And I ride, and I ride, and I ride..

Steve P. Jobs died yesterday at 56 due to complications of pancreatic cancer.

Steve was a true visionary, that had a taste for product design and a perfectionist mind that led Apple to the top of the industry, in sales, units sold and most importantly – customer loyalty.

Steve, I wasn’t an Apple fanboy from the start, in fact, I was one of the ‘I’ll never get an iPhone’ type of people, and later ‘I’ll never get an iPad’. But now, I’m sporting both. As a marketer I’ll continue to take chapters from the unwritten book by which you conducted Apple’s PR and marketing, which made Apple one of the top brands in the world, and definitely the most loved one.

You have changed the industry with your breakthrough ideas and beautifully designed products, and changed the way I, and my family, lives. So thank you. And RIP.

Had the pleasure of meeting Orli this afternoon at Caffe Henrietta, one of the many coffee houses in Tel Aviv area. Shortly before arriving I saw the picture Orli took (embed below), which I believe is the 1st long-term partnership a local business is doing with Foursquare (correct me if I’m wrong).

Caffe Henrietta and Foursquare: Join our social club (credit: Orli Yakuel)

The first 5 minutes of the meeting both Orli and I spent facing our iPad/iPhone, respectively, registering for the partnership, at Caffe Henrietta’s website (He). The process is fairly simple, 3-4 steps, to connect you to Caffe Henrietta’s social club (facebook, foursquare, cellphone). Shortly after we received 3 text messages – including a free drink coupon for the current visit!

The text messages I received from Caffe Henrietta

I’m happy to see location based services (He) are kicking off in Israel, with various models in place – campaign based, specials, partnerships, exploring what works and what not. Although Caffe Henrietta saw only $5 from the 3 of us (+ tip), the long term exposure and buzz is much bigger, not to mention customer loyalty – next time I’m meeting someone in that area, it will probably be at Henrietta.

As some of you already know (and if not – now you do), we got married during our vacation in NYC! If you’re also thinking of getting hitched while visiting the Big Apple, here’s what you need to know. The whole thing takes less than an hour (2 separate visits). If you want to approve your license for international recognition, there’s step 3, that will take you an additional hour (mainly walking between 2 locations). You can download a mobile version of this post, to open on your mobile device (2-page, Doc or PDF versions), to guide you through the process.

The government office that is responsible for marriage licenses is the City Clerk, a large, renovated building located at the top of the Financial District, close to the Court Buildings and City Hall. Get off at Chambers St station (1,2,3,A,C,J,M,Z) and walk towards the Courts Buildings – City Clerk (Worth st.) is across the street. All the information mentioned here is also available online.

Step 1 – getting the marriage license

Go the the City Clerk’s office at 141 Worth St., both of you, with a valid form of identification (Passport works just fine). Ask the official at the information desk the forms for a marriage license, and receive a number. You can also fill out the forms online (no printing required – you receive a confirmation number) – recommended and saves time. Important: At this stage you have to decide about the bride’s last name – change it or not. Once your number is called, go to the booth with the completed form and your IDs, pay $35 (we used credit card), and the 1st step is over.

Now you need to return after at least 24 hours (this is NOT like Vegas), to finalize the process, and GET MARRIED! You have 60 days before your license (and file) expires.

Step 2 – the marriage ceremony

For the ceremony itself you will need the following:

• Two rings (anything goes)
• The marriage license form + IDs you had with you at Step 1 (if you used Passport, you must come with it again)
• A witness with a valid ID – any witness is good, but the office staff cannot serve as a witness, so come prepared, or ask someone waiting with you (thank you Joelle!)

Signing stuff, we and our witness

There is no dress-code for the ceremony itself, some came with their gym clothes while others had the full package: white dress and a tux, photographer, family and stuff. Once you arrive (check the office hours for planned holidays) ask the officer at the information desk for a number to the marriage ceremony, presenting the form + IDs (bride, groom, witness). Important: If you need to validate your license for international usage, make sure you mention it to the officer – he’ll give you another form, In Person Request for Marriage Records. Once your number is up, approach the booth (all 3 of you), pay another $25 (credit card) and then wait again for one of the 2 marriage ceremony rooms to be vacant.

