Want to promote your book even with a dirty trick? Here’s how:

‘Freud must be shuddering in his grave, but that doesn’t bother Susan Shapiro, the author of Speed Shrinking and the cheerful organizer of speed-dating-style therapy sessions for New Yorkers. On a recent evening, 200 talk-therapy-seekers stood in line at a lecture hall for their turn to spill their problems and get some quickie advice from each of eight therapists, at just 3 minutes a pop. “It’s amazing what you can achieve in a short space of time,” said one. It “makes something which can be intimidating fun,” said Shapiro.

‘How well did it work? Jobless “patients” without health insurance were grateful for the free help, but the quality of the advice varied, noted a reporter from the Independent. Of course confidentiality vanishes in a room packed with elbow-to-elbow attention-seekers. “One lady sat down and announced at the top of her voice that she’d never had an orgasm,” said one therapist. Another noted: “That’s probably going to take more than three minutes to fix.”‘ -Independent

In an earlier post, I indicated that my conversation with Charles Harper Webb about his book, Shadow Ball, would air on Monday, 11/30. However, the show will air 12/7. In the meantime, the first half of a conversation with Scott Russell Sanders is now available as a Podcast, and the second half of that talk will air on 11/30. We discuss his new book, A Conservationist Manifesto. Thanks for listening…

Cape Point is a historic landmark with incredible views. It is one of the six most important tourist attractions in South Africa. The Cape of Good Hope, known to be from its rugged, rocky and steep cliffs, fynbos, which appreciate the visitors. Take the funicular to the old lighthouse at the top overlooking the coastlineand have a look for yourself.

Wrecks:

1. 18 April 1911, the Lusitania, 500 tons, with 774 people aboard, struck the Bellows Rock.

2. The Thomas T Tucker- American Liberty ship, built in 1942 and should serve as a troop and supply ship during World War II. She sank to Olifantsbos directly at the point.

3. The Phyllisia, 452 ton trawler hit rocks 100 meters off the coast of Cape Point on 3 May 1968. Eleven of the crew reached the shore, 14 remained on board. South African Air Force helicopter air-lifted to safety.

4. The Nolloth, 347 tonnes of Dutch trawler, ran aground, it is said that she was hit by an unidentified underwater objectbys most of the old sailors in this area, it wsa called Albatross Rock.

Dont mistaken:

The cold Benguela current on the west coast and the warm Agulhas current on the East Coast to take geography at Cape Agulhas and not at Cape Point.

Cape Point BECAP a nature reserve in 1938 and became part of the Table Mountain National Park in 1998.

Cape Point consists of 7 750 hectares of rich and varied flora / fauna.

Cape Point is a 40 kilometers long coastline, stretching fromSchuster's Bay in Smitswinkel Bay.

The cliffs at Cape Point southernmost point is 200 meters high.

Cape Point is with 3 clearly defined areas – Cape of Good Hope, Cape Maclear, Cape Point.

History of human habitation date from the early Stone Age [18 000 years], San and Khoi lived here.

In 1500 and 1600, the European sailors navigated the Cape of Good Hope coasline: Bartholomew Dias and Vasco da Gama. They founded the Cape sea route to the east. Two Navigations –Beacons were erected at strategic points. 1488 Bartholomew Dias named the Peninsula – [Cape of Storms].

King John II of Portugal later gave it the name. – [The Cape of Good Hope.]

1580, "said Sir Francis Drake on the Cape:

"The stately thing and the fairest cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth."

Come to Cape Point to see:

* Africa's most southwestern point. * Fresh air and clean water of the ocean – direct from the Antarctic. * Part ofThe 22 100 hectares of the Table Mountain National Park [World Heritage Site]. * Rocky coast – 249 m above sea level. * The circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope led to the establishment of the seaway to the east and further trade. * 26 shipwrecks. * 250 species of birds. * 1 100 indigenous plant species. * Many buck, baboons and other animals. * Bordjiesrif and Buffels Bay swimming is allowed in tidal pools. * 17 picturesque hiking and walking trails. * Fishing and scuba diving. * Whales and dolphins visit theCoast from May to November. * 2: Historical Monuments – Diaz and Da Gama crosses. * Funicular lift to the old lighthouse. * Restaurants with world-class cuisine and wonderfilled views of False Bay. * Curio shops with a number of South African curios.

