I am glad Microsoft didn’t buy Yahoo May 5, 2008

Am I the only one who thought that Microsoft and Yahoo didn’t have the first thing in common? Microsoft is still deeply rooted in the OS/Software/Desktop culture, biz model and products. Yahoo is all about the web and always has been. They aren’t winning the battle of the web right now but they are certainly better at it than MSN. (yeesh) Yahoo handles classifieds, news, advertising sale and products as well as their home page better than Microsoft and MSN. And Microsoft wanted to own them and tell Yahoo what to do? Stupid.

Its odd to think that there are incompatible sets of engineers, technology and visionaries, but these to were never destined to be together.  It almost seemed like a hair-brained distraction tactic to keep everyone’s eyes away from something else. What else could Microsoft be trying to do with this kind of deal? And buying up companies that are better at something than you are is such an old school tactic. Why not be affiliates? Lisence their ad network? Become associates so you can foster some kind of working relationship and trust first before you go in for the kill and it will be taken as a lot less hostile.

I just think this whole thing was bungled and made no sense from the beginning. And I don’t even know anything internally about it. I don’t work for nor know anyone who works for these companies. This is just my feeling based on the news reports on the internet and radio.

It does make me worried about the future of Microsoft in a world where they are so off base and desperate like this and no one really has any affinity for them anymore. That said, I am typing this in IE but on a free blog platform and on a chinese computer. Things sure have changed in the past 10 years.

HyperMilling How to Save Money on Gas, fuel economy and Drive Cheaper April 30, 2008

I was surprised to read this article about driving, gas mileage and hypermilling which is basically the art of conservative driving to save gas in general by getting about 30% better gas mileage. Of course the results differ depending on which car you drive (or truck) but I think this article brings up a lot of good points and strategies. Here are some of the tips they suggest for saving gas (and money) and improving fuel economy for your car when driving around town:

1. Accelerate slowly from stoplights and stop signs. This is a huge gas saver for those of us who live in the suburbs and city. We do a lot of stop and go driving every day and this acceleration from the light sucks down fuel like nothing else. They recommend never pressing the pedal more than 1 inch down. Never floor the car or race away from the light. Just accelerate slowly and you will not waste gas.

2. Use your cruise control on the highway and tollway. I never do this but I will start now. If you want to avoid costly fuel surges in your engine, just set your cruise control for 55 mph or 65 mph depending on the speed limit, set your car in the right lane or middle one if there are super slow cars or trucks in the right lane, and get there at a normal consistent pace. The car is better at managing acceleration with just enough gas at a consistent rate than we are. Humans generally pump the pedal when they drive and constantly throw too much fuel into the engine and are highly inconsistent. Anyway, I like this because it isn’t that different from what we do now and it is more cost efficient.

3. Properly inflating the tires impacts the gas mileage very little and turning off the air conditioning on highway trips doesn’t do much either. (turning off the air conditioning in stop n go traffic can help though)

So take 20 seconds to accelerate away from traffic lights, turn off the air conditioning in stop and go traffic and use the cruise control as much as possible when driving on the highway and your gas mileage should go up and your fuel consumption should go down and you should save some more money.

And then there are always the old fashioned ways to save money on Gas like carpooling and using public transit. Don’t forget those either!

 

How to keep learning new skills as we get older April 29, 2008

I used to think that it was weird to not be learning all the time. You spend 9 years in grammar school, 4 years in high school and if you are lucky, 4 years in college. All total,  that is 17 of your first 21 years in school with daily lessons, lectures, homework, required reading, tests, quizzes, projects, essays and exams. Then you have to make the jump to the working world whether it is in business or other areas and you still have to learn, but it is everything not included in your schooling. How your company works, how people work, what is required there and all their multitude of processes and products.

At that point you usually meet someone much older than yourself that has no idea what is happening in technology. And not just high technology, they don’t get basics that most people use just to function daily like email, pivot tables or search engine optimization. What you don’t know is that they are the future you. They don’t want to change because they say they have just done things this way all these years and it has always worked with paper files, binders, phone messages and post it noes. You look at them and their outdated clothes and rows of beanie babies around their cubicle like they have 3 heads. How can they work this way? How do they get anything done? How can a company value someone antiquated like this over me who has all this knowledge and ability (yet with 0 experience). 

