smays.com

Order of the Fez #8: Howlin' Hobbit

The ranks of the secret (some would say cult-like) Order of the Fez have swollen to eight with the induction  of Howlin' Hobbit:

"Attached you will find a picture of me performing at The Pink Door in Seattle's fabulous Pike Place Market. This was several years ago and I was part of the Lucky Devil Girly Show, a burlesque troupe."

How could we refuse the application of someone that had been part of the Lucky Devil Girly Show? No way. Don't miss the link to Howlin's music.

Learfield's original business plan

In his latest "History of Learfield" blog post, founder and CEO Clyde Lear shares the business plan he put together 35 years ago, when he was starting the company. If you've ever started your own business, or think you might someday like to start your own business, you should download the PDF file and read Clyde's plan (just 27 pages).

This a fascinating look at the very earliest beginnings of what has turned into a multi-million dollar company (Disclosure: the company I work for).

As a blogger, I love that Clyde chose to share this bit of history on his blog. It's been sitting in his desk for 35 years and now he's put it out there for employees, friends, family and the world.

And she can sing

I always get a few "you filthy perv" emails when I post one of these photos of Kennett's Favorite Daughter, Sheryl Crow. I promise, I'm motivated by nothing more than small-town-pride. And appreciation for the work it must take to keep a 45-year-old body looking this fine. (I'm getting close to perv, aren't I?)

What can I say? Smart, talented women in control of their lives is a turn-on for me. Okay, it doesn't hurt if they're hot.

The cover is from the October issue of Shape. Previous posts on SC.

Googling Goobertown

In June of 2002, I was driving through northeast Arkansas and passed through the small town (hamlet?) of Goobertown. I snapped this photo and posted a couple of lines here. I mention this only because a surprising number of people find there way to this blog from a Google search on "Goobertown." smays.com is in the top half dozen results (regardless of how you abbreviate the state of Arkansas).

Sometimes I think of this blog as taking on a life of its own. While I'm sleeping, my links are reaching out to other blogs and they're linking back and Google keeps it all going, 24/7.

Could we have a screenplay here? Maybe a short story? Blog becomes self-aware and starts posting on its own. The blogger (me) can no longer post but communicates with the blog via comments. And because the blog is connected to the world's store of information, it's really smart and starts giving the blogger tips on how to make the world safer ("There's going to be an attempted coup in Flanistan. Here's the email address of someone who can stop it.") Okay, pretty weak.

This might make a better blog and movie. Hmmm. Sounds like a lot of damned work. Never mind.

J-Walk Blog

"The Web has thousands of halfway-decent blogs. This is one of them." That's how John Walkenbach describes his blog. No idea how I missed this wonderful blog all these years, but it's in the reader now. The few minutes you waste here can be better spent on the J-Walk Blog.

Update (Sept 30, 2007): Yesterday morning I happened across the J-Walk Blog and posted the link above at 11:22 a.m. CDT. At 10:22 a.m. Mountain, J-Walk gave smays.com a nice little mention. (Not sure how this could happen so quickly because I can't figure out the time zone thing.)

Not long after the mention on J-Walk, I heard from Keith Povall, a delightful chap (bloke?) who blogs from the UK. Keith is also the genius behind the Sandals and Socks website.

Post number 3,000

This is the kind of milestone I usually miss until I'm well past it. But a few days ago I happened to notice we were coming up 3,000 posts here at smays.com. Now, that's really not a lot of posts over a span of 5 1/2 years. But a fair amount of jotting for a journal that started with the tagline, "I've really got to start writing some of this down."

And while most of those 3,000 posts are short links to something someone else wrote and I found blog-worthy, this has been a good place to record those few original thoughts that popped into my head.

And every post is a thin, almost invisible thread, stretching out to become part of The Web. And every once in a while, someone plucks one of those threads and I get a little tingle of...connectedness? Hard to describe, but if you're a blogger, you know what I'm talking about.

I have no idea what I'll be doing a year from now... or 10 years from now... but I'm pretty sure I'll be writing things down here. And I promise not to bring this up again until we get to 10,000.

Record everything, post everything

In March of this year, I posted audio of a speech by Jan Hindman, author of "There Is No Sex Fairy. For 34 years, Ms. Hindman studied and researched the problem of sexual abuse, working with both sexual offenders and sexual victims through mental health endeavors, the educational realm, as well as private practice.