Visit : Travel Blog

By Shira Ovide & Gregory Zuckerman (WSJ)

Chieftain Capital Management Inc., an iconoclastic investment firm with a strong two-decade track record, is splitting up following personality conflicts among its leaders, according to people familiar with the matter.

Co-founder Glenn Greenberg, who came into the headlines nearly two years ago for his campaign against management at cable company Comcast Corp., plans to stay at the firm, according to a letter that he, co-founder John Shapiro and two partners sent to investors. Mr. Greenberg’s firm will be renamed Brave Warrior Advisors, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mr. Shapiro and Chieftain partners Tom Stern and Joshua Slocum plan to launch a new investment firm that will retain the name Chieftain Capital Management, effective Jan. 1, according to the letter. Chieftain manages about $3 billion in assets. Messrs. Shapiro and Stern are cousins.

“Although Chieftain’s partners remain committed to the firm’s investment philosophy, differences on internal firm matters have led us to decide to separate,” said the letter, sent to investors earlier this month.

Mr. Greenberg, son of legendary baseball player Hank Greenberg and a former competitive squash player, founded Chieftain with Mr. Shapiro in 1984.

A person familiar with what Mr. Greenberg has told investors said Mr. Greenberg and Mr. Stern had personality conflicts, and Mr. Shapiro decided to leave with Mr. Stern. Another person said the personality conflicts were between Mr. Greenberg and the three other officials who are starting the new firm.

Through spokesmen, Messrs. Greenberg, Shapiro, Stern and Slocum declined to comment.

At one point, the firm considered retaining an executive-conflict-resolution specialist, according to people familiar with the matter, though it is unclear if it retained one.

The firm has generated annual gains averaging about 18% before fees focusing on “value” investing, or buying inexpensive, sometimes out-of-favor shares in which the firm has deep conviction. Chieftain’s returns are roughly in line with the market so far this year, according to people familiar with the matter. The firm counts among its clients Yale University’s endowment.

While many other investment managers spend much of their time courting new and existing clients, Mr. Greenberg told Wharton School students several years ago that his firm was built on keeping his communications with clients limited, ignoring ideas from Wall Street analysts and avoiding the marketing of his firm.

The firm disdained Wall Street’s mantra of diversification. Chieftain’s largest stock holdings as of Sept. 30 included Lockheed Martin Corp., U.S. Bancorp, and Comcast, three stocks that represented more than 40% of Chieftain’s stock holdings, according to FactSet Research Systems. By contrast, some funds often keep their top positions at less than 5% of their holdings.

Going against the firm’s typically quiet style, Mr. Greenberg in early 2008 launched a public campaign against Comcast management. He sought in part the ouster of Chief Executive Brian Roberts over complaints about the cable company’s strategy and uses of capital.

Comcast at the time said the company’s operating record, growth and stock returns were strong.

After Mr. Greenberg’s campaign went public, Comcast changed some compensation policies and started a dividend, and the Chieftain campaign died down. Mr. Roberts remains Comcast’s chairman and CEO.

More recently, Mr. Greenberg had been noncommittal about Comcast’s negotiations to buy a controlling stake in General Electric Co.’s NBC Universal. He told the Journal last month that Comcast has moved in the “right direction” since his campaign last year, but he said he would reserve judgment on the possible NBC Universal deal.

After the firm’s planned breakup, Bryan R. Lawrence, the founder of Oakcliff Capital, will work with Mr. Greenberg, as will Mary Mulholland, Chieftain’s vice president of administration, the Chieftain officials said in the letter to investors.

The letter said clients will be asked to select which of the new firms will manage their investment assets.

Paul Fribourg, chairman and chief executive of agribusiness-and-investment firm Continental Grain Co., a longtime investor with Chieftain, said the firm was a collection of “smart, strong-willed, opinionated” people but “I don’t think there’s any hidden mystery or blowup.” Mr. Fribourg, who added that he had no direct knowledge of why the firm was splitting up, said he hadn’t yet decided what he’d do with his Chieftain investments.

Esta semana comentei entre outros, sem perder a noção  que:

“The tools we use for social media have empowered us to be steady-flow commentators.”

…

“So the question becomes: if we’ve built all these tools, these comment buttons, these like buttons, these “share and add notes” buttons, how is this impacting our interactions and our communication? Now that we’ve gone from not having a voice to having tools to give our opinion about everything, how does this change us? How does it impact how we interact with people? What does it mean to the larger ecosystem?”

