WSJ: “A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy”

The must-read article this week was in the Wall Street Journal.  "A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy"  talked about how the use of social networking is introducing people under 35 to non-profits, both through innovative giving tools like Kiva.org, as well as innovative tools like Facebook being utilized by very traditional brands. "Joe Alamo didn’t set…

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A hand at Harrah’s $1/$2 NL: Answer and question #2

Here’s the continuation of the previous hand analysis, "How should he play his 44?" Pushing or re-raising is completely out.  With two raisers in the pot his fours are almost certainly dominated by a big pair or a slight underdog in a coin flip to unpaired overcards.  So the applicable question seems to be fold…

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Comcast: Caught faking it in the Big 10

One of the big stories this week is that Comcast was accused of hiring an advocacy firm to fake public outrage over their object to the Big 10 moving games to their own channel from free tv.  Helping to organize a coalition as a large corporate funder is certainly nothing new, and if done transparently,…

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Analyze a hand through my eyes: Question 1

[Unrelated poker thought: I use Poker Academy to practice cash game play when I’m not on a net connection.  It’s AWESOME, but I’m good enough at reading my table now to tell that it doesn’t model the mood of the table at all.  When 9 or 10 people first sit down to play, they’re on…

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Why I’m playing nickel/dime Pot Limit Omaha Hi

This weekend I’ve been spending at home with my mom.  She doesn’t have a lot of energy and in the evening when she falls asleep, I head over to the largest local poker room in St. Louis and play $1/$2 No Limit Texas Hold’em.  I’ve done well there, mostly due to the poor quality of…

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Spock, it’s not logical at all

There’s a lot of chatter amongst the digerati about Spock, the beta people search engine that aggregates things online and tries to tag and describe people without human intervention.  Note that I said "beta".  This thing is clearly not fully baked yet. As computers often do, it has made plenty of mistakes in it’s descriptions,…

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New data from Harris Interactive / Mindshare Interactive

Harris Interactive (a polling firm) and Mindshare Interactive (us!) are about to release data about Americans’ attitudes towards giving and nonprofits.  The survey, which comprised hundreds of questions about prospective and existing donor’s patterns and beliefs about nonprofits should be useful information for any organization crafting a fundraising strategy over the next twelve to eighteen…

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Maximizing your results by trading direct mail for e-mail

In a recent non-profit case study published by Marketing Sherpa, the National Philanthropic Trust’s Breast Cancer Day compiled two lists, one for direct mail and one for e-mail, sent both similar creative, and then measured the results.  The results? The Trust sent three e-mails to each person on the e-prospect list, and two direct mail…

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