She was a keynote speaker at a conference organized by one of our clients. I was so impressed by her intelligence and wit that I posted the audio here at smays.com.

Today I received an email from her niece, letting me know that Jan Hindman passed away suddenly a few days ago. She found my post (and the audio) with a Google search:

"...it has been very comforting to hear her voice. It made me smile to hear her wonderful messages and her great sense of humor one more time. She was so very special."

This kind of thing happens more than you might expect. And it's one of the things I like best about blogging. As far as I know, the speech I posted might be the only one (by Ms. Hindman) online. I hope other friends and admirers find --and take some comfort-- from it.

Newspapers doing radio (and TV)

I just listened an interview that Mark Ramsey did with a couple of guys from the San Diego Union-Tribune (runs 17 min). Twenty minutes ago I'd have described Ron James and Marc Balanky as newspapers guys. Now, I'll call them media guys.

And they're gearing up to do what we used to call radio (and, eventually, TV). A couple of things they said jumped out at me:

"We have a newsroom that works 24 hours a day" and "...we have more than 300 reporters."

I flashed on all the empty or near-empty radio newsrooms out there. These guys are serious as a heart attack and I'd be damned worried if I were "just" a radio station in that market. On the other hand, if you aren't already well down the road to being more than just a radio station, don't sweat it. Squeeze what you can from old Bossie and remember the good times.

Childrens do learn

Just when I was about to give up on the new iMovie...

Apple has come out with a bunch of updates for the new iLife suite. And based on this post at AppleInsider, they've addressed a number of issues that were driving me nuts.

"Frame-by-Frame trimming, Audio Ducking level control, Manual Audio Fades, a duration settings for Transitions and Stills, an option to show the current playhead time, and other performance improvements."

This post has zero interest if you're not using iPhoto or iMovie. And only a smidgen if you are. If these updates are in response to unhappy users, that's a pretty quick fix.

iMac Update

I've done my share of gushing about the MacBook Pro and, more recently, the beautiful new iMac. So it's only fair I share some of the rough spots I've encountered the last few days.

Firefox is crashing like crazy on OSX. Almost unusable. Same for Photoshop. Not sure what's happening but look forward to getting it sorted out.

Phil has me set up with XP running on VMware and I'm suffering from mild schizophrenia, trying to move back and forth from Windows (for Outlook, mostly) and OSX. I finally just closed the win version of Outlook and started getting email via the Exchange server (when I could keep Firefox running).

I'm sure I'll get the hang of this but trying to live in both worlds is challenging. Once we get the crashes under control (I know, I know)... I plan to spend as much time in Mac Land as possible and I'm hoping that makes things easier.

But I'm in for the duration. My experience on the MacBook Pro has been delightful and I'd like to have that warm glow at work, too. That's gonna take some fiddling and some mental adjustment on my part.

West Coast Fez

Bay Area buddy Jamie Nelson is the newest member of the Order of the Fez. Jamie might look familiar due to expensive (and painful) cosmetic surgery that allows him to pass for a young Larry David.

Jamie is thrilled "to be part of the fez-wearing, non-little-car-driving, elite" and is the first tassel-less member.

"I like the more stripped down, Istanbul "street" look: More stability in a strong breeze off the Hellespont."

Jamie is the 7th (often regarded as a mystical and powerful number) member of The Order.

The War

I've been watching The War, the Ken Burns documentary on PBS. The guy knows how to tell a story. Last night's episode included the internment of Japanese-Americans, and I could picture Dick and W looking at map, trying to decide where to put the camps for Muslim-Americans.

I was also reminded of my parents telling me that for a good part of WWII, they weren't sure they'd win. My father was a radio operator in the Navy and saw action in the Pacific, but he never talked about it. At least not to me.

I only have a hand full of pix from that era.

Now Buddy can go steady again

I received the following email last week:

"My name is Mike McGuire. While camping at Lake Wapapello a few years ago, I came across a class ring from Kennett HS lying in the rocks. The year is dated 1966 and the initials on the inside of the ring are BDS. I looked up the students on classmates.com and found a Buddy Shivley. I sent an email through classmates.com and received no response. I then did a google search on “Buddy Shivley”, “Kennett” and “MO” and came up with your site.

Do you have any way to contact Buddy or his family? I would like to get in contact with him to determine if the ring is his and return it. I know this is “out there”, but it is a true story. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide."

