This excellent piece from the Atlantic about Wal-Mart’s efforts in the local agriculture space was eye-opening. I hadn’t realized that Wal-Mart was doing so much to support local produce and to modify some of their sourcing behaviors. If Wal-Mart can continue down this path, they’re going to be a huge driver of farming behavior, while shifting consumer behavior in a meaningful way.

Let’s investigate that for a minute.Two important attributes of the American food ecosystem are that:

• Price drives a lot of consumer behavior
• Availability and convenience are also key components to consumer decision-making (they increase price in other ways, essentially)

Now, if you add to that a very basic understanding of Wal-Mart:

• It controls >20% of the American grocery business
• Wal-Mart has always been a price-focused company

you come to an obvious conclusion: Wal-Mart has a major impact on food consumption in the U.S.

I’m hopeful that Wal-Mart’s progress to date is just the beginning. It sounds like they’re already at a place where they’re competitive with Whole Foods in their ability to provide great ingredients (the cook-off in the Wal-Mart piece is an excellent experiment), so they’ve got my curiosity piqued. Over the past several years, I would say that they’ve really been approaching their business as leaders, rather than followers. From the adoption of RFID to major pushes to offer lower impact and environmentally-friendly products, their business has a different “tone” to it now than I can ever remember. As my friend Mark puts it, “they’re hitting the sweet spot of doing good for the planet, for people, and their profits”. A formidable combination, to be sure. As an investor, I think I have to say that $WMT is a buy here for the long-term, at $53.66

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I love it when investors, of any ilk, recognize that they have an area that makes sense to them and that they focus on it. Many investors try to be good at too many strategies and too many industries (I’ve been guilty of taking this approach, myself) and as a result, really dilute their efficacy and ultimately, their returs.

Mike Maples Jr., seems to have his approach well understood and in this video, from the Future of Funding event, he elaborates on why he looks for, “Thunder Lizards”, what they are and why the market matters more than the team.

Thunder Lizard by Mike Maples Jr. from Adeo Ressi on Vimeo.

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• Finally, a new blog post: "Happiness, your experiences and your memory" http://awe.sm/525M9 #
• Great conversation this a.m. with @mmrosenhaft about social enterprises. Social Gastronomy's got a very promising model. #
• The running geek in me loves breaking in a new pair of shoes. #
• Focus and execute. #
• One of the reasons to never miss IgniteSeattle: Cheezburger meets "Where the Hell is Matt": http://awe.sm/52BqH #is9 #
• The Betz release is always a fantastic day. #

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On the heels of their lead singer’s Op-Ed in the New York Times, Ok Go’s new video is predictably awesome. And look, it’s embeddable! I’m guessing there was some orchestration here on the part of the label and the band, but whatever the case may be, it’s damned entertaining, isn’t it?

UPDATE: Here’s a Wired piece on how the video and the “Rube Goldberg” machine came together. Tons of work, lots of planning.

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I’ve been averaging about one or 2 TED videos a week this past month and they are simply fascinating. While I often find myself unwilling to devote 10 or 20 minutes to an online video (mostly because I keep trying to multitask while watching the video and failing), the TED talks are really worth it.

This one recently came through my Twitter stream and it’s dynamite: Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman (one of the pioneers behind behavioral economics) talks about human happiness, his research into how we, as humans, experience and evaluate our happiness and what role our memories play in all of this. Watching this and thinking about how I choose to remember my life and various experiences proved to be very enlightening, giving me a new way to think about my own perception. Absolutely worth the 20 minutes.

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• A response to the google ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcZ-arbR0EE (via @sylviayam) #
• It's half time of my Monday. Time for 7 miles to boost the energy levels. ♫ http://blip.fm/~klwox #
• "Don't make the lawyer think on your behalf" Quick tips for saving startup legal costs #sefi #
• Daft Punk: better than coffee. ♫ http://blip.fm/~knwsi #
• Nothing like a morning rain run to kick the day off. #amworkouts #
• Raphael Saadiq is one cool-ass mofo. ♫ http://blip.fm/~ksewf #
• [The gift that keeps on giving!] RT @nick_jordan: They don't give out a rose on Jersey Shore they give out STDs. #
• It's Friday, have you accomplished everything you NEEDED to get done this week? #
• Powder day at Crystal. Fresh tracks! #
• Not only is it a perfect powder day, there's fondue and beer at the top of the mountain! http://yfrog.com/37qsmpj #
• Mexican train dominos: awesome mindfuck with friends. #

