Potato Cheesiness and the Top 5 Most Ridiculous Things I Have Ever Heard Part II

David Byrd : Raven Call
David Byrd
David Byrd is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer for Raven Guru Marketing. Previously, he was the CMO and EVP of Sales for CloudRoute. Prior to CloudRoute, He was CMO at ANPI, CMO & EVP of Sales at Broadvox, VP of channels and Alliances for Telcordia and Director of eBusiness development with i2 Technologies.He has also held executive positions with Planet Hollywood Online, Hewlett-Packard, Tandem Computers, Sprint and Ericsson.
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Potato Cheesiness and the Top 5 Most Ridiculous Things I Have Ever Heard Part II

The past week was a culinary delight. I made Veal Oscar (veal scallops, lobster and white asparagus), blue corn chip smoked chicken nachos, chicken cordon blue and pappardelle with Bolognese sauce. Obviously, some tasty offerings. However, as I have noted to several of you, I normally cook without a recipe. Therefore, I have to decided prior to making a dish that I am going to record ingredients, amounts, temperatures and cooking times. I did that for the Veal Oscar but there are too many separate elements to the dish (asparagus boiled in milk, butter poached lobster (this was great! I am definitely poaching in butter again), and a BĂ©arnaise sauce). It seemed a bit much for types of recipes I have been sharing. So, it fell to the side dish for the recipe of the week, Potato and Leek Gratin. This was a surprising winner. In fact, because it won, I may need to share with you a potato and bacon gratin sometime during the winter. What made the dish so special was the addition of the leeks and crispy cubes of pancetta. This is dish will become part of my regular rotation. Meaning, I will probably make it twice in a given year. J So to all you potato and cheese lovers out these, please make Potato and Leek Gratin.

And now for the final two of the Top 5 most ridiculous things I have ever heard:

4.       "The Paperless Office" 1980s, 90s, 00s and forever; a paperless office is neither achievable nor desirable. Simply put, there are uses for paper. Now before, you think I am a paper person, most of my co-workers, business associates and family, will advise you that I seldom want to see anything printed. I prefer it electronically, then I can carry it with me wherever I go. I like the idea of electronic books, I just don't want to carry another device other than my laptop. The last time I heard the phrase "Paperless Office" was just two weeks ago during the Partner event held by Adtran. One of their hospital customers was describing a recently deployed solution that was described as a step towards a paperless office. His point (and mine) is that going paperless is not possible. There will always be valid irreplaceable uses for paper. However, minimizing the use of paper and maximizing the portability of information is a highly desired goal. So why does the concept of paperless office continue? I believe it is lazy marketing. Every marketer that has pushed or used the phrase "paperless office" knew the thought was compromised before it ever left his or her lips. They were more than likely reading it on a printed report, distributing it on a printed brochure, contracting for its ad placement using a printed contract in order to advertise it in a printed magazine. So much for a paperless environment.

5.       "Everybody ...has one...does this...or uses that" Since the dawn of time; I am going to go out on a limb and say that the first use of the phrase was when a prehistoric human (troglodyte) told his significant other that everyone had a bigger spear than his and sought her permission to procure a bigger spear. I heard this phrase used in September during IT Expo and I bit my tongue. The presenter was saying everyone used Gmail and was looking forward to Google Voice. I am going to out myself now...I do not use Gmail. I have had a Yahoo email account since 1993 and see no reason to change. I do not own an iAnything. I do not have an iPhone, iPod nor have I downloaded from iTunes. I do not consider my anti-technology or a late adopter. In fact, I research new technology constantly. However, I require real value to get me to change my behavior. I quickly made the transition from Yahoo for search to Google. However, while I have a twitter account, I do not tweet nor follow anyone on twitter...yet. Most of us do not use Google voice, Android, Picasa or Chrome. Feel good. You are not alone. Beyond Google, most of us also do not visit Hulu, Second Life or regularly maintain a Facebook account. Remember it was probably your mother who first admonished you to consider a reason other than "everyone" for doing almost "anything". "Everyone" is not doing "anything".

All right, enough of the fun stuff. I will get back to Broadvox and IP Communications on Wednesday. See you then!

 



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