I grew up with Buddy and went to high school with him. If you know how to get in touch with him, let him know he can stop searching for his senior ring.

Update: 9/25/07 -- One ring to rule them all. Thanks to Mike McGuire, Google, and a lot of luck, Buddy Shively will soon be reunited with his Kennett High School senior ring. Email from Buddy:

"Did you go on a trip to Lake Wappappello around the time we graduated HS? (not to be confused with the (in)famous float trip) I remember about 15 or 20 of us went. I remember riding in a boat with Ronnie Carnett pulling in toward shore in water over my head. All of a sudden Pat Brooks was in the water in front of the boat and Ronnie was setting there with his foot pumping an imaginary brake pedal with the boat going on toward Pat. (I think it was Pat and Ronnie – it may have been someone else – but I was still a hero!) I dove into the water (rather heroically, I might add) and pushed the boat away from Pat.  When I came up my ring was gone and I really hadn’t thought about it much in what  41 years."

And today, out of the blue, a Mike McGuire called and said he had found the ring and traced me down.  He is sending it to me.  What a deal."

Yes, what a deal. And no, I wasn't on that trip. But I love the Lord of the Rings flavor of this story. The story of my high school ring was one of the early posts here at smays.com.

Update: 10/11/07 -- Bud Shively has his high school ring back. "Who said it wouldn't fit?  It is as good as new. It sure hasn't been worn much.  I cannot believe it. Mike McGuire, of near St Louis, found my Kennett High School Class ring that I lost about 41 1/2 years ago and graciously had it cleaned at Randy's Jewelry (you did a great job, Randy's) in O'Fallon MO and kindly returned it to me."

Barney and Thelma Lou visit Las Vegas

One wonders if every trip to Las Vegas could be boiled down to three minutes and fifteen seconds.

Another rude question from Dilbert's dad

Scott Adams blogs this hypothetical question: "If it ever happened that America attacked Iran because of alleged nukes, and later confirmed it had no nuclear weapons program, and we discovered that the administration knew it all along, would it be in the best interest of the citizens of the United States to overthrow their government?"

Snapshots

A woman/man/boy takes my picture at a crowded sidewalk cafe. I object and the woman/man/boy runs away. I give chase. The mysterious photographer dashes in front of a bus and is killed instantly. I look down and see the camera at my feet. I pick it up and walk away. A couple of blocks away I go into a bar and turn on the camera, looking for a clue to the identity of the photographer. There are just 12 images on the camera, the last one being the one just taken of me. The story unfolds as I attempt to unravel the mystery, searching for clues in the twelve photos.

To put some meat on the bones of this story, I really should come up with interesting photos. For example, let's say one of them is crash scene of Princess Di (time stamped 5 seconds after the crash, before anyone else arrived).

And maybe one is a shot of Lee Harvey Oswald posing by the window in the book depository. (A digital image before there were digital cameras?)

If we want to take a spooky tack, the first image could be the crushed body of the photographer under the bus.

You get the idea. Would this make a better TV series than feature? You could post the images online and invite fans to help solve the mystery. Hmmm.

Comments/ideas are encouraged. And if this has already been done, please let me know.

The story behind the amazing Nike Freestyle ad

A few posts back I pointed you to a terrific segment on professional poker players, produced by This American Life. I don't think I mentioned that the first segment in that show was just as good.

Joel Lovell visits 19-year-old Luis Da Silva, one of the stars of a popular series of Nike commercials featuring professional and amateur basketball players doing dribbling tricks. You can watch the amazing Nike ad on YouTube (it's been viewed more than one million times). While you're there, check out the parody spot... and the soccer version.

iMac before and after

Help Desk Eric installed my new iMac (24 inch) yesterday. Getting the iMac at work was one of Life's Pleasant Little Surprises. Phil (our head IT guy) came me a few weeks ago to let me know I was up for a hardware refresh and gave me the option of an iMac. I almost said no.

Learfield COO Roger Gardner opted for an iMac and that --I suspect-- paved the way for me. As far as I know, we're the only two in the company with a Mac on the desktop.

This is an example of what a great IT department we have a Learfield. Instead of taking a we-only-do-Windows stance, they're open to trying something new. In my case, it makes a lot of sense, because most of the stuff I do can be done a little easier/better on the Mac than the PC.

