Nan Palmero, MBA

Sprint | Blaze Across America with 4G Contest – HTC EVO

Sprint launched a 4G contest to win an android powered HTC EVO smartphone. Here’s my contest entry.

Today, I read about Sprint’s newest contest “Blaze Across America with 4G” on Engadget. They’re looking for the most humorous, creative and original essay on why you’re fast, to win the new HTC EVO, cash and a 4G trip to either Houston, Chicago, Maui or Vegas. I thought I’d share my entry to the contest:

caused Usaine Bolt to change his name to Usaine Thunder after following my lightning speeds.

tweet faster than @Scobleizer.

play a faster fiddle than the devil down in Georgia.

hit 88 mph faster than Doc Brown’s DeLorean.

drink a gallon of milk in 36 seconds (it takes Chuck Norris 37).

do a 101 hand slap in the time E. Honda can do a 100 hand slap.

beat out Speedy Gonzales as the fastest mouse in all of Mexico, then came back to Texas.

have a measurement of time named after me – NANoseconds.

won the 24 hour race at Daytona in 23 hours.

move so fast, I use black holes as treadmills.

speak faster than the Micro Machine man.

walked so fast around Vegas that I was #1 on Foursquare in the city during CES.

I’m already in the “choppa” faster than Arnold knows to say the words.

get the bell rung on me in 7 seconds when I ride a bull instead of 8.

Lance Armstrong doesn’t know what the front of my jersey looks like.

caused a reshoot of the video of the moon landing. Neil’s first words were “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!?”

Share your entry in the comments section.

Change Your Day With One Word

How frequently do opportunities come into your life? Oftentimes, we’re paralyzed by some fear that has been hounding us for years. I’m just as guilty as you. Amazing situations have lined up in my life and I have turned them down simply because “no” came to mind first. What if we actually looked at these opportunities intentionally and before we said “no,” we thought through what a “yes” might look like…what could be?

Here’s an example from my life. Last week, Robert Scoble came to town. For those of you who don’t know him, he’s an internet star. His opinions are valued by many and he’s an all around nice guy. He comes to San Antonio infrequently, so we had a party that he attended. The night was winding down and there were a few of us left, so he, his (awesome) cameraman Rocky and some other fun people decided to get a bite to eat. I chose to opt out and head home. A few minutes later, I realized what a silly mistake I was making. There was no reason to say “no.” I turned around and met up with Scoble and the rest of the folks and I’m glad I did. I would have missed out on a great conversation, learning more about the people I was with all because my first reaction was “no.”

I certainly had said “no” in the past to opportunities without any real reason for saying it, but I always found a way to rationalize my decision later and you’ve likely done the same. This week, I challenge you to look at your situation and say “YES!” where you’d typically say “no.” Are you an overachiever? Get someone else to play along. If you’ve got a great story to tell about your “YES!” adventure, please share in the comments or catch me on Twitter.

photo by cpalmieri

It’s cheap and shareable, but is it simple?

Guy Kawasaki was dead on when he wrote here that the new economics of entrepreneurship are allowing people to build and develop new technologies and platforms inexpensively. And Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was absolutely right in this video when he discussed the opportunities for transparency and real world information to be distributed across different platforms to help people make decisions.

The critical third leg – and massive component of the 2010 web – is simplification of technology. The ability to do something cheaply and spread the word can be very powerful, but when you can share it with fifth grade simplicity, you’ve developed something everyone can get behind.

We’re constantly telling our customers how important it is for them to tell their marketing story with fifth grade simplicity. It’s not that people are stupid; it’s just that they’re busy and don’t have time to absorb complicated messages.

What would it be like if companies treated their customers in the same way when developing their next phone or web platform? What if things were so simplified that you could show your mom how to use the GPS navigation while you made dinner with her, or what if you could explain to her how to set up her blog with just a few clicks?

When I was a child, I ran DOS 5.0 on my computer, working my way through a text shell and a rectangular box as the mouse/cursor. My mom had absolutely no desire to join me there. The computer was completely off-limits for her, because she decided it was more trouble than it was worth.

A few years ago, after finally convincing my mom that the Internet wasn’t “all pornography,” we walked her through the set up of her own email account. Her response? “That’s it?” Yeah, mom, that’s it.

Email fulfilled Guy’s requirement that the technology be inexpensive, Mark’s ideal that it be widely distributed and my desire for simplicity. Similarly, Twitter is something my mom can use as well, because it passes those three tests.

What if you ran the tests of cost, distribution and simplicity on the next big thing that you’re developing for mass adoption?

How could you change the world if busy CEOs and ultra-busy soccer moms were able to get behind your product or service because you made it cheap, sharable and simple?

As seen on Robert Scoble’s Building43.com