  Are We Addicted To Giving Our Own Opinions – [chrisbrogan.com]

Um bom exemplo:

Adapt and achieve

Jorge Barba (Game-Changer)

Adaptability is the best skill you can have. Basketball is a game of rhythm, you set the pace at which you want to play and force the other team to adapt. If your familiar with basketball drills, in basketball practice we have what’s called rolling waves where the goal is to score the most times to stay on the court, the challenge is to play teams that constantly change players so you never face the same team twice. The game is continuous and doesn’t stop until your team loses and then the winner keeps playing.

Thank you for this post.
I will be, with one of my suns, at a conference about Intergenerational Talent, which conducts me to the idea of adaptability.
My experience as a consultant -Organizational behavior- will be, face to face, with his expectations as Management Student.
Experience (55 years old)-Expectations (21 years old).
In this game your words (“there is no normal, only continuous change.”) are gold.

Face a uma questão pertinente:

Simple Innovation

Stephen Shapiro (Blogging Innovation)

…”Next time you are designing a process, a product, or a service, ask yourself, “What can I remove?” For most consumers, simplicity is more important than comprehensiveness (and complexity).

The concept of ‘taking away’ is also a great time management technique. In addition to your to do list, be sure to create a ‘don’t do’ list. Become masterful at killing products, eliminating non-value adding tasks, and removing old/pointless habits.”…

José Baldaia said…

Excellent post!
The concept of “perfection” is always accompanied by the concept of “useful “.
Not all of the products or services that are presented as innovative, often resulting from incremental innovation, correspond to our needs. So we are “forced” to seek, on the perspective of profitability, a way to implement the matter which is provided.
In this case, is the concept of “useful” that is not accompanied by that of “perfection”.
When the engine of the creation of needs is the evolution, innovation brings the made-to-measure suit. We know where we want to go and use what we are looking for. If it brings a shirt or a cravat, those are small products that don`t brings ”inadequation”.
Otherwise, we work in inappropriate environments and we wasted energy and time, as is the case with “Vista” or worse, as was the case in “2000”.
I must say: There are many products on the market that need a haircut!

Sem perder a esperança!

The Fun Factor

lBlog  I Innovate!

…“E se começassemos a aplicar o ‘Fun Factor’ ao nosso trabalho diário de inovação? Isto poderia trazer-nos melhores resultados?

Poderia o ‘Fun Factor’ transformar-se em mais do que truque? : -)”

1. jabaldaia on 11 11UTC  2009

Eu penso que já é mais que um truque como os apresentados pelo “The FunTheory.com”.
É acima de tudo, em “tempos de crise” uma ferramenta ponderosa para desenvolver criatividade e agilizar processos.
Deixo aqui uma transcrição que me pareceu interessante para este tema:
“Like a joke, innovations have four basic elements. An introduction relates the innovation to the competencies a company and its customers have. This defines also of what opportunities there are to meet the customer competencies to, e.g. is the setting in B2B or B2C markets. Key actors are the technologies or application features that make clear sense to the expected customers. The customers are the ones with competencies to operate in the introduced settings, not a specific segment or user group. In fact, the introduction and key actors define the emotional attachment that should be tested to gain a deeper understanding who the customers might be. The next step is a narrative that defines how innovation is explained to the customers, e.g. the marketing message, user interface or service interaction style. The narrative needs to be clear and easy to understand, but it will not be sufficient if there is no prior emotional attachment. Finally, the innovation needs a punch line that differentiates it from the competition. Like in jokes, the punch line is a surprising twist in the narrative within the premises set in the emotional attachment. It also defines the category of the innovation. Some alternative innovation punch lines are novelty, cost efficiency, natural extension and vertical opportunity.”
Juha Kaario-Nokia

Wambolt8b.wordpress.com/ for more info!

Our neighbors in 8B have yet another killer show planned for Friday the 13th.

After the Bomb Baby!

The 2416

Staring Daggers

Spring Tigers

Shapiro

…for judging one’s enemy’s children and anyone who has broken religious commandments worthy of death:

Just weeks after the arrest of alleged Jewish terrorist, Yaakov Teitel, a West Bank rabbi on Monday released a book giving Jews permission to kill Gentiles who threaten Israel.

Rabbi Yitzhak Shapiro, who heads the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva in the Yitzhar settlement, wrote in his book “The King’s Torah” that even babies and children can be killed if they pose a threat to the nation.

Shapiro based the majority of his teachings on passages quoted from the Bible, to which he adds his opinions and beliefs.