I still have Windows XP running (on VMware). This means I have to adapt to sliding back and forth between Windows and OSX. It's gonna take some getting used to.

The iMac is a magnificent piece of hardware. Feels more like a piece of sculpture than a machine. But we won't go there.

The Office-Cam is down for now. Maybe for good. I've got a PC in the office as well and once we get it back online, I might turn the Office-Cam back on.

I'm looking forward to doing some video chats with those of you who have the capability and interest. Email me and I'll send my AIM name.

What else... Oh yeah, the new iMac keyboard. I love it. Didn't think I would be it feels great and works well.

So there you have it. Two operating systems running on one sleek device. Best of both worlds. Stay tuned.

CBS Radio is putting “60 Minutes” on iTunes

CBS Radio News is making the entire program available as an audio podcast free on iTunes, CBSNews.com and CBS Radio News affiliate websites.  An audio-only version of “60 Minutes” has been offered for radio syndication for years.  And some audio and video segments have been posted online.  But this is the first time the entire weekly show will be downloadable.  Executive producer Jeff Fager says the show is “perfect for this kind of audio podcasting because its relied on “solid storytelling, with or without the pictures.” [Inside Radio]

Order of the Fez: And then there were six

In an elaborate (and secret) ceremony, held in an undisclosed location, the newest member of The Order of the Fez was inducted last night. John Wells became the sixth member of the recently formed order and you can read his rambling, semi-coherent application statement here.

Las Vegas pix

Got back from weekend in Las Vegas, then down to the Lake for an off-site planning retreat. Playing hell with the blogging. Created a flickr set of my pix from Sin City. Barb's are sure to be better and I'll add them when we can find time to coordinate. She's been busier than I. And, yes, I know I haven't captioned or titled the flickr images. I'll get to them eventually.

I also grabbed some video but that's gonna have to be a weekend project. Gonna try to give the new iMovie another try. Watch this space for big announcement on Friday. I'm all tingly.

Welcome home, Marines

Just happened to be at the gate (Las Vegas) as a plane-load of U. S. Marines arrived home from Iraq. These guys were mighty glad to be back. I couldn't help thinking to myself that these guys are acting like they're home for good. Hope so.

As they left the gate area, travelers burst into spontaneous applause. It was moving and --for a few seconds-- nobody was thinking about politics.

Text Messaging Championships

Last December I introduced you to Tyne Morgan, our intern with the amazing touch-texting skills. Now that we have an entire generation of Tynes, it's only logical there would be a Text Messaging Championship:

"When cued, Participants will place their handsets on a marking on a counter-top area. All handsets will need to be closed. Participants will need to stand with their hands behind their back. The Referee will begin the round by counting down from 3, 2, 1 and announce “Go!” When the Referee says, “Go,” participants will then open their handsets and transcribe the phrase verbatim – no abbreviations, no typos – and send it to the designated referee’s phone."

"Pivot!! Pivot links Time Warner Cable services u enjoy @ home to ur Sprint wireless phone. w/Pivot home is where ur phone is!"

Some nice prizes, too. [Thanks, Scott]

This American Life: Poker Pros

Driving back from the airport (returning from Las Vegas) on Sunday, we listened to Ira Glass' This American Life:

"Ira travels to Las Vegas for the World Series of Poker, gets hooked, and tries to figure out what it would mean if he ditched his job in radio to become a professional card player. What he learns: a professional gambler can suffer two heartbreaking losses back-to-back, costing him over $100,000, and moments later, at the casino bar, calculate the million-to-one odds of his unlikely losses...in his head." (26 minutes)

By all means, go to the This American Life website and listen to the program there. If --for whatever reason-- it's no longer available, you can download/listen here.

As always, this is brilliant story telling, but it's a must-listen for anyone that ever thought they'd like to play cards for a living.

Email Marketing

In April of this year, Barb and I attended a performance by Blue Man Group in Columbia, MO. Prior to the show, you could register to win a "trip back stage" by providing your email address. Barb did.

Five minutes after checking into Treasure Island Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on Friday, she received an email from... Blue Man Group, inviting her to come see their show while she's in town.

I'm guessing they have some sort of arrangement with with all the MGM-owned hotels that allows them to match the email database against guest as they check in. As far as I know, they have not abused Barb's email address since collecting it. They were waiting to use it in this --or some other equally clever-- way.