The marriage ceremony

A City Clerk’s official conducts the ceremony: 

That’s it – Mazal Tov! You’re married (in the USA). The entire process (both steps) takes under an hour. No rush on doing it at 08:30, the office is open until 15:30 – we came at 12:30 and were out by 13:15.

Our rings

Step 3 – International recognition (Apostille)

The longest step of the process, only because you need to visit 2 other office buildings – the Supreme Court and State of New York. Once you receive your marriage certificate, go to the Archives Room (same place, across from the information desk), and say you want your marriage to be recognized internationally. Pay an additional $35 (to issue another marriage certificate, 1 more is enough) and after a few minutes you’ll receive it, with a note instructing what you need to do next, and where.

New York Supreme Court

Step outside, cross the street and walk into the Supreme Court building (60 Centre St., famous from Law and Order), take the elevator down to the basement (B), room 141B. Stand in the ‘Public Notary Desk’ line and say you wish to make your marriage certificate recognized outside the US. Pay $3 (cash preferred) at the cashier (3 steps to the right of where you’re standing now), and receive your marriage certificate signed by the Clerk of the Supreme Court.

Step outside and head downtown (South) to 123 William St (between John and Fulton, 15-20min walk, use a map) – Office of the State of New York. Take the elevator to the 19th floor, head to one of the available booths, with your marriage certificate. Pay $10 (cash again), wait couple of minutes for the certificate to be signed (Apostille), and that’s it!

This is the first time I am writing a post as an angry customer. Usually, and my friends will testify, I am very calm, but the connection we had this morning at Rome International Airport and the proceeding flight (AZ 808) with Alitalia to Tel Aviv was a huge disaster.

Our flight from NYC (CO 040, Newark-Rome) was fine, more than fine. This was only my 2^nd trip with Continental, but will start looking more closely at their schedule, especially on Atlantic flights – the trip TLV-Newark, CO 080 went much more smoother than I thought a 12.5 hour flight will be. The Boeing 777 is amazing and the Continental service was great!

Don't fly Alitalia

Anyhow, back to Rome. We landed at 08:00 on Sunday April 11th, with a plane to catch at 09:25, from another terminal (Gate G). The horror began at the security check, as some 400 passengers (2-4 planes) waited in one of the most un-organized processes I had even seen. Six Italian officers with English similar to my Italian, lost control of things, and it took us 50 min to pass a security check, which had little to do with security: Some took their shoes off, others didn’t; watch/belt/rings were on/off, depending on your line; Laptop stayed in the carry-on bag; Our passports were NEVER opened; No designated line for handicapped passengers, which meant every 5min an officer let a handicap passenger into the front of the line – the same line each time (ours of course); Five Italian couples were also let into the front of the line, for a reason I (and others) couldn’t fathom; The crowd formed way behind the actual conveyer belts into a single line, only to disperse 5 meters before the belts, into 4-6 different lines (I mentioned only 3 belts, right?); a passenger came up to the security officer, saying he’s going to miss his flight – the officer sent him back, mumbling something in Engtalian.

The flight was scheduled to leave at 09:25, with boarding set for 08:50 via gate G10. Boarding started at 09:15, with a single line. At 09:25 another line opened, both leading downstairs, to a bus. The bus stood, full, for 10min, before taking us 100 meters to the plane itself. We waited for another hour on the tarmac with the AC turned OFF (!), finally taking off at 10:30. Alitalia – it’s 2010, and I know several teenagers that can produce a movie 10 times better than the poorly-animated-using-cardboard-figures-excuse-for-a-movie you showed. Drop me a line, I’ll send over some names. I only hope our 3 suitcases found their way in all that mess to our plane (post written in-flight).

Update: our luggage were a no-show of course, all 3 of them – left at Rome. Unfortunately, we were not surprised. They did arrive at our house at 11:00pm, 8 hours after we landed.

