I’m an avid hiker, camper, and general outdoorsman. I think over the next few years we are going to see more outdoors-focused tech gear.  While I haven’t had the chance to demo it yet, one device I think I could really like is the BioLite CampStove.  I like the idea of going on multi-day backpacking trips over the next few years but I also like the idea of having my tech devices with me for reading material, trail maps, GPS, etc.  Battery power is a concern and BioLite’s CampStove is well positioned to solve that problem.

As was reported by Wired, the New York Times, and the Verge, Google’s forthcoming Nexus Q is manufactured in the United States.  In the last few months we’ve definitely been hearing more about an return increase in manufacturing in the US.  The most interesting piece to me highlights the flexibility and versatility of manufacturing  – Google choose a Wisconsin rifle-maker to create the die-cast zinc base.

I often come across ideas/companies I like and while I’d like to write about them briefly I don’t always know where I want to begin.  To avoid this obvious hurdle, I’m going to start calling them out.  I’ll get back to them later with more thoughts when/if I can.

A company/site that caught my attention a few months ago (and has been lingering as an open tab since) is Crowdrise – a fundraising platform.

The Washington Post recently published a list of books that shaped America.  Made me think of writing about books that have shaped American business.  Perhaps I’ll follow-up with more rational when I have more time.  But here is a start to your summer reading.

The first book that comes to mind is Clay Christensen’s classic – The Innovator’s Dilemma.

Last week I was in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and couldn’t help but be reminded of Barbarians at the Gate at each turn I took in the city.

I’d probably add Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat, Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, Michael Porter’s Competitive Strategy, Stephen Covey’s book, Surowieki’s The Wisdom of Crowds, and a few books from Peter Drucker.

An interview from a few months ago where Mark Addicks – chief marketing officer of General Mills – discusses the future of the cereal box.  The line that caught my attention, “the wonderful world of packaging, a cereal box, which a lot of people love some of the most well read print material in the world will start to be platforms for all kinds of content.”  As we move more fully to a world of digital data – what I refer to as the second digital decade – it is likely that we’ll see traditional distribution mechanisms – like a standard cereal box – become important platforms for the dissemination of digital data.

Daily deals were all the rage in 2011.  Groupon – the leader in the daily deal space – went public last year to much fanfare.  The November IPO raised $700 million and valued the company at $12.8 billion at the time.  It was the largest IPO by a Web company since Google went public.  A few weeks later LivingSocial – the other big player in the space – raised $400 million to give it a valuation of $6 billion.  But are daily deals the next big bubble (behind food trucks)?  Groupon’s valuation is down roughly 60 percent since the IPO just 5 months ago.