Multimedia getting big in collegiate sports marketing

The company I work for has the marketing rights for the Oklahoma Sooners.  Last week the university announced a new new 10-year, $75 million extension of our deal. Here's the part that caught my attention:

"Sooner Sports Properties (Learfield) will create a broadband channel to run content about Sooners athletics in addition to certain radio and television rights for events not covered under contracts through the Big 12 Conference. It also holds provisions for emerging technology."

If I read the release correctly, multimedia content generated $2.65 million last year. Sounds like a whole new ball game doesn't it?

Surviving Las Vegas

Fake waterfalls, fake grass, fake tits. Las Vegas is city of illusions. If Branson is Las Vegas for people who don't haved teeth... Las Vegas is Branson for people who do. In fairness, Las Vegas is for people who like to gamble and shop. I don't care for either.

Nice wedding on Friday and a great show on Saturday. Cirque DuSoleil's "O" is amazing. Beyond description. The O Theater (The Mirage) seats 1,809 and the show has been sold out every night (2 shows) for years. Tickets range from $85-150. Let's call 'em $100, or $180,000 per show...$360,000 a night. And the show is probably a loss leader to get folks into the casino.

Took some pix and video and will share those when time allows.

Now I'm about to check email for first time since Thursday. This won't be pretty.

But these days it seems
Nowhere is far enough away
So I'm leaving Las Vegas today

Las Vegas Weekend

smays.com will be dark for a few days. Barb and I are heading for Las Vegas to attend wedding of one of Barb's co-workers. I'm not a gambler, nor a big fan of Vegas-style shows, but I need to get offline for a few days and spend some quality time with my honey.

Google Lunar X Prize

"Put a robotic lander on the moon, take a spin across the lunar landscape, and beam back visuals — with minimal or no government assistance. Pull that off before anyone else and the galaxy's richest, most audacious Internet company (Google) will hand over $20 million." [Wired]

After reading this story, the first thing that popped into my head was: I have more confidence in Google (and a few other companies for that matter) than I do in the U. S. government. My gut tells me Google is more efficient, less corrupt and possessing greater vision.

Guy Kawasaki at Gnomedex 2007

One of the best presentations at last month's Gnomedex was Guy Kawasaki. He's a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm and a columnist for Entrepreneur Magazine. Previously, he was an Apple Fellow at Apple Computer, Inc. Guy is the author of eight books, has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College. He talks about evangelism in this video.

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

"Things we were told about online that were wrong."

Steve Safran at Lost Remote takes a look back at some of the responses to his suggestions regarding the web. These bring back a lot of memories:

• Nobody will break news on their site before the story airs
• Newspapers won’t put much news online because it will cannibalize sales
• Nobody will buy web advertising
• Only young people use the web, and they don’t want news
• The bubble has burst - there’s no future in the web now
• There is no need to hire a web-only salesperson
• News websites will never “blog” or have anything to do with blogging
• Social networking tools don’t belong on news sites
• The networks will never send programming directly to the audience and ignore the locals
• People won’t watch video online because the quality is not high enough
• People won’t watch video on an iPod because the picture is not big enough
• Viewers won’t upload video and pictures because it’s too hard to do

Typepad for iPhone

Okay, this one is for bloggers only. This smays.com is a Typepad blog. I use it --and recommend it to our clients-- because it's easy to use. Great content management tools. And now there's a version optimized for the iPhone. [Video]

The news we want or the the news we need?

Morris points us to this story at Editor & Publisher:

"Mainstream media outlets may not be offering up the stories online users most want to read, according to a new survey that found user-generate new sites like Yahoo giving top billing to different stories than mainstream outlets. The study, from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, took a week's worth of news from three user-driven sites, and Yahoo, and compared it to top stories on various mainstream outlets. The result: online users gravitated toward different topics than those from traditional news outlets."

I'm not sure what this means, if anything. But it seems like it ought to mean something.

"You become what you say you are."

Scott Donation, blogging at Advertising Age, says your customers are more important than your brand:

"I hate to say it, but we need to re-draw the wheel one more time. This time, take the brand out of the center spot and replace it with your customers—audience and advertisers. Yes, media products should still think of themselves as brands, but everything they do needs to be organized around serving the customer, and the only way to create a truly customer-focused operation (rather than just mouthing the words) is to start at the core and build out. "You become what you say you are," a savvy publishing-industry chieftain said during a recent lunch with me and my management team." [Thanks, Roger]

"We're brands that have radio promotion"

Zena Burns, program director of Clear Channel's New York radio station cluster: "We’re no longer stations that have websites. We’re brands that have radio promotion." [Inside Radio]

History of Learfield: J-School Genesis

Clyde Lear's latest blog installment of the history of our company is the best yet.