Then time marches on. You become acclimated with the business environment and get promoted or jump to a better job a few times. You balance social, personal and work life stuff and think wow it’s a lot to manage and are always tired. Then some of you have kids and are even more tired. Then you wake up one day and realize that you have become that antiquated person you ran into years ago because they hired some younger workers that are all gung ho about getting ahead and talk about things you don’t understand. Now all college grads come to work knowing how to build databases and web sites even if they got a degree in English? How can they know so much so fast? 

You wonder how 10 years flew by and you haven’t really added anything new to your skill set because you work 50 hours a week, have a relationship on weekends and laundry/dishes/cat/cleaning/reading/few social things weeknights. (you don’t even watch TV for god’s sake) How can you go to school at the same time? If you have kids, how can you exist on less than the 4 hours of sleep you get now just so you can spend time learning? And when will you ever get around to painting the garage? How is this possible when some mornings you come to work 1/2 asleep with 2 different shoes on?

Are companies going to only hire new youngsters for all the positions because they make less money and have more tech skills? How much does experience matter?  Why did it piss me off for weeks when the new wordpress.com backend system was launched, and nothing made any sense anymore? I didn’t have time to spend looking for hours for where everything had been moved to and was just mad that it wasn’t where it was before and it took forever to post. And there was no communication from those adsense loving wordpress people about where everything had been moved to. They thought this was self explanitory? (Not!)

I think I started to recognize some of these changes happening to me in the past few months. I never planned on stopping learning and the things I chose to learn about in my spare (and fleeting) time were never really panned out useful things. So, back to the drawing board. I feel like I need a lot more technical skill to remain ahead of the curve in my job and be able to keep finding great work over the decades to come. And I want to do that along with have a family and marriage and the whole kit and kaboodle. I don’t think this is a women’s issue anymore either really. Men face the same questions as they get off the fashion bus and start looking, sounding and working more and more like their fathers.

Another thing I realized the other day is that I may try and shop at more contemporary stores, but I basically dress exactly like my mom. And she is 67 and I am 32. I used to hate how my mom dressed, and now I am her?  Is this just the arrival of the long plateau of middle age? Are the middle ages of me going to be anticlimactic and uneventful? Or how can you bridge multiple generations, technologies and social groups all at the same time while still getting 8 hours of sleep at night? 

I don’t know how this is all going to work. I suppose many people don’t write about it on blogs, or maybe even recognize the change until they can’t find bleached jeans and high tops at Kohl’s anymore. But it bothers me because I don’t want to stop learning and get left behind. Especially when the economy keeps changing so much every year and the jobs go with it. How do you not get outsourced when literally everything can be outsourced today? How do you keep going to school when most universities require full time attendance of a degree program and not piece mail courses as you need them? How do you find time to do homework when you have bills to pay and garbage to take out and emails from your boss? Even reading was hard to get back into after years of not focusing like that for an extended period of time.

Here is what I have been doing about it and working on over the past years and what I would like to continue to work on:

1. About 2 years ago I started reading books again. I read TIME every week, but that is pretty short. I found it hard at first to just read for an hour at a time because I had gotten so multitask happy with the internet and channel flipping.

2. I also decided it was time to start pushing back sometimes at work and saying No. You literally can’t do that when you start out, and sooner or later you have to set limits and not do everything for everyone else when you have a limited time to do it. The whole idea of urgency and priority come into play and they shouldn’t be anyone else’s priority or urgency but yours. People will negotiate and try and get as much from you as possible but it’s not in your best interest if it’s not really in your job description.

3. The last year was one where I decided it was time to have a self hosted blog. Everyone and their sister had one but me, and it wasn’t supposed to be impossible or anything. So, I bought a url and went to town for about 2 days straight truing to figure out how this wordpress thing worked, researching themes, plugins and all the possibilities and building it. It was a great learning experience although it has nothing to do with my work.

4. This year I had a client that insisted on a different data process than what we usually provided and I had to learn Pivot tables. I still don’t know them to the extent I need to probably, but it helps immensley. I still have more of the high end Excel stuff to learn.

5. I also had to learn Access. I guess 2 days in a class can’t really teach you everything though so I should either retake the class or take another one because my skills there still don’t match what I need them to.