I love Rome, and Italy (very cool snowboarding slopes), but in the future, traveling abroad, Alitalia just made my bottom 2 airlines, alongside Iran Air.

If you’re a nuts fan, like me, this is one place worth marking for your next visit at NYC: thenutbox.com. Cutest place, opened last week (Tuesday, March 30th), offering an enormous variety of nuts – natural and healthy. Geo-tag it.

The Nut Box, 39E 8th St., NYC

The Nut Box, 39E 8th St., New York, NY.

Signing off the dissertation

If memory serves me well, this is the first post that is not focused on me. This post honors my significant other, D, who came one step closer to becoming a clinical psychologist by submitting her Ph.D dissertation earlier this week. The dissertation took 4.5 years (!) to complete, part of a very long process that has been going on for 10 years now, with 2 more years to go (equivalent of an internship). Considering we met some 6 years ago, this is quite a journey to go through as a couple.

D – I am in-love with you, deeply, and want to live with you forever.  And… NYC – here we come !

Ph.D Dissertation

The abstract of her dissertation proposal is available hereunder. Enjoy.

Title:

Object Relations in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders: Assessment and Predictive Value for Symptoms, Functioning, and Quality of Life

Abstract:

In the last three decades schizophrenia spectrum disorders were studied extensively from a biological-genetic-structural perspective. This perspective had a significant contribution to our understanding of these disorders (e.g., Jaaro-Peled et al., 2009). However, inconsistency in research findings and the complexity associated with the interpretation of such findings suggest that biological, genetic and structural models may be insufficient for accounting for the variability in the symptoms associated with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Further, biological-genetic-structural models may be limited in their capacity of explaining individual differences such as coping skills, level of functioning, and chances of adjustment for people suffering from the same disorders on the spectrum (Bentall & Fernyhough, 2008; Harrow & Jobe, 2007). The current thesis aims to address these limitations by investigating schizophrenia spectrum disorders from a psychological perspective and more specifically from object relations theory perspective.

Object relations theories assume that early interpersonal relationships are internalized as mental representations of self-object interactions. These representations consist of cognitive, affective, and experiential information regarding the self, objects, and the interaction between them (Blatt, Auerbach & Aryan, 1998). Classical object-relations theories suggest that deficiencies in the early interactions may lead, in extreme circumstances, to psychotic disorders and schizophrenia in adulthood (Fairbairn, 1954; Winnicott, 1965).

Schizophrenic disorders were described by various theoreticians and researchers in terms of impaired (chaotic and primitive) self and object representations, boundary disturbances in mental representations and failure to achieve more integrated levels of object-relations development (Blatt & Wild, 1976; Guntrip, 1968; Ryan & Bell, 1984). In addition, object relations’ theories suggest that different psychiatric disorders may vary in their severity of object relations impairment. However, these theories do not explicitly address the heterogeneity of object relations’ developmental levels and quality within schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The current thesis attempted to examine whether these differences in object relations are linked with specific symptomatic and functional variations in these schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Specifically, in this thesis we examined the role of object relations and their benevolence and developmental level, in predicting severity of the symptoms, level of functioning, and quality of life of individuals suffering from schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

In order to address these important questions, 85 out-patients who met DSM-IV-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000) criteria for schizophrenia spectrum disorders, were assessed twice with a five-month interval between the two assessments. In order to evaluate the quality, complexity, and the developmental level of object relations, we used four central instruments in the field of object relations’ assessment. Two of these measures – SCORS and MOA, were derived from well known implicit psychological tests (TAT and Rorschach respectively). The other two measures – ORI and D-R – stem from a standard narrative procedure that includes spontaneous descriptions of significant others. We hypothesized that these measures would tap into the broad theoretical construct of object relations, each from a different perspective. A series of Pearson correlations confirmed this hypothesis. Consistent with current research, our analyses revealed two central components of the internalized representations: a cognitive-structural component and an affective-qualitative component (Blatt & Auerbach, 2000). Also as expected, without psycho-therapeutic intervention, object relations’ developmental level, their complexity and their benevolence, remained stable over the course of the 5-months interval.

