From a Mindy McAdams post on setting up a team for online journalism: "Sure, it would be great if you could hire one single person who could do everything. We call that “computer jesus” — and you need to accept the fact that there really are not many people in the world who can walk on water.
The Transportation Security Administration
has given the go-ahead for passengers to use newly designed carry-on
bags that will let them pass through security without having to take
their laptops out for the X-ray inspection. The T.S.A. would accept the new
laptop cases as soon as they come on the market.[NYT]
I've heard good things about slideshare, saw it on Buzz Machine, and decided to give it a try. This is an old (and out of date) presentation but it's the only one I have, so... I believe you can drop in narration audio and I'll give that a try later.
I just like the idea of embedding a slideshow better than trying to email around huge PowerPoint files.
Mark Ramsey points us to this LA Times story about Chrysler's plans to offer wireless Internet in its 2009 models. Something we all knew was coming. As always, Mr. Ramsey asks the good questions. Here's one of them:
"What does it mean to be "radio" in a world where audio is fully integrated into an experience that includes video, text, interactivity, and personalization? The attraction to these services will not only be that they're supplemental to radio, but that they expand the definition of radio. And that expansion will benefit only those broadcasters and their partners smart enough to recognize that the advantage of a broadcast tower is non-existent in this context."
Or a satellite channel?
Don't bail before the big finish. Worth the wait. [Thanks, Bob.]
Personal Democracy Forum/techPresident: "Starting tonight, a designated representative of both of the major presidential campaigns are going to participate in a free-wheeling debate on technology and government, moderated by Time magazine blogger Ana Marie Cox and channeled via Twitter."
This is probably one of those ideas that sounds more interesting than they turn out to be. But I'll be following along, just because I have the hots for AMC.
This is one of the reasons I've always owned my own laptops (and most other work-related) toys. Even though the company would have probably provided some of these. I take the "carpenter's tools" view. I know that all hammers are not the same. I want the best.
That was part of a promo I heard on MSNBC tonight. First time I noticed the phrase, "embed video." Even the networks are figuring out it's a good thing to have your video embedded in millions of blogs and websites.
I'm sure there is still a lot of "...no, no! We want them to come to OUR website!" But the web IS the network now and your affiliates are are all those blogs.
This NYT story reminded me one of my favorite management stories (The Cleanest Tastee Freeze in Town). A couple of grafs in particular:
"No state was more important to his candidacy than Iowa, but when (Senator Obama) arrived there for campaign visits he stopped aides who tried to give detailed accounts of developments."
“I’d get in the car with him and talk a mile a minute,” recalled Paul Tewes, who was the campaign’s state director. Mr. Tewes recalled that on the candidate’s fifth visit to the state, Mr. Obama interrupted one of his detailed updates, saying: “You know what, Paul? All I want from you is for you to do your best, and I trust you and you know what you’re doing.”
In the years that I reported to Clyde Lear, I heard him say (to me and others) almost those exact words, more times than I can count. I've heard many talk the talk in this regard, but only a few that could walk the walk. Nice to know Senator O is one of them.
If you missed this story on NPR's Morning Edition last week, it's worth a listen (4 min). Seems the market for web site domain names is on the rise. Last month, the name Gasprices.com sold for $300,000.
Back when we registered Legislature.com, we could not believe it was still available. I mean, ALL one-word domains were gone by that time. But for some reason, not Legislature.com. We jumped on it. Would we sell it? In a New York minute. Dot com.
Another "plain English" video from the folks at Common Craft. Previous installments in this series were dead-on. RSS, Blogging, Podcasting... all clearly explained. I think the concept of social media is more challenging. I think you might watch this one and still be fuzzy on just what social media is. You just have to use it to grock grok it.
UPDATE: Thanks to Dr. T. Everett Mobley for catching my misspelling of grok. I had to work hard to remember the "c" in "Barack" and it just slipped in. What would I do without you, Doc?
Dave Morris shows off the HP Elite webcam. This little bugger ($60?) does face-tracking and auto-zoom/auto-focus. The audio on this demo is with a pro mic, however. Not sure what you get on the webcam
Update: I misunderstood. Dave says the audio was recorded with the webcam's on board mic.