	Advertisement

“It is permissable to kill the Righteous among Nations even if they are not responsible for the threatening situation,” he wrote, adding: “If we kill a Gentile who has sinned or has violated one of the seven commandments – because we care about the commandments – there is nothing wrong with the murder.”

Several prominent rabbis, including Rabbi Yithak Ginzburg and Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, have recommended the book to their students and followers.

So, if I understand this reasoning correctly, the reason you can kill innocents associated with your enemies is because as morally imperfect they deserve death anyway.  I guess this means that I can kill anyone who I don’t like since I’m pretty sure they’ve already committed capital crimes like using a light switch on a Saturday anyway.  I can take it upon myself to get around to that death penalty no one else was properly attending to.

I must admit that sounds like some form of wickedness or barbarism, but, alas, I’m just one of those spiritually and morally impoverished unbelievers, so I really shouldn’t presume to know how to judge such things.  I guess I just should be grateful God gave us a special word to let us know about things that unenlightened human minds left to their own defenses (like mine) wouldn’t be able to figure out.  And it’s a good thing that he also made it so clearly understandable which parts of what he wrote apply to what time and place the rules that involve slaughtering children are in effect.

(via)

Your Thoughts?

Here is a treat for your Halloween.

A series of ads came out in the early 90’s for a personal injury lawyer named Jim Shapiro. They aired in the north eastern part of the US as well as Florida and parts of Ontario. The man was insane and it made for some of the most hysterical commercials. Heck I’ve been quoting these commercials since I was a kid. No surprise to find that many similar minded people have uploaded various commercials. The quality may not be the best but considering when they aired it could be much worse. Jim no longer “practices law” but he did leave us with these gems.

If you want to learn more about “The Hammer” here’s a wiki on him: Wiki

More video goodness: Youtube

Good morning. It has been a couple of weeks since I have written, primarily due to the effort required to start the Internet show – “Stocks and Jocks”. For those who may have missed Sarah’s announcements the show airs live on www.StocksAndJocks.net every day from 11am-12pm CST and is available afterwards by archive – for on demand listening or download. Dr. J is with me, and we have a great and growing group of guests as the show gains momentum. I would encourage you to listen and participate, there is a lot going on affecting the market that we should all be understanding and talking about.

Last week the market continued its run to the upside, defying a lot of the experts with the extent of the rally. For the week the SPY was up 1.9% to close at 106.72, up a fairly incredible 59% from that dark day on March 6 when the SPY traded 67.10. That rapid of a rally can cause a problem with any sort of a covered writing program, and the Protected Index Program has been no exception. Those in the Program have noticed that it was necessary for me to put a long call spread on above the market (at the time) to maintain some long deltas, but it is surely a market anomaly to have both the sell-off we saw early in the year and the rally since. Although certainly possible, it would be even more historically unusual for the market to maintain this pace, and we plan on continuing to try and capture some call premium and provide some income in the remainder of 2009. It should be noted that in the period from October 1, 2008 thru August 31, 2009, the SPY was still down 10.2 % while those in the basic PIP Program were down only 2.3%. We have had a continuing rally since August 31, and we will report how September compared as soon as those numbers are available. It also should be remembered that in a hedged position, like the PIP, we never had the losses (and possible panic) that probably would have been an issue when the market was selling off.

Those who may have listened to the show on Friday probably heard that Dan Haugh and I were in Washington D.C. last week for the Mesirow Financial Conference. As attendees we were treated to Mesirow’s Chief Economist Diane Swonk and Illinois Congresswoman Melissa Bean as speakers (I was a speaker as well). Diane gave a very solid and enlightening history of what had actually happened the weekend (one year ago) that Lehman essentially went under. It is her view that those in power (Bernanke, Geithner, and a luke warm view of Paulson) really stepped up with some necessary innovation at the last minute and saved the financial world as we know it. Actually the biggest danger, and one that was not anticipated, was a tremendous run on money market accounts the following Monday which actually caused some of those funds to stop withdrawals, and a couple to actually fail that were heavily invested in Lehman short-term commercial paper. For a very detailed story on how this happened please refer to a story in Bloomberg entitled Sleep-At-Night-Money Lost in Lehman Lesson Missing $63 Billion. I do think that Diane Swonk, and Melissa Bean to a large extent, have really bought the idea that the Bernankes and Geithners of the world were really the solution to the problem and not at all the causes of the problem, a view (in my opinion) not necessarily shared by a lot of investors or citizens.