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• Why not use Monday to set your tempo for the work week? ♫ http://blip.fm/~k62nk #
• "What you've got to do when you start a company is go get every DVD of the Tudors and study that." #sefi #
• Bed time. Finally. *Floomp* #
• GET. SHIT. DONE. #
• If ABC was really smart, they'd have sponsored a site that filters out LOST tweets tonight & then released them tomorrow #
• Looked outside, realized it was raining & thought, "Maybe I should go for a walk." #signsyoureaseattleite #
• Had an awesome convo w/ the maintenance mgr for my Apt. Came here from Bosnia-Herzegovina in '93. "Just work hard in America, that's it." #
• "The greatest things ever done on earth have been done little by little." -Thomas Guthrie #quotes #
• Nothing wrong with portabella mushroom risotto and a Belgian ale. Mmmm Friday. #
• Prediction: East Coast snowstorm + Saints & Colts in the Superbowl= most Superbowl viewers ever. #
• Wait, Google offers search? No way! #

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• I think I just heard that the iPhone ASP is $620 on the $AAPL earnings call. Holy crap. #
• If you want a lesson in ramification-free lying, watch @Jason 's twitter stream tonight. Nothing but free press for him and Mahalo. #
• Two $AAPL tablet predictions: 1) It'll be premium-priced 2) It'll pay off to wait until v3 to purchase it. #
• Remember when $AAPL bought P.A. Semi? Today is why: http://awe.sm/44SLC #
• It never ceases to amaze me that people forget that reading books on a regular screen is terrible. iBooks is all sizzle & no readability. #
• I was wrong about $AAPL iPad pricing. This is a Netbook for people who love their iPods. HUGE market: http://awe.sm/44TJF #
• So, the $GOOG $AAPL relationship is so bad that no one Googled "Apple iPad" before today?? MadTV, yrs ago – http://awe.sm/44WPR #
• It's tough to beat fresh snow on a Saturday morning. #
• The kid making my burrito in the lodge was so stoned he forgot to hand it to me when he finished. #

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• listening to "LCD Soundsystem – Someone Great" ♫ http://blip.fm/~jctov #
• "Public condemnation appears to be a far worse consequence than financial success is a reward."-Mark Cuban: http://awe.sm/39IPU #
• The new Spoon album's out and it's only $3.99 on Amazon! http://awe.sm/39JKF #
• I wonder if the State of the Union speech is getting dramatically rethought right now. #
• Beautiful day in Seattle, tough to focus on all the work I need to do: http://yfrog.com/35isfvj #
• And now we see why @BillGates started tweeting yesterday: to launch http://www.thegatesnotes.com today. #
• Conan O'Brien's genius: "Total price tag for this comedy bit ? 1.5 million dollars!" http://awe.sm/40KIL #
• Setting the $TIVO for the Cavs-Lakers game and heading out for 7 miles of Seattle's sunset. ♫ http://blip.fm/~jixxy #
• Dear Comscore: you're basically irrelevant. Thanks for finally admitting it: http://awe.sm/41FGa #
• Conan's farewell speech was classy, honest & funny. All the reasons I liked him when he began: http://awe.sm/41SXT #
• If you saw my fundraising post from last week, check out the follow-up. Help Haiti out! http://awe.sm/41SZW #
• Signs that the Yahoo! sales team has infiltrated Facebook in negative ways: http://awe.sm/41SZM #
• Killing my internal slacker and heading out for a run. The sun's out, gotta take advantage. ♫ http://blip.fm/~jn6fw #

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Wow, that worked well!

Last week, I posted about my own personal fundraising idea. I’m very pleased to report that I got quite a bit of response from friends during the half-marathon. After taking a look at the retweets, Facebook responses and Facebook "likes" (I decided to include those in the total after realizing that some of my friends used those interchangeably) the total amount I’m going to be donating is $67.25!

Not too shabby, if you ask me. Take a look at the calculations to the right, if you’d like some further detail.

More importantly, I heard from some of you that you donated as a result of the post, which is awesome! Thanks to everyone who decided to participate (especially you, Greg and Lauren – you hyperactive Facebook posters ) and a HUGE thank you to anyone who decided to give as a result. As the turmoil in Haiti continues to unfold, it’s clear that they’re going to need all the help we can offer, and then some.

Who I’m donating to has changed

Last week, I said that I’d be donating to the U.N. That was before I heard about an even better place to be sending my money: my friend Cortney Mills.

Cortney, a trained nurse, is heading down to Haiti on Monday, the 25th, in conjunction with No Time for Poverty. Not surprisingly, the non-profit isn’t able to pay for Cortney’s expenses and so she’s reached out to friends in order to help her defray the costs of her trip (about $1200). I’ll be taking the results of your participation and donating to her in order to help her get to Haiti.

If you want to help her out, I urge you to take a look at the site that she’s put up: www.helpmehelphaiti.org. You’ll notice that she’s actually planning to head to Haiti for 8 days now and then will be heading back in March for follow-up assistance for another 8 days. Really amazing stuff and I’m glad to help in some small way.

As a reminder, if you’re looking for other ways to help out the Haitian people, here are additional ways you can give:

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