Sriracha Might Be In Shortage Soon

(10/31/2013) Do you love Sriracha, the red chili sauce, that you can probably see in many Asian restaurant? Well, it might be in shortage soon in the market. Why? Because it stinks. The court may order the city to shut down its production due to its pungent odors emitting from its California factory. Sriracha is not my favorite chili sauce, so I won't rush into Chinese market. I wonder if other chili sauce companies see this great opportunity to offer promotions and grab some market share from the most loved chili sauce maker?

Newest update (AP|Posted: 10/31/2013 11:03 am EDT): the judge ruled against factory closure. I bet the judge is also a Sriracha lover and (s)he will not allow shortage to happen.

Interestingly, Bloomberg's Business Week has a story about how Sriracha becomes so popular in the US. They sold more than 20 millions bottles in 2002. It always amazes me when I see some American Sriracha lovers just add it on everything...... Well, that is a little bit too much for me.

(11/27/2013) One month later, the news takes a dramatic turn. Now the factory really needs to be shut down. Buy and stock your Srichara now. If you need some substitute for your favorite Srichara, some chefs and experts have their recommendations.

How Did OSU Marching Band Do It?

(10/30/2013) If you have seen some OSU's football games recently, you are probably amazed by their amazing marching figure animations. NBCnews now reveals the secret of their artwork: iPad. I can imagine that in the future the NCAA mid-game show will be a fierce competition as well.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Benefits of Yoga Practices

(10/28/2013) Many people have heard that yoga practices bring a lot of benefits to our mind and body. Here is a summary of researches (see the link) that demonstrate the various benefits of yoga. Next time, when you feel tired or stressed, maybe you should really give yoga a try (or be determinant to practice yoga regularly if you have learned). I am a regular yoga practitioner. Doing yoga and mediation make me a more efficient worker and learn how to enjoy life.

Visualize Something Very Big and Very Small

(10/26/2013) We difficulty to process something very big or something very small. Say, 9,460,730,472,580.8 km in distance, you know it must be very far, but how far? One light year. Or a length of 1.61605e-32 mm, how long is it? It's a unit of plank length, which is assumed to be the smallest unit of distance at the quantum scale. That is the limitation of our biological brain. So look at these pictures and guess what it is. Click here to know the answers and more amazing pictures in the micro and macro scales.

Crazy Innovation -- Fart Filtering Underwear

(10/24/2013) This will be the most crazy innovation of this year (maybe decade): fart filtering underwear, which comes from the United Kingdom. It says "Americans are making up the majority of our sales at the moment." OK, Wait a moment. Do American fart more than other people, or are American more ashamed of it? Well, I am still not an American at this moment.

I would say the price is pretty 'reasonable,' $31 to $45 a piece (The Calvin Klein designer male underwear can easily go above $30 per item). No wonder it says the company has experienced 400 percent increase in their order. By the way, does the fart filter has some expiration date or maximal amounts of usage?

(11/18/2014) Last year, I used this new innovation in my MBA class. Their reaction was very hilarious. However, I had some doubt about their business sustainability. I plan to use this example again tomorrow in class. Before I do, I check whether this company (myshreddies.com) still exists. Guess what? It does and seems to do pretty well. I would recommend they sell their patent to all major underwear makers. Check out how they name the product lines ( FLATULENCE, INCONTINENCE...), hilarious.

Another recommendation: they should have some thicker filter models. They will last longer and raise ('disguise') some people's butts by visually misleading viewers.

This is a new picture that used in their website homepage. Can sniffing be more fun than this? It reminds of the dogs in my neighborhood. 

Herpes and Human Migration

(10/24/2013) You may wonder what is Herpes related to business? Well, not directly. But I want to show you the data visualization and the creativity of this research. "Human beings originate from Africa" theory has been speculated for a long time, and human genome research has partly shows how human migrated out of Africa. This herpes research shows another evidence of it. Well, please read it yourself. Why do they use herpes? Their research will demonstrate the creativity of this research.

What I like to show you here is the data visualization of this research. Well, if they can compile their data along the timeline and show the changes and human migration over time, that will be fantastic.

World map featuring the geographic location of the 6 HSV-1 clades with respect to human migration.

Phylogenetic network of Herpes.

Why Sears is Running Down

(10/22/2013) If one picture is worth a thousand words, then these pictures on Business Insider about Sears is worth of whole page of explaining why people don't shop in Sears anymore. Do you know Sears was one time the largest retailer in the US? Hard to believe, hmm? Or maybe it is "no wonder why."