Side note: I'm surprised the Blogger video didn't offer option of embedding. Perhaps Dave simply didn't have that enabled.
Podcating News points to (and excerpts) CIOZone article that takes a look at the IT strategy behind Obama’s campaign, which includes Chris Hughes, who was one of the three co-founders of Facebook and now runs the campaign’s my.barackobama.com, which itself is a sort of social network.
"The Web site allows the campaign to be “owned by the masses,” Spinner says, but he encourages even big donors to complete the transaction through the Web site, saving himself the time it would take to drive to their home or office to collect a check. Although hillaryclinton.com eventually matched most of the features of barackobama.com, the Obama campaign embraced the Web more enthusiastically and fielded many of those capabilities about six months ahead of the competition, Spinner says. “The DNA of everyone working on the Obama campaign is very much a startup mentality, where what matters is how you build it, how fast you roll it out, and how you tie it together.”
Six months. A long time in the online world. Will be interesting to see how the McCain campaign does in this space.
I bought a Flip Ultra video camera last week, just to play with and show friends. Henry has it now and I can't wait to see what he (an extremely talented professional digital artist) comes up with. Everybody that sees this little gadget seems to love it.
And now there's a smaller/cuter/cooler version. The Flip Mino is 40% smaller than the Ultra and comes with 2GB of memory (records up to one hour of video). Pick one up at Amazon for $179. Shit. If I had waited a week...
There are just so many things I like about The PageCast, I'm not sure where to begin. First, what is The PageCast.
It's a 60 second video by Time Magazine's Mark Halperin, previewing the three stories that he thinks you should be watching for today. You'll find it on the top/right of The Page. Big whoop, right? Okay, here's some of the things I like about this simple idea (and this particular PageCast):
The news directors of our radio networks would be great at this. And their listeners/readers/viewers would eat it up.
UPDATE: My buddy Kay reports that Mark Halperin records PageCast between 7-9 a.m. (usually), wherever he happens to be and in whatever he happens to be wearing. If he's on the West Coast, he usually records them at night. He thinks of what he wants to say just before he begins recording (or in the shower or at the gym), on his MacBook Pro (edits with iMovie).
The idea was prompted by the desire to put video on The Page, while keeping it easy to produce and watch. Just as I suspected. Simple idea, well executed.
Now, some entrepreneurs have introduced technology to solve that problem. They are equipping billboards with tiny cameras that gather details about passers-by — their gender, approximate age and how long they looked at the billboard. These details are transmitted to a central database.
Behind the technology are small start-ups that say they are not storing actual images of the passers-by, so privacy should not be a concern. The cameras, they say, use software to determine that a person is standing in front of a billboard, then analyze facial features (like cheekbone height and the distance between the nose and the chin) to judge the person’s gender and age. So far the companies are not using race as a parameter, but they say that they can and will soon.
The goal, these companies say, is to tailor a digital display to the person standing in front of it — to show one advertisement to a middle-aged white woman, for example, and a different one to a teenage Asian boy." [New York Times]
I hate air travel. Not "white knuckle" hate, but "hassle hate." Fortunately I don't have to do much of it any more. But lots of people in our company do and I feel for them. I also wonder how much of it is really necessary. Usually while playing with iChat and live video streaming.
Latest issue of Business Week has an article titled, The Waning Days of the Road Warrior (Why the current slowdown in business travel may not end when the economy recovers).
"For years, Irv Rothman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard's Financial Services division, traveled at least once a quarter—top three lieutenants in tow—from his New Jersey base to HP's Silicon Valley headquarters. After enduring Newark airport hell and six-and-a-half hours of stale, germy air, the team would arrive, strung out, to meet with their boss. For one hour. Then they would turn around and do the whole thing all over again.
The super surge in oil prices and resulting spike in airfares is just one reason companies are ordering their road warriors home. Factor in, too, the misery of modern air travel, which has de-glamorized the business junket. HR types also have a new appreciation for how the frequent-flier lifestyle can wreck executives' health and family lives. And they have come to realize that jetting off for a one-hour meeting, while instinctual for corporate strivers, is rarely productive.