Melissa Bean gave a very spirited talk about current happenings in Congress, and I was actually very impressed by her energy, candor, and seeming willingness to get the right things done. The issue is whether the “average” legislator really has a handle on what is going on, and any idea on how to improve the system. As readers on this column and listeners know, by biggest fear (assuming legislators are trying to get things right) is the very obvious disconnect between the voters, the elected officials, and the governmental staff/lobbyist group. For example, I asked Congresswoman Bean how it appeared to me that a significant majority of those elected (Senators and Representatives on both sides) are stunned at the too-big-to-fail thing and wonder how it was allowed to happen, and want it fixed going forward. Yet in the last year, since the height of the crisis, these Banks have gotten significantly larger, not smaller, as the obvious policy of the FDIC Staff is to continue to combine failing banks into the old ones with a pattern of seemingly sweetheart deals. My question was, simply “Who controls these people?’ “Who are they directly accountable to, and why can’t that person say this is not what we want?” I went on to detail the incredible deal (in my opinion) given to MB Bank last week in their takeover of Corus Bank. I asked “That deal involved an estimated $1.7 B in taxpayer money, and seemed to me to be remarkably one sided, is there some sub-committee somewhere who will go over it?” She really had no answer, other than the new and improved regulatory world that someone somewhere is writing will solve all these problems and answer all these questions. I think the system is totally out of control, I do not think our elected officials have any real idea how a lot of these deals are being made, and if the prices are anywhere near fair. The only thing they know about regulation is that we need more of it, but you would think they would stop for a minute to consider whether the regulation we do have is part of the problem or part of the solution.

At the risk of being the person everyone in class hates because he or she asks too many questions (especially at the end of class extending the time in class) I could not resist one more to the Congresswoman. I even prefaced the question by saying “You are going to think I am a grumpy old guy.” But I did have to say, “You, and obviously Diane Swonk, are really sold on the talent of those regulators (Bernanke, Geithner, Shapiro, etc.) that you feel stopped us from going over the edge last year. I have to say that a real lot of other people feel that it was their inattention that had us at the edge in the first place, and that they are more the cause of the problem than the solution.” Again, I was sort of lectured on the incredible new laws that were forthcoming, and the party line seems to be that any mistakes that were made were really the lack of legislation giving the Regulators the power to do what needed to be done, not their inattention. You know what, Bull Bleep!! These people (meaning Regulators), with the probably help of meddling legislators and self-serving lobbyists, made all the stupid decisions allowing the six largest Investment Banks to have less net capital, and allowed large Commercial Banks to have capital as low as 6-7% of assets. The rest of the people at the Conference also asked questions regarding how they are convinced that Regulation going forward will do nothing more than make it harder and more expensive to do business for firms that were never guilty of anything, and it appears they are correct. I suspect we can all agree that will be the outcome, harassment of the innocent.

As you can probably surmise, I am not too sold on the ability of the young administration to do an effective job regulating the financial markets (or anything, for that matter). The fact is that most regulation has failed over time, and more is not necessarily better. I suppose it is a natural reaction to any crisis to say the somehow the government should have done something to stop it, and it certainly is a natural reaction for those regulators ineffectively in place at the time to say that if they only had more people and funding they would have done the job right. They (the regulators in place) are really not going to respond with “We really were useless, in fact we probably added to the crisis by our inattention, stupidity, and coziness with those we are supposed to be watching.” I also think that, in addition to being of dubious talent, they are virtually unsupervised. The deal given MB Bank, where they paid essentially $14 M for $7 B in customer deposits is nothing short of astonishing. How much do you think it would cost for the marketing, staff, physical branches, and etc. to raise $7 B in customer deposits? I am thinking way more than $14 M, where can we sign up for that deal?

Is the market going to continue to run and play havoc with anyone with a short call? I have had phone calls from people virtually conceding the market another 15-20% rally before years end, and some thinking this is the biggest bull trap rally of all time. Not a problem to get a difference of opinion. What is true is that the combination of decreasing volatility (hurting any long puts) and a market rising rapidly through any formerly reasonable call strike has caused the PIP to under perform the market to a large degree. During the course of the Program this has happened on two other occasions, the Long-Term Capital/Russian Currency issue in 1998 and the market run up 2 years ago. The first time we essentially caught the market advance in roughly six months by continuing to roll up calls and capture premium. The second time the market turned around and went down hard, making us very happy we had the position we had. The outcome this time is still to be determined, but I think we all need to take a look at the very unusual market moves of the last two years, both to the upside and downside. Having a hedged position essentially takes out a lot of those swings, both the bad swings and the good ones. Right now we are in one of those markets when being hedged seems like crazed conservatism, but last March was not that long ago to where people have totally forgotten. We will certainly make every effort to “catch” the returns the market has made the last couple of months, while not leaving us vulnerable if the market were to decide that the rally is all a mirage.

