Dmitry Linkov

My blog about my world

Niches in art

February 5th, 2007. Published under General. No Comments.

You cannot be superb at everything. Just watch this video. The thing I liked most – is that pictures are quite the same. They evolve but it’s still a small niche of such drawings. I think it’s important to find your own niche. Do you have one?

Dave Ulrich conference in Moscow

February 2nd, 2007. Published under General. 1 Comment.

I am back with a few drafts (hope to post them today-tomorrow) and a wonderful feeling after Wednesday conference of Dave Ulrich.

I picked up Dave early morning of 31st January in Airport. We were riding in the taxi and just chatting. Dave – you are great! Really! It was so interesting just to talk, to exchange opinions. Dave is a professional HR consultant – this is not quiet things that interested me, but during the conference he really changed my opinion on how complicated and interesting HR can be.

Having tough schedule right after the conference we had to move to the airport, because Dave had next conference in India right in the 1st of February. We were running at the airport like crazy but we finally did it!

That was a great experience and if Dave will speak somewhere near you I highly recommend you to visit the event.

Day schedule

January 30th, 2007. Published under General. 3 Comments.

What I really don’t like in my everyday schedule is that I sleep more that 6 hours. I cannot find my optimal minimum of sleep that will be necessary for a productive day.

How many hours do you spend for sleeping?

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Netstorm game story

January 26th, 2007. Published under General. No Comments.

I don’t play much. And even if I play I search for some good old games from 1995-2002 and sometimes even earlier.

Recently I found a game called Netstorm. There is an interesting story that I want to share with you.

A demo of the game was originally released by Activision on September 15, 1997, but a flaw allowed users to convert it in to a full-version download. This in combination with the close launch date of the popular Age of Empires and lack of promotion by Activision meant game sales were poor.
Activision maintained the official servers for a number of years until player numbers diminished and the servers were closed down on May 28, 2002. Shortly after, fans of the game set up unofficial servers to keep Netstorm alive. Additional unofficial patches have now been released which add several new options, allowing for more varied games. An expansion pack, which aims to double the number of units available, is in development.
Recently, Netstorm became abandonware and can be downloaded for free at Netstorm Headquarters. (taken from wikipedia)

But what is the most interesting – the game itself is fantastic! The computer gaming magazines put it on the first place of something like "The best unknown game" lists! In fact – we see that game is still alive and moreover – people play in it online. Of course there are not a lot of them but community is stable and very loyal.
So how Activision could turn this project to their own welfare? Actually quiet simple – continue developing of existing version, make a blog and keep updating. After a hard work they had to release a second version that would be immediately bought by the community they’ve made by their actions!

Unfortunately the project is not developing on it’s own so good. At 1997 we had only web 1.0 and no Permission Marketing book by Seth Godin.

What do I (you) really want?

January 22nd, 2007. Published under General. 5 Comments.

This question is believed to be very important, and I feel it on myself. I’m doing a lot of projects and work in different areas – and I cannot say that I really  like all of them! But "what I like?" is still unanswered question for me.
Do you know the response for yourself? How did you come to this response?

There is a great blog I read these days – Re-versioning your life by Laurie. Don’t hesitate to check it out.

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Welcome to blogging

January 21st, 2007. Published under General. 1 Comment.

My good friend Bayram Annakov now has his own blog! Check it out at http://bayramannakov.wordpress.com/

We were studying at the university together and now do some speaking together for a group of 5th year students. He is very communicative guy with good management skills and a lot of ideas. Bayram – Good luck to you with blogging ;) .

Freakonomics released in Russian

January 19th, 2007. Published under General. 2 Comments.


So here it is. Freakonomics is now translated and published in Russia. I’ve searched the blogs on some comments – it seems that 50% says Wow, other 50% says that the book isn’t interesting, and that findings are not clear at all.
Getting a bit deeper on what people wrote I think that there is a problem with the title. Levitt uses statistical methods and there is little to do with economics in his work. But people who buys is attracted by this "konomics" end. And it becomes frustrating for them, when they didn’t find any real economics inside!

Upgrading the blog

January 18th, 2007. Published under General. 5 Comments.

By the way – now if you leave a comment in my blog, you can tick a box, and all the further answers on this post will be e-mailed to you. Also you can unsubscribe from the topic with no problem.
Is it useful for you?

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Presentations

January 18th, 2007. Published under General. 3 Comments.

Being a reader of Prezentation Zen, I’m trying to find new ways to express my thought, to show information. But when I open Powerpoint i feel sucked. At lease in the last 2007 Office they have a nice interface. But it’s still so difficult to do a really fantastic presentation there! I’ve tried to search any alternative software – but Power Point is still the only one. Maybe I’m wrong? What programs do you use for making presentations?

Also want to share with you this link http://www.ownyourbrand.com/ by Mike Wagner.

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E-mail signatures

January 14th, 2007. Published under General. 2 Comments.

For a long time my e-mail signature was like:
   Sincerely yours, Dmitry Linkov.
    ———————————————
    Dmitry Linkov || Manager, Entrepreneur
    Russia, Moscow
    mob.: +7-926-753-04-70
    mail.: demodisc@gmail.com or dlinkov@gmail.com
    blog: www.dmitrylinkov.com

It’s seems ok, but it’s not. You see, when you are writing just one letter to somebody it will work. But if you have a long e-mail convesation, you see that this "Sincerely yours" is just an auto-added signature, and you just stop believing this respect-text-line. Moreover Gmail, for example, starts to hide all automatic text from the messaging leaving just small - Show quoted text - line, so nobody even see that "Sincerely yours" stuff.

