
50. You file more state income tax returns than Microsoft has trademarks
51. You’ve been staying in the same hotel, you instinctively call it “home”
52. The hotel staff recognizes you and gives you the same room every week (this is not always good)
53. The room service staff feels free to nag and fight with you because they know you’ll be back next week anyway
54. You know all the favorite radio stations of all the valet parking guys
55. You get more calls from the hotel staff to see if you’re OK than you do from your friends
56. Then you realize the hotel staff are your friends
57. You can list fifty-seven (and counting) reasons why you have been a consultant for too long.

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