Next, we examined whether measures of object relations at the initial wave of measurement (Time 1) predicted symptomatic and functional aspects, and perceived quality of life five months later (Time 2). A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that higher developmental level of object relations, as well as more benevolent and complex object relations were linked with lower severity of positive and negative schizophrenic symptoms, and better functioning and quality of life. These results remained significant while controlling for participants’ age and gender. When varied measures from different instruments of object relations were introduced in one model, each showed a unique contribution to the prediction of schizophrenia symptoms severity, functioning, and quality of life. This suggests that the consideration of various aspects of object relations may be important when assessing these characteristics of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. These findings also supported the hypothesis that the variance in the level of benevolence and development of object relations play a role in the explanation of symptomatic and functional heterogeneity that commonly characterize these disorders.

Finally, classical object-relations theories (e.g.,: Fairbairn, 1954; Winnicott, 1965) suggest that the level of deficiencies in an individuals’ primary environment influence the level of psychopathology and therefore symptom severity of various mental disorders. The severity of symptoms is then believed to be linked with impairment in the level of functioning. Consequently, we assumed that object relations are only indirectly linked with individuals’ level of functioning. Using a mediation model (Shrout & Bolger, 2002), our finding supported this hypothesis.

The current thesis expanded our knowledge of the associations between object relations and schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Beyond the theoretical contribution of the current study, the finding that higher developmental level and benevolence of object relations predict better outcomes for patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and gives hope and optimism regarding the prognosis of these patients. Even in these severe mental disorders, in which there is a strong genetic or biological basis, more benevolent and developed representations of interpersonal relations may play an important role in positive prognosis regarding the severity of symptoms, level of functioning, and quality of life of the individuals suffering from the disorders.

The findings of this thesis have practical clinical implications. In accordance with our findings, several recommendations regarding the choice of measures to evaluate object relations developmental level, benevolence, and complexity were suggested. These recommendations have the potential to enable clinicians or researchers to optimally choose the most efficient and informative combinations of various measures of object relations when addressing the prognosis of patients with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Finally, the results of the current study may be suggestive of the need to integrate object relations’ interventions with conventional psychiatric interventions when treating this population.

The current study aimed to promote a meaningful dialogue between the clinical psychology world and the psychiatric world. The findings of the study demonstrated that combining these worlds may lead to a more profound and more broad comprehension of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. It is our hope that the current study will lay the foundations for expanding the research of mental representations and object relations in schizophrenia spectrum disorders, as well as in other psychiatric disorders.

Staying innovative and unique isn’t easy in today’s landscape. With so many temptations and so little time it’s crucial to have a message, a one-line, that defines your brand.

Made to Entertain belongs to Heineken, and they decided to challenge the #1 sport in Europe – soccer. In October 21st 2009 Real Madrid was scheduled to play against AC Milan in the Champions League. The folks over at JWT Milan came up with the concept of ‘pulling away’ fans from their passion to a fake classical music concert, at the same day of the match. The ‘pulling’ was done by collaborators, such as college professors, girlfriends, bosses and journalists.

Enough said. Time to watch the concert (originally seen at holes in the net).

Seen it at Ahuvah’s, who saw it at Brad’s – awesome spoof! Loving this song

THE NEW DORK – Entrepreneur State of Mind (Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys Spoof):

We Are the World is THE charity single, recorded originally in 1985 by SuperGroup USA for Africa, to lyrics by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. After the Haiti earthquake, Jamie Foxx gathered a distinguished group of 80 artists to re-record We Are the World 25 for Haiti, in just 14 hours. The version was released and debuted on February 12, 2010 at the Opening Ceremony of 2010 Winter Olympics.

Being the connected world we are, another version recently surfaced the web, We Are the World 25 for Haiti – YouTube version, featuring 57 YouTube singers (expand the ‘more info‘). It took 72 days to edit the video and 48 hours to edit the vocals, but the result is very impressive – and for a good cause. So, here it is, We Are the World, 1985, 2010, YouTube.

