“Who Moved My Cheese” is a best selling book about change. It is a hideous read. When I first saw it, I am not sure which made my stomach turn harder - trying to read it, accepting that someone had paid money for it, or accepting that someone in upper management believed that everyone below him needed to read it.

But I was reminded of it when I read this:

Change is hard.

That is an excerpt from a leaked internal Yahoo! memo from Yahoo! Senior Vice President Brad Garlinghouse, as published on Search Engine Journal. Garlinghouse is calling for big changes at Yahoo!, and among my favorite parts are:

We have lost our passion to win…

Existing business owners must be held accountable for where we find ourselves today - heads must roll…

We need to fundamentally rethink how we organize to win…

There was some discussion about Yahoo! on ThreadWatch last week, and I suggested that maybe when mid-level executives leave Yahoo! for start-ups it is a reflection of their desire to be in on a startup, or a reflection of their lack of commitment to Yahoo! (desire to be somewhere else) and not necesarily a sign of problems at Yahoo. Now it is clear that change is coming down from the top.

Problems at Yahoo? Maybe. I’m not qualified to say. Perhaps the big change came after those mid-level people jumped ship. But that memo is a good read. You didn’t see one like that from Xerox or Digital back in the past, right?

To me, things look very promising for Yahoo when someone sends a memo like that.

Back from Las Vegas already, but no blogging on johnon.com? Well, my Thinkpad died on day 2 of Pubcon, interrupting my normal daily evening online activities. I sent it off via IBM Ezcare for servicing (after learning that the local Thinkpad depot service in Vegas did not have the parts and would actually take longer). There’s also the MGM Grand/DHL/other vegas hotel package pick up epic saga I’ll refrain from relating to save you some yawns.

On the positive side I won an amazing Nintendo DS Lite from the Amazing Opera Browser company at the show, so I got myself online the last day via wifi and the Opera Nintendo browser. It’s way-cool and I will definitely post a picture and comment soon. This little white toy kicks butt when it comes to wifi convenience.

Also in the works are several SEO posts prompted by the activities of Pubcon, competitive notes from sessions (not many, but some) and some additional observations about the people that make Pubcon Pubcon.

Here’s a little PubCon SEO card game I’m playing when I get to Vegas. I have red SEO business cards for my SEO consulting. I will be using them as my business card this trip, handing them out on request and (hopefully) trading them for your business card. The unique part is, this time each one of my red SEO cards has a unique serial number on the back.  I have already picked a certain number of cards and listed them as “winners” on a sheet of paper. I shuffled them back into the deck, and will be taking them with me to Pubcon.

During Pubcon, look for my red SEO card and be sure and ask for one. During and after Pubcon, more than 20 times I will publish a winning number on this blog at http://www.johnon.com/. If you have in your posession a card with that number on the back, you win! What do you win? Well, how about a back link? A kind mention of your pet project on this blog? Some free PR?

It’s a good will game, that’s all. So make sure you take a card and check the site if you care to win. One win per person, of course, but feel free to take an extra card to pass along to a friend ;-)