"For two years I worked on my Masters in Journalism. I wrote my thesis on starting a state-wide radio network. Missouri --like a lot of states-- had dismal radio coverage from the state capital. Every radio newsroom, big city and small town, depended instead on the two major wire services, the AP and UPI.  There wasn’t access to the voices of the news makers. There was a need for a state-wide news service for radio stations."

The post includes some video of reports he did as part of final exam. These are priceless and make the post. You can't miss the embedded clip but be sure to hit the text link to a series of his stand-ups. I've included my favorite here to give you a taste.

These started out on 16 mm film and Clyde eventually sent them off to be converted to VHS. And now they're digital and on YouTube for the all the world to see.

Learfield is a pretty big company today and it's fun to see the germ of the idea that started it all.

nano upgrade: A+

The new iPod nano looked great at the product launch up on the big screen behind Steve Jobs. It looks great on the Apple website. And it looks great in the TV spot. But it looks/feels/smells even better in my hot, sweaty little hand.

How does video look on that wee screen? Amazing. I keep turning the nano over, tying to figure out how something that thin can play sharp, bright, crisp video.

I'm looking forward to watching more video podscasts and maybe a TV show or two.

In closing, a word about the iPod UI. I thought it was damn near perfect before but I must say they've improved it.

Protect and Serve (and maybe kick your ass)

A chilling hidden-camera video of an encounter with a St. George, MO (near St. Louis) cop. I hope some of the local media pick this up and ask some questions. Here's my imaginary scene at this morning's roll call at St. George PD:

First Cop: "Hey, Kenline! I watched you go ape shit on that kid out the commuter parking lot this weekend."
Sgt. Kenline: "What are you talking about?"
First Cop: "The kid had a camera rolling and your voice came through lound and clear. You got any vacation time coming, you need to take it, dude. But look at the bright side... you made the home page of Digg!"
Sgt. Kenline: "Uh, what's dig?

Watch the video | digg story

Update 9/11/07: St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig says his officers "are not trained and taught to act like that" ...and Sgt. James Kuehnlein on unpaid suspension pending further investigation. [StLToday.com]

Update 9/12/07: Brett Darrow (the guy getting his ass chewed by the cop) met with St. George Police Chief Scott Uhrig for more than an hour Tuesday afternoon and also filed a formal complaint against the officer, Sgt. James Kuehnlein. During the meeting Darrow asked to see the videotape from Kuehnlein's police car. But according to Uhrig, that footage, inexplicably, is nowhere to be found. [St. Louis Post-Dispatch] If the officer did nothing wrong, wouldn't the patrol car video have cleared him? Hmmm?

Moral of the Story: Live each day like it's gonna be on YouTube tomorrow.

All I need is one more ending

It's the first day of anatomy class and the med students are being assigned cadavers. During the dissection process, one geeky but brilliant student discovers that his guy didn't die from natural causes. He was, in fact, killed in a highly sophisticated manner that could only have been murder. The kind of high tech death that should have been undetectable.

We all know the next part. He takes his discovery to his professors, the cops, etc etc. Nobody listens.

The med student can't find the dead guy's name because the records have been erased. But his geeky-yet-adorable former girlfriend matches the face with images she finds online and discovers the guy was a blogger for the last ten or twelve years of his life.

The plot unfolds as our two protagonists dig back through the dead guy's blog, looking for clues to who killed him and why.

Regular readers know this is as far as I get with my plots but, in a few days, Kay Henderson will come up with a thrilling conclusion.

If you can't come up with a killer (snicker) ending, feel free to suggest a title.

1953 (reprise post)

I first posted these images in April, 2005. I finally got around to adding them to my iPhoto library and decided to clean the photos. They were among the treasure trove of negatives given to me by John Reeder. All appear to be taken in the old Kennett High School Gym/armory. I find these images haunting.

Would be fun to ID all the players.

