Government-sponsored mortgage programs?  Not working.  Here’s a really good commentary on that from Henry Blodgett: http://tinyurl.com/orgjw2 along with good ideas on what lenders need to do instead.  But won’t.  Utah mortgages are the same as everyone else’s in this respect.  I continue to recommend with all the force I can – do business locally, with local people, as much as humanly possible.  Even in something as grand and mysterious as the real estate market, this is absolutely critical.  Give the guy on Main Street the same shot you give the big multi-national bank.  He’ll surprise you, this I promise.

Your weekend’s soundtrack is provided by Stacey Kent, especially her brilliant Breakfast on the Morning Tram album.  You’re welcome in advance.

The Nuggets are better than the Lakers. This is really not disputable.  I believe the Cavaliers are better than the Magic, too, but I wouldn’t be willing to state it under oath.

Twitter is the single most underutilized market research tool in the history of the world.  Follow me for a day and I’ll show you.

FriendFeed might be even better, for businesses.  Put a group together.

Knowing Bryan Pope has been terrible for my daily work ethic and phenomenal for my business creativity.  Actually, I lie about that first part – Bryan yesterday gave me an idea that helped both things so much that I’ve already got more done today than the previous three days put together, and made that work far, far more effective than it has been before.  Get to know this guy.  I mean it.

The Provo Daily Herald newspaper needs serious, immediate, direct intervention.  I write for them, and I can tell you that if they learned how to aggregate local news feeds they could make money.  A lot of money.  They show no real signs of wanting to do this.  I understand this to be typical of most news organizations.  Guys, stop thinking of news as something you provide to people and start thinking about it as something you collect and report.  You have great collection mechanisms, but you will never be able to tell me what I want to know better than I can tell you what I want to know.  When you get this, you’ll start profiting again.

Within the next month, you’ll hear something about the Main Street Group from somewhere other than this blog.  It’s that great an idea, and that powerful a group of people.