6. I also wonder about math and statistics. I should really go back, take the prerequisites and then statistics. This is what I get for not taking it initially because I didn’t want to work in business. Sheesh. This is by far one of the hardest things to do because, I am not fantastic at math, it has been about 14 years since I have taken a math class and it means driving back to the community college I attended a million years ago. It also entails weekly classes and weekly homework. This could be 10 hours a week or more. Where am I going to find 10 hours a week? Where do people who have kids find that time?  Is sleep allowed?

7. I also think it is time I got better at this friends/networking thing at work and outside it. I have never been that great at the social stuff, but I am meeting more and more people who weren’t necessarily either, but because there are some ground rules in business and no need to act like Jr High kids anymore, they are pretty good at it now. This helps get things done faster when they need to be, and it makes work and life generally more fun. It also helps not to work with assholes.

8. What I would also like to do more of is learn about web pages and building them, coding and sleuthing out issues with them. This comes up with work and would be an asset.

9. Long term I have to get into databases and SQL. I have no choice. It will mean more classes and more time than I know I can find and afford, and that isn’t even the expensive part like tuition.

But what is the alternative? To be outsourced in a few years? To be relegated back to the minimum wage jobs that we had back in college but would be even more difficult to get since they would rather hire energetic young people now, with better tech skills?  The way I see it, the only way to survive is to go onwards and upwards. I have to keep learning things whether I have time for it or not.

Late Earth Day Suggestions and Tips to Save Energy April 23, 2008

I have been busy beyond belief with work latley and not able to really blog at all. I did want to make this quick exception to blog belatedley about Earth Day since I think this is an important topic that everyone should be taking action on and looking to find out how they can reduce consumption of energy overall.

I am happy to see that Al Gore has made earth day popular again and that it is now cool to do the right thing and save energy and scale back consumption. We are looking at oil at $117.00 a barrel or more now and gas can’t be far from $4.00 or $5.00 per gallon soon.

Some of my favorite ways to save energy (electricity and gas) are to:

1. Turn off my computer at work at night and turn off my home computer when not in use. Guess what? It’s also good that hackers and viruses aren’t allowed to access them when they are off either.
2. Coast while driving. Automatic cars are less fuel efficient because we always have our foot on the gas. Take a cue from the old manual transmissions and just coast sometimes and save some gas.
3. Do dishes when the dishwasher is really full (good for us lazy people too) and then turn off the plate warmer dryer option. Let them air dry instead.
4. The energy saving flourescent bulbs that I call squiggley bulbs are great. Don’t worry about the mercury thing, just be very careful not to breathe around a broken bulb if that happens.
5. Recycle - Duh! Cans, Bottles and plastics are finally now accepted for recycling where I live. I also end up re-using the cute shopping bags you get at stores for carrying things to work or for lunch. And I save up the plastic walgreens, target and jewel grocery bags and turn them in to recycle at Jewel.

These were also some good suggestions I saw online yesterday:

How to save fifty cents a gallon on gas 

50 ways to help save the planet for earth day and every day

MidWest Renewable Energy Association

Green tips for the office from Google  

All in all, there is a lot we can do to save energy and conserve it too. As well as reduce consumption overall.

Happy Earth Day!

Kristi Yamaguchi on Dancing with the Stars March 25, 2008

I was hopeful when I heard that Kristi Yamaguchi was going to be on the ABC show Dancing with the Stars that she would rock the competition because she was such a talented figure skater. I made a similar transition from competitive figure skating in my own life (hobby) from 1984-1994 to social and sometimes competitive Swing Dancing in 1998-2003. I found that dancing was really easycompared with skating. No jumping was involved (lucky for me) and all the footwork was much much easier on the floor than it ever was on skates. Plus skaters have to have a great sense of body awareness to do what they do and in dancing that is useful to let you know where your head, hips, feet, shoulders, butt and fingertips are all at the same point in time and coordinate them all in different directions at the same time. Body awareness isn’t something you need for all sports, but you do need it for dance, gymnastics and figure skating because of the musical interpretation involved. (Those hobbies and pursuits that straddle the line between sport and art.) It was also great to finally really interpret the music with choreography and improvisation. The lead follow connection was easy too, but I would assume Kristi has that too since she skated pairs also for many years before concentrating on singles skating and winning the gold medal in the 1992 Olympics.