Website Failures - Diagnosis of Obamacare & Common App

(10/21/2013) Obamacare website (HealthCare.gov) has been full of glitches since Day 1 of its launch. The Republican party was so busy wrestling on government shutdown and totally ignore a great opportunity to nail Obama government. Now the shutdown is over, media and Obama critics start paying attention about how wrong HealthCare.gov is. There is a good analysis on NBCNews today.

I like this comment: “Buying a health plan is a lot more complicated than buying a flight," says Brandon Cruz, president of GoHealth, a private health insurance marketplace. “When you’re buying a health plan, you need to know all the doctors in the network, what you deductible will be, what your co-insurance will be. And the terminology is so foreign.”

What is Obama's temporary solution to this failure? "“So you'll find information about how to talk to a specialist who can help you apply over the phone or to receive a downloadable application you can fill out yourself and mail in,” Obama said."

This is a good lesson for complex website launch.

(10/31/2013) Are Obamacare website's glitches contagious? The "Common App" (a platform that allows high school students to send out their applications to multiple schools at one time) just had a huge problem for their users and high school students cannot submit their applications successfully. Common App is not as new as Obamacare registration website. From the reply of the company's executive, it is "technological glitches from some new technology updates" on their platforms. Many universities are forced to extend their application since there are as many as 800,000 applicants impacted. It is not promising that this problem can be solved before the peak time of application. I bet the enrollment offices in many colleges won't be happy this year because their admission process is forced to be delayed.

Most Advanced Data Storage, Processing and Accessing in the World

(10/18/2013) Do you know which field has the most advanced data storage, processing and accessing technology in the world? It is in the scientific research of the Universe. Each day, there are "700 terabytes of data are expected to rush in" and collected. Definitely, we are in a 'world' with significant details that have more than we can conceptualize and understand. Can we really comprehend the whole universe with so much data to process? How much more details we need to know the Universe? I wonder what the most 'efficient' way to probe the Universe is.

Will Briggo Coffee Kiosks Replace Starbucks Shops?

(10/18/2013) Can robot coffee machine make better coffee than Starbucks baristas? One company, Briggo, is ambitiously aiming to switch our taste for good coffee with their sophisticated coffee machine. "It needs just 50 square feet (4.6 sq m) of floor space, and it can be dropped anywhere—an airport, a hospital, a company campus, a cafe with tables and chairs and WiFi just like Starbucks. It’s manufactured in Austin."

One suggestion? Have multiple order and pickup station, which can also take orders from the mobile devices. I am not waiting for some indecisive customers occupying the machine in front of me.

A 50 sqft. of coffee kiosk to serve whatever taste of coffee you want

Yahoo Mail Redesign

(10/16/2013) If you are a yahoo mail user, you are probably very 'surprised' by their new mail page redesign. It was not the best mailbox, but the redesign is getting even worse. It's tab function in mail is gone and there is no way to get it back now (unless yahoo engineers are listening to customer's complaints). From all services that yahoo provides now, mail is still a traffic magnet for yahoo. The previous Flickr redesign was unpopular already. Will Marissa Mayer (Yahoo's current CEO) lose her job soon? I think she does not have much time left as the most recent's financial report shows Yahoo's earning is waning.

Budget Airlines and Pickpocketing Gangs

(10/11/2013) We know budget airlines are very popular in Europe. You can fly between German and England with 10 euros. The tickets are so cheap, the members of pickpocketing gangs just fly out of Romania, do their works, then fly home with their loots. They don't stay in one city and they can do a lot of sight seeing and traveling. What a great life, right?
I think these thieves probably have cumulated quite a lot of mileages on the budget airlines. Do they redeem their mileages?

Obamacare Website Exposed US Gov's Information System's Weakness

(10/10/2013) This is a very scaring news: Obamacare registration website is not working. If it is not because GOP's shutting down the federal government, this news will be the biggest headache for Obama. Thanks to GOP's uncalculated shutdown plan which saves Obama. One thing that should really worry us is: can we trust such kind of government who's IT infrastructure is often not the most advanced and secured system? A hacking or data leaking will put this issue in the spotlight. But so far? Wish us good luck and stay in ignorance, I hope nothing really bad like IS security breach will happen.