So, if managers aren't flying to meetings, what are they doing? Using newfangled technology that is finally delivering the kind of Star Trek-y, space- and time-shifting experiences that tech executives have blabbered on about forever. Videoconferencing, Web-enabled meetings, online collaboration tools—all are giving workers the ability to dart around the globe from their desk chairs."
The article reminded me of driving from Jefferson City, MO, to Dubuque, IA (9 hours?) to call on a station manager who really didn't want to see me. To get the appointment I said something like, "All I need is a minute of your time."
When I walked into his office and started take a seat, he reminded me that I had said I only needed one minute and that's all that I had. So I stood there with my little briefcase in hand and told him what our network could do for his station. (I didn't sign him up) Today I might have just sent him a Quicktime file or made my "pitch" via iChat. No less effective and a lot less costly.
Videoconferencing and related technologies really only work when both parties want to hear what the other has to say. How many meetings take place because it was the only way the "prospect" could get the sales rep to leave her the fuck alone? (Wonder if there's any data on that)
These days, most of the people I deal with in remote locations want to talk to me and I want to talk to them. And, increasingly, they have the tech skills to do a quick face-to-face.
And if I need to send them a url or an image or any other kind of file for that matter, it's easy to do.
Old Schoolers will talk about body language and non-verbal communication and "pressing the flesh" and all the other arguments for being in the same room.
We'll talk again when that airline ticket to the coast is $2,000.
I make and receive about three phone calls a week. All to and from Barb.
"Want me to bring you some Chinese?"
"Pick up some dog food. We're out."
"Did you try to call me just now? (No) Huh."
So I don't really need a cell phone. Let alone an iPhone. But boy are those buggers cool? All my pals have them and love them. Can't imagine going back to whatever they had before.
And next month we'll probably see the new and improved (3G) iPhone and the flames of my iPhone lust will be whipped as by Santa Ana winds.
When asked why I don't have an iPhone, I mumble some variation of what you just read. But the real answer has more to do with my MacBook Pro. I always have it with me and have big chunks of my life recordable or accessible there.
Think of the MacBook Pro as a sleek, high-performance racing car. And the iPhone as a sexy, top-of-the-line motorcycle (Candy Apple Red).
It would be fun to ride the motorcycle (zoom! zoom!) but that would mean leaving the MacBook Pro in the garage. What a waste. Why not take both along? I could, but that would be like towing the motorcycle behind the sports car on a trailer. Cumbersome (and silly).
I'd love to see some data on this. Do new iPhone users tote their laptops less often? Perhaps at the molecular level, we are laptoppers or iPhoners. I think I'm the former.
I don't know if this is breaking news or something everyone already knows. But AgWired's Chuck Zimmerman Twittered what might have been news (Chuck's tweet is the one on top).
When I demo'd Twitter to one of our reporters, all he could see was ("Who cares if someone's plane is delayed?"). For some the online glass is half full, for others...
UPDATE: More from Lost Remote.
Amy Gahran is a former full-time journalist, editor, and managing editor. Today, her work mainly involves conversational online media (weblogs, forums, wikis, e-mail lists) as well as feeds, podcasting, and e-learning. Here are a couple of excerpts from her recent post at E-Meida Tidbits:
"I've been getting quite aggravated at the close-minded and helpless attitudes I'm still encountering from too many journalists about how the media landscape is changing. I realize that right now is a scary time for journalists who crave stability. I have immense sympathy for good, smart people (many of whom have families to support and retirements to plan) who fear the unknown. Many of the news orgs that have sheltered and supported these journalists as they ply their craft are crumbling due to their inability or unwillingness to adapt their business models -- leading to layoffs, buyouts, attrition, dwindling resources, overwork, and general demoralization.
I also know -- first hand -- that the prospect of learning new skills can be daunting. Plus, many of us have spent lots of money on j-school and many years in professional journalism honing our writing and reporting skills. We don't want to learn how to think like an entrepreneur, or an information architect, or a community manager. We just want to keep doing what we know how to do; we didn't sign up for all this extra stuff."