There are a few things Kristi Yamaguchi probably did have to learn in the Dancing with the Stars training sessions. The thing you don’t use in figure skating is the rest of your upper body, arms, head or expressions in much detail or variety. And skaters are not into the same kind of footwork as dancers because they are always skating for the sake of speed, to get to take off for jumps and can’t really spend time on any detail at a slow enough speed to be intricate. (it doesn’t get you any points) After learning to dance though, I thought skaters lacked real choreography, musicality and interpretation. They fell flat on TV as non-expressive beings trained to jump and without any real enthusiasm or artistic expression on the ice. Pretty posture isn’t enough to sell your performance or story to the audience let alone really interpret the music in a real way. I now prefer dancing both personally and for watching as entertainment, I think it has so much more to offer.

I think that Kristi Yamaguchi has the potential to be as good a dancer as the real ballroom dancers because she is in strong physical (cardio) shape, has great body awareness and seems to be learning the musicality and interpretation she needs to sell her dancing to the audience. I hope she goes all the way just like speed skater Apollo Anton Ono did a few seasons ago. It’s true, after figure skating, everything else in life is easy.

Google Search Box on the Search Results Page Sucks - Site Search March 24, 2008

I noticed this search box on the Google search results page beneath the Amazon.com listing a few weeks ago and thought, cool. Lets see if it gets me past the home page amazon and to the search results page on Amazon.com. It would take me one step closer to what I am looking for on this site if it worked.

But instead it just brought me a list of pages on Amazon while still being in Google’s search results. YUCK! That sucks. I don’t want to stay on Google longer, I want to get to the book/dvd/whatever I am looking for and it’s on Amazon. This added another step in my process and I hate when sites do that for profit. It’s like a big interstitial ad that interrupts your log-in process on Monster or those stupid interstitial on Forbes articles. It is bad usability and bad user experience and people should complain about it so they remove this feature. (and of course don’t use the feature because if they see usage numbers in their stats they will think people like it and keep it)

It doesn’t surprise me that Google would want to keep you on their site longer so they can serve adwords against the results and possibly distract you away from what you originally intended to do or find but what I was surprised about  was that they thought they were better about finding products/pages on amazon than amazon itself. And that is a self centered conceited view to think you know Amazon’s business better than they do and to use that as justification to poach their traffic and users. Ouch.

I think Google also may be looking at this new search box in the search results as a way to get more into vertical search using their main search box as a starting point for picking your vertical and then the second search box to search within the site or specific vertical you choose. Google probably thinks they are prime for this kind of use because they already index everything and just need to figure out a hierarchical interface to display it all and make the difference in level of detail in the results visual. Then they can conquer the world…muhahaha…The only problem with that idea is that I don’t know an real live humans that like or look for vertical search. The sites that create content around a vertical are brands and have a real product that cost money to produce so they aren’t just web companies that crawl, slurp, scrape and steal other people’s original content and display it with advertising along site like Google.

So, overall I give this search box in the search results change a thumbs down, grade F for bad user experience keeping people away from what they want longer while displaying more ads and bad traffic poaching from genuine product sites. Google should remove this feature as it does no one any good and will deteriorate their relationship with real publishing and product sites over time. And if Google thinks they can play hardball and corner companies into accepting this, think again. I am sure there are some legal eagles out there that will be happy to bring this to court.

Spring Weather - April, May, June March 20, 2008

Today is the first day of spring and it has been over 40 degrees and sunny all day in Chicago. This has been a minor miracle considering that from November 1, 2007 through February 29, 2008 this winter has been awful. We have had snow every week during that time and sometimes snow fell 2 or 3 times a week. We didn’t know what to do with all of it, how to clear it all or how to keep the ice from piling up all over everything. We got through it somehow and it is safe to go to the grocery store again and carry things up my back stairs that are outside now that they are finally not covered in ice. (a typical 3 floor walkup building in Chicagoland)

I just wanted to say happy spring and welcome to warmer weather in Chicago. I will not miss this winter, nor wish this much snow on anyone. I hope that we don’t get such an extreme summer also since heat is just as difficult in some ways. Although, this global warming thing is getting weirder by the year. Anyway, go get some spring clothes out of storage and take a walk outside and enjoy the spring weather.