Another spurt of Google juice

I don't get a lot of traffic here. So I'm always a little surprised by the Google ranking of a random post. Last month I posted on "Marketing vs. Advertising." It was a nothing post. Just a link to an explanation at about.com. Three sentences.

Of the 7 million+ results of a Google search on that headline, my post was #10. First page. (If you search on "marketing vs. advertising," you get 14 thousand+ results, and my post is #8)

I wouldn't argue with those that would point to this example as a flaw in Google search. But let's face it, Google is how most of us find what we're searching for. And my ranking did no harm, since the #1 result was the page I had linked to in my post.

If you're not a blogger you probably stopped reading a couple of grafs up. But this is the kind of anecdotal "evidence" I use when encouraging clients to blog.

Speaking of pointless stats... I just noticed that I'm closing in on 3,000 posts. Not a big number in Power Blogger circles, but for someone as commitment challenged as smays... noteworthy.

Grokking new iMovie

My first brush with the new iMovie was bumpy. I'm looking forward to taking another run at it, after watching the first of a two-part tutorial from from ScreenCasts Online.

ScreenCastsOnline is a weekly video podcast of computer based video tutorials. The video tutorials cover many different topics from week to week but predominantly cover mac related subjects. The video tutorials are in the form of "screencasts" which are basically videos of screen captures demonstrating a particular application or service, with a spoken commentary explaining what is happening on screen.

Don McAllister's easy-to-follow demo/tour was just what I needed. I'll still use iMovie HD (the previous version) for a lot of stuff, but when I need to throw something together quickly...

I can't recommend ScreenCastsOnline highly enough. It's a free podcasts but I recommend the Extra! membership ($50 a year).

Monkey Head Fez

The Order of the Fez now has enough members to play ping pong doubles. Please rise and join me in recognizing David Brazeal, Order of the Fez #4:

"Hereby is submitted my application to the Order of the Fez. Thanks to ebay, I have obtained a fez from a monkey trainer in Tel Aviv.  It belonged to his dear, beloved macaque, Ahmed, who was recently crushed to death in a fruit stand accident."

I think you might enjoy the Unpacking of the Fez video over at the OOTF blog.

Queen of Live Blogging

I rely on sites like engadget and gizmodo to live blog events like Wednesday's big product launch of the new iPods. And I'm always amazed that anyone can listen/think/type that quickly.

But I'll put my home girl Kay up against one and all when it comes to live blogging. Check out her coverage of Fred Thompson's announcment in Des Moines yesterday. Seriously, it's like being in the room...minus all the sweaty reporters.

Newsletters and blogs

In the last 4 or 5 years, I've had many occasions to talk with clients about their monthly/quarterly newsletter. Usually in the context of, "We want to email these suckers to everyone and (somehow) make them read them."

I try to persuade them that a blog is a better tool but requires a shift in perspective. More on that in a bit.

Here are Three Truths I've discovered about newsletters:

1. Managers love newsletters.
2. The people who have to "write" newsletters hate them.
3. The people who receive newsletters are bored by them and --for the most part-- never read them.

Why do managers love newsletters?

Managers love newsletters because they don't have to write them... but do get to proof (several times) every word and every piece of clip art.

Managers see the newsletter as benign propaganda. A great tool for recognizing workers who put in a bunch of extra hours on a project, for no extra money.

Newsletters say "we are one big happy family and here's what we've been up to since the last newsletter."

Why to the people who write the newsletters hate them?

Because they don't really get to write them. They have no real say about the content and they can't/don't try for a human voice because it isn't really coming from them. It's from the boss (although she doesn't write them either) or some middle manager who proofed all the life and fun out of the thing before letting it out the door.

Pulling together a newsletter every quarter (or every month, god forbid!) is the worst kind of cat herding. They beg and plead with department heads to submit something for the newsletter and they're always late, so the "editor" is scrambling right up to deadline to pull the thing together. And it reads like it.

But, most of all, they hate the newsletter because they know that few, if any, read the damned thing.

Why do the recipients rarely read newsletters?

First and foremost, there is almost never anything "new" in them (see #2 above). In today's wired, mobile, always connected world... something that happened 4 or 5 weeks ago is ancient history. And everyone knows that management would never allow anything really interesting to find it's way into the newsletter anyway.

Why is a blog better?

To understand why a well written and maintained blog is a better communication tool, let's look through the other end of the telescope.