10 days after the first launch, Obamacare registration website still has huge problem. I totally agree with the analysis below: Shutdown that website, Fix it, then reopen it. It is a shame. No real business website will allow a glitch like this alive for so long.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

How Jeff Bezos Built Amazon.com

(10/10/2013) There is a very complete story about how Jeff Bezos built Amazon in BusinessWeek.com. Truthful? I don't know. But it definitely opens your eyes and makes you wonder. If Jeff Bezos does not have the personality described in this report, will Amazon still be so successful and let us realize that an online bookstore can become such a 'serve all you need' company?

Quality Control and Customer Expectation

(10/9/2013) I posted this on my factbook today (see the picture below). I was thinking why does the retailer sell jeans so cheap on their website? Well, definitely, the quality control of the production did a very poor job. How can two jeans of the same size (even in the same style, just different wash) has 2-inch difference in waist? Poor supplier selection. Next year, the same supplier probably won't be selected. What is the impression of this online shopping for a buyer like me? I can return it but I feel it is too much work. With the price I pay, I will not waste my time doing that. This over-size jean might be a good fit one day when I really gain weight.

The problem is that I will not buy their product again from the retailer. Why did the retailer salvage these poor quality jeans on their own website? Why didn't it salvage to retailers like TJMax or Ross? If I am a consumer and I find the jeans in TJMax, I will try it on and will not notice the inconsistency of poor quality control. This retailer probably thinks discounting in its own website gets a higher salvage value then sell to TJMax in bulk. Selling on their own will also get consumer's personal information (and it will be good for marketing to customers directly in the future). However, once a consumer loses confidence in the quality, it will probably not come back. I don't think this retailer made a right decision.

Origin of A Real Transformer in The Future

(10/8/2014) This is the coolest "toy" I want. I bet many transformer fans would like to have one too. A lab from MIT designed this self-assembling robot cubes that can move, rotate, and even jump (watch video below). The amazing design of robot cubes is its modularity, which may one day be applied to difficult construction or exploration that the conditions are totally beyond calculation. If I am the CEO of Hasbro, I would like to get license from this technology and launch a toy for kids, it definitely will be more appealing to kids than the "roboroach". How long does its battery really last?

The RoboRoach stirs some ethic issues of cruel treatment on insects. Definitely it's not a toy for everyone.

Inspiring Speech - From Online Dating to CRM?

(10/6/2013) This woman reminds me of Nate Silver. Interestingly, both them are jewish. Not only her speech is very inspiring, I am thinking some of the techniques might be useful for customer relationship management (CRM). What are the algorithms used by those online or mobile marketers? Maybe they should watch this speech.

Labor Disputes Creep to Amazon

(10/6/2013) You probably think of Walmart if I say a retailer that is struggling with labor issues. But now it's Amazon. German Amazon workers may be on a strike before the Christmas sales season in Europe. Note that, Amazon recently has been caught with unfair treatment to their warehouse workers in the US too. Several lawsuits in the US are acting against Amazon now. As an online shopper, we will not see these unhappy workers squeezing their insincere greeting to us like those in Walmart or Target (that is the difference between front-end and back-end operations). But we should not ignore the working conditions and unfair pay those Amazon workers experience.

(12/16/2013) Dear Mr. Bezos, don't say these German workers didn't give you a warning. "Hundreds of workers at Amazon.com in Germany have walked off the job in an effort to put pressure on the American online retailer in the busy days before Christmas to settle on a new wage agreement." You (Amazon) fails yourself.

No Jerk, Please!

(10/4/2013) We probably all worked with jerks sometime in our life. It is pain in the ass and we just try to avoid any encounter with that person. If "No jerks, please!" is the sign on a job description, what would you think of this company? It seems now some firms dare to take a firm standing saying that: we don't want jerks to work with us. Life is too short to deal with jerks, isn't it?

Customer Service to The Next Level

(10/2/2013) Wow, this is real customer service. In 15 seconds after pushing the mayday button, you will talk to customer representative for Kindle problems and they guide you on the screen step by step to answer your question. Amazing.

The Success of K-Cups

(10/1/2013) When you walk in the aisle of a supermarket and look for some coffee, what do you notice? K-cups are taking over the shelf. Keurig's success is well established now. I found two articles talking about its success: THE K-CUP PHENOMENON from CoffeeTalk, and The Buzz Machine-- The inside story of Keurig's rise from Boston.com. Keurig's story can be used for class discussion in the topic of product innovation. No matter how easy and convenient it is, my favorite coffee is still my morning french press. :)