TopGear USA Names New Host Adam Corolla March 5, 2008

As Jalopnik reported last week Adam Corolla has been named the first host of TopGear USA in it’s newest iteration of GEAR on NBC in 2009. (per an announcement on his radio show and some pix with TG cars, see K Nob left.) I have read all kinds of mixed reviews online and heard people’s opinions on this pick and here are my thoughts to add to the fray:

1. I don’t know Adam Corolla from a bag of rocks but a lot of people seem to know him from The Man Show and they seem to think he is funny and willing to get shoved in frozen lake for a laugh. (which sinefeld and leno wouldn’t do) This is encouraging. He doesn’t have a persona that is so well known it is career limiting (being typecast) yet people are pretty sure he can do (or has done) Improv in his day and has some snark. This was a big qualifier for this job. I am sure they did some pilot episode recording or something to compare the candidates on film (per Richard Hammond’s book where he mentions his interview & audition) and I bet Adam probably does ok in the snark category. (he also seems to do well in the 1991 wardrobe category) This is probably the most important part of the selection process.

2. Many people seem to be up in arms about the TopGear USA show needing to be an exact replica of the TG UK show down to the exact personality traits of each host. (presenter) They say they need an overbearing stubborn tall guy, and an emotional and hyper short guy and a long haired geeky guy. This couldn’t be more wrong. You need some great personalities, some strong opinions and some great improv and mucking about to make a great show. You can’t re-create the actual people and their attitudes over here that Jeremy, Richard and James have in real life. That would be monkey-stupid and not at all viable. The mix should be diverse but the personalities all will be different.

2.5 I have also read that people think Adam Corolla doesn’t have a car background. He must have some car knowledge though or else they wouldn’t have selected him. I would guess that you would have to have all of the following skills to host: know how to drive a manual transmission well enough to talk to the camera and drive at the same time, know some basic autocross skills for the lap times and tests, be familiar with fancy and race type cars so that you know how to power slide and such. I would also hope the person genuinely enjoyed power sliding and pushing a car’s limits. I think a lot of the technical things that Jeremy, James and Richard say are discussed with the producers and prep people of TG to give them some topline analysis from the team of research geeks behind the scenes. Hopefully NBC’s GEAR will have a team of car geeks behind the scenes too.

3. Some people are complaining that the show will be all about NASCAR and that will suck ass. Yes, that would technically suck ass if it happened, but I think the show will have diverse talent and diverse activities all around the different car type groups. (Imports, Domestics, Pony Cars, Muscle Cars, Roadsters, Trucks, Minvans, SUVs, Street Racing Mods, Low Riders, Classics, Really old Classics, Classics with wooden wheels, Green Ecological leaf-eating Cars, Exotics and Supercars. And hopefully there will be some fun crossover with the auto racing sports in this country Indy, CART, NASCAR, Funny Cars, F1, Unlimited Fuel Dragsters, Autocross, Sprints, and Demolition Derbys at the county fair. (please use the last one I beg you) The content is usually based on a couple things:

    A. Supercars awe inspire us all, so cover as many of those as possible and make the editing and camera work turn it into car pron. This keeps the 10-50 yr old boys happy, and the beauty of the cars even makes it interesting to some of us women. We also enjoy the speed.

    B. People need practical every day cars reviewed in a non-sleep inducing non-autoweek way. This means everything from the YuGo to the Mercs. (by merc I mean Mercedes not Mercury, I can’t believe I just said that) I can’t believe autoweek is still on TV. I want to shoot my television when I run across that show accidentally.

    C. Challenges building things and Road Trips through other countries are the comedy and entertainment portion of the program. Do the ridiculous, seriously. Do the serious, ridiculously. And please Fork it up in ways we never thought possible. The only difference here is that it should require less passport use in the USA. Route 66 anyone? Highway 1 PCH?

    D. Weird sometimes stupid stunts. Jumping minivans and seeing how long a car runs with all the coolant drained out of it. endurance, destruction and general stunt-ness is needed here. These segments are short on time and long suspense and hopefully provide either humor or carnage or both. (ala the car chases in the blues brothers movie)

    E. The Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment. It allows the BBC to make some marketing money and it gives us some interesting non-car related person in an autocross race situation. This either ends up being impressive or rediculous, it works great either way. I recommend a Chevy Malibu as the car here. It’s so average it hurts. It will also be painful seeing George Clooney actually sit in one instead of the fancy schmantsy things he is used to.