We Are the World – 1985

We Are the World 25 for Haiti

We Are the World 25 for Haiti – YouTube version

Gartner released last month the results of its EXP (Gartner Executive Program) survey, covering responses from 1,586 CIOs representing more than $126 billion in corporate and public-sector IT spending across 41 countries and 27 industries.

Two ‘Top Ten‘ lists emerged from that survey, outlining Technology and Business Priorities for 2010, and the #3 Business Priority is Increasing the use of (web) analytics. Web analytics are an important tool for any organization, and can help identify and maintain a competitive advantage and optimize the customer’s online experience. From Gartner:

CIOs see 2010 as an opportunity to accelerate IT’s transition from a support function to strategic contributor focused on innovation and competitive advantage’.

Also,

Gartner EXP’s CIO survey findings show that, in the near term, business expectations and CIO strategies appear stable, with a continued focus on business process improvement, cost reduction and analytics.

The Top 10 Business Priorities for 2010, according to Gartner:

1. Improving business processes
2. Cutting costs
3. Increasing the use of analytics
4. Improving enterprise effectiveness
5. Attracting new customers
6. Managing change initiatives
7. Innovation in products and services creation
8. More effective targeting
9. Consolidating business operations
10. Growing customer relationships

Shortly after the release of the research, CMSwire.com opened a poll (closed now) asking ‘How useful is your web analytics data‘. They wanted to know, before anything else, what companies who use analytics are doing with the data they have: Only 31% indicated that the data drives a lot of their decisions, while 27% indicated that they don’t feel the data is being used well at all. Having an analytics solution is only the beginning.

Key challenges in web analytics

In July 2009 Bill Gassman from Gartner released a report entitled Key Challenges in Web Analytics. In the report, Bill outlines key findings and recommendations every company should adopt, when facing a strategic web analytics initiative. According to Bill, web analytics is more than selecting the right solution (free/commercial, on-premise/SaaS) but also hiring and empowering a web analyst that can use the tool (and the authority given by the initiative) and make informed decisions, based on the analytics data.

The key findings:

• The potential for measurable improvement varies with the purpose of the site. Investments in analytics should match the potential for gain.
• Free product offerings are tempting, and a good learning tool, but strategic initiatives with an opportunity for large gains in site yield should choose commercial products.
• Web analysts are hard to find and retain, yet are a critical element in a successful initiative and must be supported by business management.

Recommendations:

• When calculating the return on investment (ROI) for a Web analytics initiative, treat it as an attributing factor within a customer-centric Web strategy. Without Web analytics, yield gain will be suboptimal, but other parts of the process, such as content management, campaigns and site design, also contribute to the gain.
• Narrow a shortlist of Web analytics vendor choices to those that answer the big question, which is software as a service (SaaS) or on premises, then concentrate on price, support and “ecosystem” partners.
• Give the role of Web analyst authority and responsibility, then find someone that can use it.

The report is available for download [PDF] at Gartner.com (no registration required).

Links:
Gartner EXP Worldwide survey – Business and Technology Priorities for 2010
CMSwire poll – how useful is your web analytics data
Gartner – key challenges in web analytics 2009

It’s not year end or something, but like any analytics professional, I always have at least one tab open on my analytics solution. Since starting to work around Microsoft SharePoint products almost 6 months ago, I’ve been updating my RSS reader with relevant content, and the direction of my posts have altered as well (as you’d imagine). Joel Oleson and Mike Gannotti are 2 of the SP experts I came to meet and follow (@joeloleson @gannotti), Avinash is another one of course, and an awesome source for analytics insights.  Inspired by Mike’s post from yesterday, I remember I didn’t write an analytics post for a while.

In 2009 (01/01/09 till 12/31/09) I had a slight increase in traffic compared to 2008, however my readers’ demographics haven’t changed that much – same countries as in 2008. Israel sent almost twice as many visitors as in 2008 – Toda people  Kicking off 2010 as a SharePoint blogger (more like 3rd party SP blogger), it’s gonna be interesting to see what metrics I see come January 2011.