This is an insightful post, worth a full read. (Shirts available in S, M, L, and XXL)
"James Karl Buck helped free himself from an Egyptian jail with a one-word blog post from his cell phone. Buck, a graduate student from the University of California-Berkeley, was in Mahalla, Egypt, covering an anti-government protest when he and his translator Mohammed Maree were arrested April 10.
On his way to the police station, Buck took out his cell phone and sent a message to his friends and contacts using the micro-blogging site Twitter.
The message only had one word. "Arrested."
Within seconds, colleagues in the United States and his blogger-friends in Egypt -- the same ones who had taught him the tool only a week earlier -- were alerted he was being held." [CNN]
I gotta get a better cell phone. And why NOT program some tweets?
"Arrested"
"Leave the house/office immediately!"
"Tivo The Office!"
[via Chuck]
Steve Rubel describes three "emerging digital careers" to watch. You can read his description of each here, but "Chief Customer Experience Officer" seems like a must-have to me:
"Want to know if a company is a good witch or a bad witch? It's easy. The web knows. Google, the media and online communities are littered with tales of companies that have exemplary products and customer service. However, it's often easier to find those that have been vilified for the opposite. That's the thesis of Pete Blackshaw's forthcoming book - Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000.
Here's an experiment. For fun, enter any company into this special Google search engine I set up and let me know what you find. Brands are increasingly recognizing that customer experience is everything." [Thanks, David]
"In a good illustration of how media is becoming ever more conversational and interactive, United Media, “Dilbert’s” syndicate, is revamping Dilbert.com, letting the fans take up the cartoonist’s pen and tinker with, and then widely distribute, each strip.
When registered visitors to the new site click on a “mashups” tab, they can alter the text bubbles in each strip’s last panel. Soon, the syndicate says, visitors will be able to author entire strips, alone or collectively, and Mr. Adams himself will spar with fans and comment on the altered work. These new strips can be e-mailed or posted elsewhere on the Web." [New York Times]
Who gets the new web more than Scott Adams? What a brilliant move. Instead of suing people (like me) who love and "share" his strips, he's making it easy and even more fun.
I was scanning AdRants when the quote above caught my eye. Here's a couple of chunks from the post:
"Want to hear an interesting conversation about social media and it's impact on marketing, advertising, public relations and journalism? Want to know how the role of public relations is changing in the world of public relations? Want to explore the differences in mentality between new media and old? Want to now whether or not it's sinful to publish a story before every last detail of the story is known? Want to know why readers, who are now commenters, are so important to the whole of the story? Then give this podcast a listen."
I caught about 15 minutes over lunch and look forward to hearing the rest. It sounds like a pretty good peek into the minds of some PR pros, with the focus on New Media (whatever that is). If you blog, send or receive news releases... I think you'll find this worth the listen.
The guys (no gender implied) at AdRants are big fans of Twitter:
"Writing on Entrecard Graham Langdon makes the argument Twitter will be bigger than Facebook. He's right. Twitter is many things but it lacks the baggage and some of the "creepy" aspects of Facebook. All within 140 characters, Twitter is IM, email, mobile app, chat room, focus group, news source, a wall on which to bounce ideas, a research resource, presence indicator.
It's usually the simplest of things that have the most value. Facebook is bloated. Twitter is Internet Lite (I refuse to dub it anything with a 2.0 attached). It's a simple but ever so powerful interface that brings so many things together and functions as a jumping off point to an endless collection of resources and information.
It's pretty much guaranteed you'll interpret this as idiotic puffery but until you use Twitter, really use it for a while, you won't really understand what you're missing and you don't realy have the right to comment. Seriously. Give it a try."
I confess I've given up trying to explain Twitter. And it took me more than a year to come around.
The tagline on the Art Text website is: "Where text becomes art," and that's pretty much right on. I've been looking for an app that would compensate for my lack of graphic design skills and this comes close.
If you have the Photoshop chops you can probably do everything that Art Text does but even then it's going to take you longer.
This graphic for the Coffee Zone took about 5 minutes to create.
From NPR: "As more doctors go online to communicate with patients, two of the country's biggest health insurers have started reimbursing patients for the Internet visits. But critics say the online advising could lead to errors, and patient privacy could be compromised."
