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I know what you are probably thinking, some sort of back experience while changing tires... well, not today. A couple of days ago, my wife and I were traveling back from Dallas, when she suddenly says, "Discount Tires, that is not a name that I would want to trust for my tires." As I heard her say that, all I could think was, WOW, that is so true! I bet when the entrepreneur sat down his idea of a perfect tire place was one that would not overcharge you for the work/tires they had or did. So his conversation with his other venture capitalist might have sounded something like this, "I have it! The name of our place will be Discount Tires, and people will love it." Many years later, the company is still strong, well I don't really know if its profitable, but they are still out there. My question to you is the following, what do you think of the name? I mean, who doesn't want to get cheaper, sorry, lowered price tires (not really cheap)? Now, the name does ...

Every time I travel for research I end up taking a cab, from the airport to the hotel, or to research facility, but I always end up taking a cab. Anyway, so while on our way to the Miami International airport, $20 later and five minutes from it I look at the moderator and said "I was thinking, how much do you think is a cab's Point of Diminishing Return?" She just looked at me and said, "what do you mean?" So I went on to explain. Yes, if I was a cab driver, I would be careful on where I take people... well, let me rephrase that. I would not deny service, but the moment they told me "airport please" or "Grand Hyatt" or whatever, my head would go straight to the numbers. Now I don't mean fare or trip, I mean tip. Let me explain a little more, I usually tip the guy $5, and my average fare is in the 20's. My point is the following, if the average person tips $5 (assuming everyone behaves like I do, which I don't recommend ;)) then...

So, as most of you know, I have been blessed enough to have been accepted to the PhD program at the University of Texas at Austin. I am super ready and pumped to get started as soon as possible. But anyway, so a couple of weeks ago, from the moment I received the letter of admittance, I have received many other flyers. Among these many flyers/ads, I have seen dorms, credit union(s), some apartments... and ALL of them are bombarded with verbiage that promotes the "longhorn/UT experience," which is awesome don't get me wrong, but they all seem to be basking on the association with the UT brand. With that said, I was invited by the graduate advisor to a "Come to Texas" event, which is hosted by the Graduate School. These event is specifically aimed at recruiting minority groups who have been accepted to the program. The graduate school pays for most of your travel expenses, including board and parking, which in Austin tends to be slightly pricey (the parking downto...

It has definitely being a while since I last wrote something... but things have been pretty crazy lately. With that said, there are a couple of really good articles/thoughts (at least I think) that I will be sharing soon. So, lately all we hear about has the words "recession," "economic downturn," "stimulus," "job loss," .... etc. I know that I am definitely not the only one that has thought of the following thing... "we've all heard that during an economic downturn, companies tend to lower/cut their advertising budget, but it should be the other way around.... right?" Well, for today, I'm not going to talk about advertising, but about Human Capital. As I was leaving my apartment, I was overheard the newscaster say "The SA Express is thinning the newspaper, making it two inches wider but leaving the font same size... oh yes, and its increasing the price, oh and they are cutting 120 people." So... I was thinking, how ma...