The top ten countries for 2009 were:

1. United States
2. Israel
3. United Kingdom
4. Germany
5. Canada
6. India
7. Australia
8. France
9. Netherlands
10. Italy

To all my visitors, from the countries above and anywhere else, thank you for dropping by. You make this blog what it is – see you around

I came across this awesome visual presentation about the State of the Internet over at Brittany Bohnet. Scrolling down the Focus post, I saw the technological gap people are talking about, a gap that prevents some 2 billion people in the world access to information.

The internet makes our world more connected, leverages business opportunities and makes access to information much more easy. Still, internet usage is higher (no surprise) and more accessible (no surprise again) for people with some form of college education and >$30K yearly income. Only 39% of people with less than high-school education use the internet, and only 42% of people with under $30k income has broadband access.

We need to change this. We can change this.

The world may be flat, connected and sharing, but keeping track of the various events, user groups, best practices and conferences about Microsoft SharePoint can be a taunting task. Joel Oleson started this, with his ‘If you could go to one SharePoint conference this year, what would it be?‘ post, and I picked it up from there.

After exhibiting at The SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas last year, I’ve been working on finding out which events are planned for 2010, who’s attending, what are the topics, who’s speaking and more. Sponsorships are an important aspect of our marketing strategy, and has its advantages such as strengthening our brand and increasing our public exposure to relevant stakeholders (customers, analysts, VCs), but there are other aspects to the mix – such as PR, advertising, online, professional publications and others.

I’ve compiled a spreadsheet trying to summarize the SharePoint related events in 2010, based on my own research, and added some events Joel described in his post. Feel free to add events to the spreadsheet, using this form. Once moderated, your entry will be shown in the spreadsheet below.

Updated Feb. 11th.

A month into 2010 and we’re working hard on making CardioLog better. Following a successful 2009, with numerous new customers, we sat down – product and marketing teams, trying to prioritize the requests we received from our customers, our partners, our own vision regarding the product, analysts perspective on analytics and Microsoft’s direction with SharePoint 2010. Not an easy task.

From all of that input we compiled our roadmap for 2010, which is available here. We welcome your feedback, and will take any request under consideration, but we cannot promise it will find its way to production. Some highlights that will become available, soon:

• CardioLog 2010 Enterprise
• Integration with SSP Profiles
• Retrieval of the Portal Tree structure with the SharePoint API
• Import usage data from SharePoint 2010
• Report segmentation by user profiles
• Report segmentation by SharePoint groups and audiences
• CardioLog Lite for SharePoint 2010
• Funnel reports
• Site overlay
• And more

Again, the full list is available on our website.

We also launched ‘CardioLog 2010 for SharePoint 2010 Beta Program’, which will allow our customers to evaluate the integration with SharePoint 2010. We have big plans for the next release of SharePoint, here’s what we’re working on:

• As with MOSS, CardioLog will provide an independent JavaScript tracking agent for collecting browser activity for SharePoint 2010
• Usage reports will be available for data collected by either CardioLog or SharePoint 2010 (Logging DB)
• CardioLog will continue to provide enhanced reporting segments through integration with SharePoint 2010 SSP Profiles, SharePoint 2010 groups and security info, SharePoint 2010 document metadata, Active Directory user attributes, and more
• We plan to track usage within the SharePoint 2010 Workspace (offline experience)
• CardioLog reports will be available as SharePoint 2010 web parts

As you can tell – we have our hands full.

We also made some adjustments to our Support Policy, and continue to update the Forum and FAQs with feedback we receive from customers, analytics tips and best practices. Now is also the time for you to start following CardioLog on twitter – to receive product updates, tips & tricks, announcements and more.

CardioLog Standard

We also introduced a new addition to our portfolio – CardioLog Standard. The new edition is ideal for small and mid-sized companies, starting to explore the possibilities of analytics, looking for an affordable yet accurate solution – designed for Microsoft SharePoint portals. CardioLog Standard boosts roughly the same features as our Professional Edition, with some limitations (see table). If you’re looking for a small-sized, on-premise web analytics solution, our Standard Edition is your choice. You can download a free trial version now.