The 90-9-1 rule of Social Media and you 6

In the 10 years (or so) since I last did tactical marketing for QIAGEN, the world has changed a lot, and in many ways the world hasn’t changed all that much.There was a trade show in San Diego I was a ‘booth champion’ for, called the Protein Society, that I […]


Some thoughts on Pacific Biosciences single-molecule sequencing

We’re living through a time this year of market transition. The Illumina HiSeq continues to have a strong market position (although the upcoming Ion Torrent Proton sets out to change that, however it won’t be available until this September / October). For the time being, customers with NGS platforms are […]


Outlook’s Tasks is an amazing productivity tool 1

This week my great employer sent me (no sarcasm here, the amount invested in training is remarkable) to an email management training course. (It was The Effective Edge, an outfit out of Austin Texas in case you were wondering.) Now I’ve been on Outlook since, oh, 1999 or so, and […]


Learning how to use the iPhone keyboard (from a recent convert)

It took many years to convert from a BlackBerry to an iPhone. My first BlackBerry dates back to something like 2004, and although I can’t remember the BlackBerry model number it was something like this 6320 model. I do remember the blue color, LCD screen, and the T-mobile ‘data-only’ service.


First Ion Torrent Proton sequencer installed at Baylor Genome Center 10

Yesterday was a good day. Baylor and Life Technologies announce that the upcoming Ion Torrent Proton sequencer has been installed at the Baylor College of Medicine’s Human Genome Sequencing Center. (For those of you who may have missed it, this was announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas […]


Using RG6 (cable connection) to distribute video 3

FiOS is a great service. If you have access to it where you happen to live (and Verizon is getting better as the years go on), do check it out. As one who has had DirecTV for many years in CA, and then Comcast for about 3 years here in […]


What is a new Next Generation Sequencing customer to do?

In the roads I travel (and it is now over six years since I made that fateful move from being an ‘internal’ Product Manager to ‘customer-facing’ sales representative) the buying process is all about perceptions of the customer. Right or wrong, potential customers each receive the information from a local […]


Figuring out the iPhone keyboard (from a new convert)

It took many years to convert from a Blackberry to an iPhone. (My first Blackberry dates back to something like 2004, and although I can’t remember the Blackberry model number it was something like this 6230 model. I do remember the blue color, LCD screen, and T-mobile ‘data-only’ service.) Fast forward […]


Some tips for online privacy

Someone smart said in the summer of 2011, “If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer, you are the product.” In our current hyperlinked and Facebook world the nature of online services is changing. I have a nephew who recently graduated from high school […]

Erosion of Privacy

Being both cheap and wanting nice music throughout the house

The house I live in is very nice. As a matter of fact, it is the nicest house I’ve ever lived in¹. Yet it seems like no matter how many things we improve, there is always ‘one more thing’ to make it nicer. Built in the 1970’s, it was built […]


Career Advice and Executive Recruiters

I like hearing from recruiters, and can say that not only because they are salespeople and I am a salesperson at heart. They can be a critical source of difficult to find information, such as their ‘people network’ as well as which employer is looking for which type of talent. […]


A crazy time four times a year – the end of a quarter

This week is the last week of a financial quarter. Phones go unanswered, emails get put off, conference calls are rescheduled, and for many years (when I ‘carried a bag’), there would be a nervous pit in my stomach. So it goes in sales. There are tremendous benefits into going […]