Have a great week, folks, and be sure to listen to Dr. J and I on www.StocksAndJocks.net!

My Guilty Pleasure é o nome do seu segundo albúm lançado este ano, mais propriamente em Agosto. Segundo a PopJustice, é um dos melhores albúns lançados até agora neste 2009. Um sonoro virado para o electro-pop com ênfase no house e no disco romance (música ambiente e jazz). Sally Shapiro é sueca, é simpática e tem uma voz muito afável.

A música mais ouvida no seu myspace é a “He Keeps Me Alive” mas destaco a “Jackie Jackie” e a “I Know“. Deixo-vos uns bombons grátis mas não deixem de a visitar no seu myspace.

Fran

J’ai connu Sally l’an passé, en loop dans mon auto avec ” I’ll be by your Side ” et ” Find My Soul ” . Aujourd’hui, Sally est dans mes oreilles matin et soir. Cette suédoise vient de lancer son nouvel album le 21 août dernier. Petit beat electro pop, musique juste parfaite pour accompagner ta journée de travail, pour un 5 à 7 vino pis pour tes soirées relax.

record label : Paper bag records (Canada) / Permanent Vacation (Germany)
myspace

CES 2010 will have a dedicated iLounge pavilion for everything Apple

Update 1: we just received a response from the CEA press office. Although they did not respond to our question about Shapiro’s dinner comments on Apple’s presence, they did confirm that they invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to keynote at CES 2010. More at the end of the post.

Update 2: The WSJ finally changed its story headline from “Will Apple CEO attend CES ‘10″ to will he “headline” the event. I guess that says it all?

Depending on who you read – the Wall Street Journal or leading gadget blog Engadget - Apple will, or actually will not attend next year’s largest consumer electronics show in Las Vegas.

And we did send an email to CEA, the organisers of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) to find out what really was said during this “dinner de cons!”

The organisers of CES has yet to confirm the comments of its chief Gary Shapiro (pictured) about Apple's presence at the show's 2010 edition

The controversy: did the WSJ reporter “exaggerate” CES’ chief comments?

According to the respectable business daily, Apple plans to attend the show – which will have a dedicated “iLounge” pavilion for Apple related products – next January “marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there.”

But for Engadget founder Peter Rojas who also attended the media dinner hosted by CEA on Tuesday in San Francisco, CEO Gary Shapiro made it “very clear that Apple would not be exhibiting at CES 2010. In fact, when asked if CEA could make space for them if they did happen to change their minds he said it may be possible to find them a limited amount of floorspace.”

Rojas added in his comments to the Wall Street Journal story that “at no point during the discussion did he [Gary Shapiro] ever indicate that Apple would be participating in any formal way at CES. Nor did he even imply that there was an outside chance that Steve Jobs would keynote, which is suggested by your linkbaiting headline. I’m frankly a little shocked that anyone could have come out of the dinner with a post like this.”

And who cares?

But as Apple explained in it’s reasons to leave MacWorld, “trade shows [like MacWorld or CES] have become a very minor part of how” it reaches its customers.

So my guesstimate, is that Apple – like it did in the past – will simply host smaller launch events, either in its Cupertino campus or in San Francisco and just skip those big venues. And that’s the end of it.

CEA’s response on the “Apple affair”:

Apple is a valued member of the Consumer Electronics Association. As for the 2010 International CES, we have invited Steve Jobs to keynote.  Should he accept our invitation, he would join an outstanding keynote lineup that includes Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Paul Otellini of Intel.  Apple has not signed up to exhibit at the 2010 CES, but there will be more Apple-related products at the show than ever before in our exciting new iLounge Pavilion. The iLoungePavilion is a unified iPod^®, iPhone^® and Mac^® exhibition area, that will be located in South 2 of the LVCC. The exhibit will display manufacturers and retailers of iPod and iPhone applications, along with accessories and other related services and products. The exhibit space has already grown from 4,000 sf to 25,000 sf due to high demand.