Let’s be honest – it’s just simple laziness, but you simply cannot afford this! It will take 3 seconds to write personal respect-text-line to every e-mail, but it’s worth of it.

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Hp doesn’t do PSC anymore?

January 14th, 2007. Published under General. No Comments.

My cousin asked me to order a Printer-Scanner-Copier (PSC) for him, just like I have – HP PSC 1315. But I found out that there are now new models and the old ones are already sold out. Moreover I even couldn’t find any new models in such category on the hp.com.

What’s the problem with them? I just ordered Epson for him but what’s the problem with HP?

Inspiration

January 13th, 2007. Published under General. 1 Comment.

Men are very logic. “Good price for money” is a principle I use a lot. But there has to be things that you just like. Just because they inspire you. And this principle cannot work them but it’s ok.

From the last inspirational things for me were Ipod nano and Moleskine. What inspires you?

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from-Z-to-A-list

January 12th, 2007. Published under General. 14 Comments.


After my blog redesign I went to technorati and found quiet a lot links on my blog! This was because of Z-list spreading. I’ve just want to say that I like more "from-Z-to-A-list" title. And here it is:
Creative Think
Soloride
Movie Marketing Madness
Blog Till You Drop!
Get Shouty!
One Reader at a Time
The New PR
Own Your Brand!
OTOInsights
bizandbuzz
Work, in Plain English
Buzz Canuck
New Millenium PR
Pardon My French
Troy Worman’s Blog
The Instigator Blog
AENDirect
Diva Marketing
Marketing Hipster
The Marketing Minute
Funny Business
The Frager Factor
Mindblob
Open The Dialogue
Word Sell
Note to CMO:
That’s Great Marketing!
Shotgun Marketing Blog
BrandSizzle
bizsolutionsplus
Customers Rock!
Being Peter Kim
Pow! Right Between The Eyes! Andy Nulman’s Blog About Surprise
Billions With Zero Knowledge
Working at Home on the Internet
MapleLeaf 2.0
darrenbarefoot.com
Two Hat Marketing
The Emerging Brand
The Branding Blog
CrapHammer
Drew’s Marketing Minute
Golden Practices
Viaspire
Tell Ten Friends
Flooring the Consumer
Kinetic Ideas
Unconventional Thinking
Buzzoodle
NewsPaperGrl
The Copywriting Maven
Hee-Haw Marketing
Scott Burkett’s Pothole on the Infobahn
Multi-Cult Classics
Logic + Emotion
Branding & Marketing
Popcorn n Roses
On Influence & Automation
Bullshitobserver
Servant of Chaos
converstations
eSoup
Presentation Zen
Dmitry Linkov
aialone
John Wagner
Nick Rice
CKs Blog
Design Sojourn
Frozen Puck
The Sartorialist
Small Surfaces
Africa Unchained
Perspective
gDiapers
Marketing Nirvana
Bob Sutton
¡Hola! Oi! Hi!
Shut Up and Drink the Kool-Aid!
Women, Art, Life: Weaving It All Together
Community Guy
Social Media on the fly
Jeremy Latham’s Blog
SMogger Social Media Blog
Masey.com

+ 5 mines (even if they are not Z ones):
Messaging times by Tom O’Leary
Simplicity by Trevor Gay
men@pause by Matthew Scott
Tainted Art by Olga Vernichenko
Zip3’s Blog

Please can anybody show me where the Z-list first started? Thanx!
upd: Thanks to Mack Collier for the Z-list idea!

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Bittorent is going to tip

January 11th, 2007. Published under General. No Comments.

After reading the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell, I began to notice signals of epidemics.

For example BitTorrent networks. I knew about them a long time ago, it’s a peer to peer protocol networks for sharing big size files. They are immune to legal problems because of some technical specifications but it doesn’t matter right now. The epidemic started when the Lost serial appeared on the TV. Everybody started to watch it – everybody started to share it. And torrents were the superb way of sharing them. After that a lot of other serials are recorded, translated by enthusiasts and shared – again through torrents. And I started to notice that a lot of friends of mine begin to use and to discuss it!

Want to know more about torrents? Check this wikipedia article.

Even security are your staff

January 11th, 2007. Published under General. No Comments.

Hello everyone!
My blog is back from the holidays and welcome to new 2007 year! I’ve changed the design, check it out www.dmitrylinkov.com. It’s interesting to know your opinion.

The main topic of this post is personnel care. I know today most of companies don’t have their own security people – they outsource it. But some customers (like me) have sometimes problems that can be solved only by them and here can be some problems. Let me explain.
Not so long time ago I started to experience continuous problem – when I enter in any book store the alarm on the entrance begin to Beep. It’s not very pleasant thing, so I started to check myself, my bag and all I had with me for the cause of these beep. Security was standing near and just looking at me not saying any word. After I checked everything I said
- I’m sorry but I had no idea what causes this beep
- I don’t care
- But I will have problems when I’ll go out!
- Yes you will.

So I just left the store right there. And really I don’t want to go back. In my favorite bookstore Republic (http://www.respublica.ru) I also experienced such a problem – and again something a bit the same.

The only right behavior of the security is to help customer to find out the problem and to demagnetize the cause of beep.

Hot links:
Managers should be judged by OUTCOMES! by Trevor Gay
The 1% "No Brainer" by Tom Peters