But the question I want answered that no one was asking is: Did Adam Corolla get the job just because he was named after a cheap econo-box Japanese car? If so it’s a really bad pun, and I wouldn’t mention it. I think using the corolla as the reasonably priced car is out too.

New Quarterlife TV Show on NBC ROCKS! February 28, 2008

I have been reading for months about this new show Quarterlife and how because of the writer’s strike, it got a shot at airing on network TV when it had only been an online show before that point. I ran into the Quarterlife show the other night on TV by accident and thought I would check it out. I was surprised that despite being 32, and not the target of the show, I really liked it. I specifically remember being 25 and having a quarterlife crisis (term coined by John Mayer in a song) and going through some things with being on my own for the first time, with my first job, dating woes and dealing with being a full on adult for the first time. Plus leaving all childhood frivolousness behind is a somewhat scary thing. No more silly stuff? No more hip clothes? Will I just be a boring blah worker that never gets anywhere? All my friends too had these thoughts.

I found that the show Quarterlife represented these feelings pretty accurately. The content of the show was very genuine and right on for that age group and I watched earnestly remembering that time in my life. I thought it was funny and clever and very dramatic and true all at the same time.

they were open and honest about everything from sex to work to relationships and I found it refreshing, although the show moves at a very fast pace. I had to speed up my brain just to keep up with all the cuts to different angles and fast dialogue. Quarterlife does seem very real though and the actors are pretty good. (although one girl that blogs is reeeeaaallllyyy overacting)

Then I saw online that people were calling it a failure because it only had 3.9 million viewers. I don’t know if that is really bad since I saw no online or offline campaign promoting it and I am online all over the place. How would that 20-30 yr crowd that doesn’t watch TV know it was going to be on? Did they do any WOM marketing? Duh? if you don’t invite them and tell them it’s coming no one will show up.

I think this show has all the elements of a West Wing for the Millenials but about personal politics rather than national politics. I think it should stay on the air and they should give it some marketing boost, and maybe a tripod to anchor the camera better in some situations. Anyway, I just thought it was important to say that I watched the show and I liked it a lot and it should stay on air at NBC and online.

I know that the commerical spots were sold with X amount of audience guaranteed and if they miss that point the network has to refund or give away more free ads to compensate for it. But maybe this show was not positioned right, promoted right or sold right by the network. I thing the writers, actors and developers of the show did a great job and the show may get shuffled around, but should certainly stay on the air.

Oscars, Trends and Once Movie Wins Best Song February 25, 2008

I think people were generally happy with the outcomes of the Oscar awards last night. Although there weren’t any big blockbuster films this year that were box office smash hits or huge societal movements, there were some well made movies that got recognized for their hard work. I was especially happy to see that Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won the Oscar for best original song. I felt like the Enchanted people were good at producing a Disney musical and Amy Adams sang and danced on stage twice (not easy when it is in addition to her regular attendance duties) but Once was a great movie with a lot more meaning and resonance than a Disney musical could possibly ever have. (especially for people over the age of 10, which I would think most of the academy is made up of)  I was also thrilled to see that Jon Stewart gave Marketa Irglova a moment to come back out and say her thank you for her award after the commercial break. Kudos to him for that. And we should all remember what she said quote: “fair play to those who dream and don’t give up“. Those are great words.

I think someone said on NPR this morning that international (foreign) stars dominated the awards last night and that may be true but I don’t think it was the trend that explains why they won. I think the academy awards are moving past the popularity contest that they used to be and really rewarding the most meaningful and powerful quality work in every category. It makes movies like la vie en rose or Once possible to win when they were only even shown at Art House theaters here in Chicago and most people never even heard about them. (in an unrelated event I went to a blockbuster video store this weekend and I didn’t recognize 1/2 the movies there either) I think this may help these indie, foreign or cutting edge films find an audience they would not have before but more importantly it rewards people with more work because of the award and makes the careers of talented people doing great work so they don’t have to sell out and just do what makes the most money. Its kind of like trying to positively influence capitalism’s negative affect on art.