Readers like blogs for all the reasons they hate newsletters. They have news. Usually every day. They're written by real, live, flesh-and-blood people. With opinions and perspective and insights. They care about what they're writing about, so I care too. And because I care, I subscribe to the blog's RSS feed get the latest post when and where I want it, while it's still fresh and relevant.

The person writing the blog loves doing it. They care about the subject and their passion and interest comes across in every post. They've been empowered and entrusted to communicate with their readers and they take the responsibility seriously. And because they post whenever some new or interesting comes along, it takes less time (or seems to). No tedious Page Maker layout or agonizing html hassles. Today's blogging tools make posting as simple as an email.

Which brings us back to the manager. Why does he/she hate and fear the blog? In my experience it's all about control. Specifically, the loss thereof. With a newsletter, the boss can edit and re-edit and edit again. Until he gets the perfect sanitized, homogenized, safe-for-all-pay-grades piece of corporate-speak.

Blogs don't work that way. Blogs are living, breathing things. Which is one of the reasons they are fun to read. And so damned scary to "the people in charge." What if somebody writes something that gets us in trouble?

These days, I don't waste a lot of energy trying to sell blogs over newsletters. When a client says, show me how to do this blog thing... I'm happy to show 'em the ropes. But if I see that they really aren't there, I encourage them to go back to the newsletter. And I always get a mental image of a C130 flying low over a village, dropping leaflets ("Put down your weapons. We are here to help you"). The villagers never read these but they hang on to them because you never know when you're gonna need some extra paper.

Help Wanted. Tedious work, low wages

I'm looking for a young man or woman to help me do some web stuff at work. This would be a paid internship or part-time gig to start, but could turn into something more. I'm posting here because I do almost everything here first. And nobody knows me better than you who haunt the digital hallways of smays.com.

As the image suggests, this person will be chained to an oar, deep in the bowels of our digital galley ship. I'm searching for someone to help me keep up with a whole bunch of websites (Learfield sites and client sites). Things like checking and updating links, processing images for use online (a little Photoshop savvy would be very helpful), and the like. Too numerous to list here.

If you know a little about blogging and flickr and YouTube and such... go to the head of the line. If your first questions are about hours and pay... never mind. You'd hate this job. The person I'm looking for spends more time online than off. They sometimes check their email before they brush their teeth in the morning. They watch TV while holding an open laptop.

This ain't a resume kind of position. I'd much rather get a link to a blog or a "why-I'm-the-right-person-for- this-job" video on YouTube. Otherwise, tell me in an email (no attachments) why you would be good at this. 500 words or less. If the email isn't good, you'll never get an interview.

If you know someone like this, send them a link to this post.

A special shout out to Corey and Lauren K: You guys were great at this and I'd love to have you back. Or if you know someone half a good, send them my way.

HD Radio looking for iTunes hook

From INSIDE RADIO: "Polk Audio will announce the next generation of HD Radio tuners that will establish a direction connection between HD and iPods -- and in the process bring e-commerce to HD. In an alliance with Apple, Polk’s new I-Sonic ES2 HD Radio will include an iPod docking station that features a “tagging button” which will allow listeners to buy songs they hear on HD Radio stations via iTunes. The advancement requires HD stations to encode their signals and insiders say eight radio groups have committed to encoding."

I don't know. Maybe.

Key to efficient blogging

This post at E-Meida Tidbits is aimed at journalists who worry about the additional time it takes to blog. But I think this is good advice for any blogger.

"...the key to blogging efficiently is this: DO NOT treat it like writing an article. That is, make blogging part of your ongoing processes for research, notetaking, and communication.

A blog post is not (or at least, it shouldn't be) a writing assignment you must prep for and deliver as a finished package. Let go of the idea that you must have everything nailed down, organized, and edited before you publish."

I've been stressing (just a little) about my light posting of late and had this idea for a T-shirt.

Time to rethink the AP model?

Cory Bergman at Lost Remote raises some interesting questions about the AP model in light of Google's deal to host AP stories (rather than link back to newspaper websites).

He also points to a blog post on the "prickly issue of local broadcasters pulling local newspaper stories via the wire and posting them online (and occasionally vice-versa). Now that both mediums have expanded to the web, they’re direct competitors. And the local wire goes a long way to beef up the depth of content on a local TV site."

I'm pretty sure he's talking about TV broadcasters. I'm afraid nobody is much concerned about radio stations getting their news from Google.