I also think that it just so happens that the people willing to make these different movies that aren’t big blockbuster type films are more likely foreigners that are less influenced by the lure of the big Hollywood blockbuster that has no artistic quality but brings in a big paycheck and instead, these foreigin actors make movies for the love of making movies and the chance to do good work. And, they got rewarded for that. It is refreshing to find people who are interested in quality work over money. It seems that foreign people not only have the better work ethic and simpler lifestyle demands to be able to manufacture everything from our cars to our clothes but now they also have captured a more pure (not money only) sense of making movies also now. I think it’s kind of a sad sign in general for the U.S. but like always it doesn’t really mean anyone would really try and make a change. We’re not good at that.

I look forward to seeing some of the films that I had not seen yet by the Award telecast and hope to discover some new great actors and films that I can enjoy. And if you haven’t seen Once, go rent it on DVD from Netflix or wherever you rent DVDs today.

Top Gaining Web Sites Jan 08 February 19, 2008

From an email update I got today from comScore:

http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2067  

I think this is interesting because some seasonal trends are in here and others are not. Check out the list:

comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)

January 2008 vs. December 2007

Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations

Source: comScore Media Metrix

                                         Total Unique Visitors (000)

                                    Dec-07         Jan-08        % Change

Total Internet: Total Audience     183,619        184,239            0

Taxes                                7,729         23,336          202

Politics                             8,384         13,807           65

Career Services and Development     49,150         64,144           31

Real Estate                         32,747         41,991           28

Ground/Cruise                        8,909         11,303           27       

Car Rental                           4,065          5,130           26

Retail - Computer Software          26,756         33,548           25

Financial Information/Advice        32,109         39,792           24

Hotels/Resorts                      25,131         30,958           23

Online Travel Agents                34,581         42,530           23

Presidential Primary, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Political Campaign Marketing February 6, 2008

I am usually not very political and hate how spin and vicious attacks are used to sway people’s opinion when they have little or no impact on the job that someone would do. That aside I am interested in seeing who will win this next presidential election in the U.S. and how the marketing that their campaigns do impacts the outcome.

The first thing I noticed was that all the campaigns for the presidential primary elections and Iowa caucuses were utilizing Email. Rudy Giuliani used it the least (once a week is not enough) and Ron Paul was the most primitive with text only messages that seemed to be hand written after each event, but everyone got out the info about donating this way. I noticed that Barack Obama and Jon Edwards slowly built up momentum with emails supporting the increase in number of stories they had covered in the press. Hillary Clinton (Billary) has been sending a deluge of daily emails since about 6 months ago. I would say she has over-used this medium. I am almost becoming immune to the emails now and not even reading them anymore. I did think it was a nice touch that Rudy Giuliani sent an email thanking everyone after he dropped out of the race and another one a few days later asking his supporters to join the McCain camp. It was very classy and genuine.

Online they seem to really try and use banners to advertise their sites and not the issues, but I haven’t run across that many banners or display ads yet since I don’t hang out on political sites all that much. On TV they seem to be targeting the states and DMAs where there are primaries but I think national ads will be seen soon. I just hope they remain positive because there is much more to be gained in voter enthusiasm from a carrot rather than a stick. Text ads in search have also been utilized but I don’t think they have been as targeted or flexible as they should have been. They aren’t taking advantage of the customize-able real time edit-ability of these ads. All the candidates really need someone on the bus listening to issues and going to events that can be online at that moment and customizing campaigns to reflect the outcome. Plus a team in the background analyzing and optimizing the campaigns based on tracking conversion to donation data. One guy who does this as a second job and isn’t even very good at it isn’t the right solution. Barack, you’re just giving your money away for nothing with this one. 

The news publication/blog/press/PR area is another world all together. I feel like they all try and court this market the most and rely on these writers to transmit their message. The thing is not everyone watches or reads the news. I almost never do, because I am never home. Plus these writers are pretty willy nilly all over the place with what they cover and how frequently. They write about whatever the big thing is that moment and after the day the story runs, the buzz is gone. (plus a lot of it is fluff) It’s forgotten and on to the next big thing. It’s just so short. You have to keep churning out notable stories or always be the front runner to benefit from this medium. I would find this very frustrating to be over saturating a small market/audience of people with messages that are fleeting, confusing and less meaningful rather than building a real relationship with them over time or examining the issues and candidates in depth once and getting a final vote.

An alternative medium being used more this election than ever before is the use of political humor shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and late night shows like The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Late Show with David Letterman. These shows give politicians an audience of voters who may not watch or read news because they are disengaged or apathetic. If they are light on issues and come across as like-able, funny and can take a joke making fun of themselves they may gain some votes this way from people who vote by like-ability rather than issues. I see the blur between news and entertainment blurring further in the future and this will continue to be a tactic in future campaigns.

I assume direct mail was a part of the mix although I didn’t get any mailings locally or nationally for the primary in Illinois. Lawn signs and outdoor signage in general always plays a big role leading up to the last month and days before an election. So do volunteers. This is really the backbone of the marketing organization. The enthusiasm, scripts message and overall level of performance of these cold callers and door knockers can make or break the candidate’s chances in local and primary elections. So do the quality and clarity of the leave behind brochures. They must differentiate your candidate from the others and make clear why they will be the best candidate in real terms for the voter.

Anyway, I will be watching and waiting as per usual to see how this comes out in the end. Who will you be voting for and why?

Most Offensive Wedding Gift Ever - An Apron January 23, 2008

With all that has happened in the last 100 years in women’s suffrage and our battle for equality of the sexes,  I am surprised and a bit offended that this company thinks that a 1950’s style apron is the perfect wedding shower gift. Who thinks that? Getting a blender that both you and your husband can use to make smoothies from twice is at least equal. An apron says: Hey you, woman, go make dinner! Grunt grunt…

Haven’t we fought hard against female stereotypes and the opportunity to be self sufficient, smart and hold an equal career and home responsibilities with a man? How can these aprons possibly be appropriate when they plunge us right back at the turn of the last century? A girly apron like this is only worn by a woman, never a man. Why not get a more functional William’s Sonoma Gender Neutral Apron that both he and she can wear depending on who is doing the messier cooking? Why say: Hello, I am not good for anything but cooking or cleaning, don’t ask me to think… with one of these career limiting sexist aprons?

Eww. All I have to say is if I ever get married, don’t get me one of these. Please, I would rather have a blender.

Ack Recession! January 22, 2008

I have lived through 2 recessions that I can remember already and I really don’t need a third. The thing is that our economy used to run in 30 year cycles according to our history books. Now we seemed to be on a 10 year cycle early 90’s recession and 2001 recession pointed to this. And this time we were only growing the economy for about 5 years! (2002-2007) So, the Fed didn’t improve the economy by lowering interest rates back in 2001-2003 they just sped up the cycle.  And what they are doing now may be speeding up the cycle even faster. What will life be like if we have alternating boom bust years every other year? This is getting a little crazy.

How do you plan for your retirement or family or future with a yo-yo economy?

How can you buy property not knowing if you will have a job in a year? Or be able to get a job in the US reliably in 10 years when they have all gone overseas to lower rent districts? Sure some people will, but what about the average masses? Even those with college degrees keep having to change direction into the flavor of the month job wise with these companies and not everything is a living wage.

I just don’t know where our economy is going considering we have opened the door ourselves on developing nations and are being hit hard by how it has stolen the majority of our growth and industry. We are left as a nation of 300 million luxury consumers that on average owe $128,000.00 each to the bank (per economist’s state of 200 and will take everything out on credit to have the latest new stuff. When we can’t borrow anymore or pay the bills (like now) the economy will crash and people don’t have any savings to stay afloat. I call that false growth in the first place, but the markets don’t seem to distinguish between what they can falsley get you to buy into for a while before it crashes and real growth, nor do they seem to care.

Doesn’t it feel like 1929 to you sometimes?

Of course these are generalizations and you may not fit the bill at all here but it’s the generalizations that run the economy right now. And I think it’s sad. Our nation’s executives and business leaders have sold out to the lowest bidder and given our jobs away with no loyalty to the country which made all their wealth possible. All the while expecting us to mortgage ourselves to the hilt to keep buying their goods. Something has to change with corporate accountability in order for this to settle without a complete melt down disaster.  And stop blaming the American consumer. It’s not their fault. If they weren’t set up to fail by huge greedy businesses none of this would have happened.

Ninja Bear Gun vs Rock Paper Scissors January 17, 2008

Oh my, the creatives have come up with a new one. They are playing Ninja Bear Gun rather than the old Rock Paper Scissors. Where do they come up with these? In case you are wondering…

The ninja beats - kicks the gun out of your hand

The bear beats - mauls the ninja

The gun beats - shoots the bear

Love that there isn’t any violence here…

But then again you can get loopy by working this much.

That’s all for now.