I got a few minutes with Missouri State Senator Charlie Shields this morning. Senator Shields --the Majority Floor Leader-- was kind enough to let me ask a few questions at a very busy time for the legislature. I wanted his take on how the Senate uses --or doesn't-- use technologies like laptops, the web, smart phones, Blackberry's, blogs and podcasting.
The House allows laptops in the chamber but the Senate doesn't. The concern seems to be that senators would be surfing the web or checking email and not paying attention to debate and the business of the senate. Senator Shields does not agree with that position and feels it's just a matter of time until laptops are allowed.
I asked about Blackberry's and smart phones, which are allowed. He said you don't have to look hard to find a Senator checking his email.
The media can have laptops in the press gallery at the press table. I didn't ask but assume there is wifi access for the media because I could get it in the hallway waiting to talk with the senator.
I asked if any bloggers had requested permission to cover the senate. He said not to his knowledge. I wasn't entirely clear on his answer to the question, would bloggers be allowed to cover the proceedings. I think both the House and Senate make a pretty clear distinction between the "real" media and bloggers.
Senator Shields was unaware of any of his senate colleagues blogging. It surprises me a bit that some of the more clued-in haven't discovered the power of this tool.
As for personal tech gadgets, Senator Shields has a Blackberry and an iPod on which he sometimes listens to jazz podcasts and NPR's Car Talk.
He concluded with the prediction that the role of technology in the Senate will increase dramatically in coming years. No doubt.
Update: Missourinet News Director Bob Priddy --who has been covering the Missouri legislature since the early 70's-- adds and clarifies:
"We actually don't have a press gallery as the House does. We have a press table which is on the Senate floor. The senate, of course, has had its sessions on the internet, first on our site, then on others, and then on its own site for many years.
The irony of the idea that Senators will be at their desks checking email or playing games or bidding on ebay is that most senators don't stay on the floor unless the legislation being considered is really big or unless they have a specific role with any bill. They can be in their offices checking their email or playing games or shopping on ebay.
The use of blackberries and smart phones on the Senate floor is a mixed blessing. It does enable the senators to get information from their office or their staff without leaving their desks. But it also enables lobbyists to send them messages from the hallways, giving lobbyists access to the Senate floor although the rules don't allow them in the chamber in person. For some folks, that's not a comfortable relationship but nobody has figured out a way to control that access, nor do they seem to want to.
The use of the computer has helped the amendment process. Senate staff sits at the other table at the front side of the chamber and can prepare amendments on the computer and run them into a printer pretty quickly. It's been several years since I've seen a Senator write an amendment at the desk. In fact, debate is often slowed or stopped so a Senator can go to the staff table and have the staff write an amendment.
Of course the computer has made it a whole lot easier for the people in the clerk's office to compile the journal, prepare copies of bills with amendments included in them before the bill goes up for final passage----and just generally manage the flow of documents that go through the place."
PS: If you're wondering why I didn't just post the audio of the interview... I hit the wrong button on my new fancy-pants digital recorder and erased the interview. Please don't take my car keys.
Lost Remote's Cory Bergman explains --again-- why TV station websites lag behind newspaper sites. He identifies two root problems:
"The first is the fact that broadcast scripts are not appropriate to read online. They must be rewritten, usually by a web producer because the reporter A) “doesn’t have time” or B) can’t write. From a financial perspective, the time rewriting this script is a wasted cost. Reporters should write their own web stories — multiple updates throughout the day if needed — following AP style.
The second is the misguided notion that a TV station’s web staff is there just to repurpose TV stories with a few extras here and there. As a result, TV sites are oppressively heavy on crime/fires/accidents and feature thin TV versions of newspaper and AP stories."
I read countless stories and posts like this and the thing that always gnaws at me is the the complete absence of any mention of radio station websites. Zip. Nada.
Karl Rove on why liberals are more likely to be online than conservatives:
"...a lot of people on the right have got active lives and are doing other things," Rove said. "The idea of spending a lot of time on the internet and taking their talents and displaying them there is not something [conservatives] really do."
That's not counting the hours spent deleting White House emails.
Gordon Borrell, writing in Inside Radio:
"As an advertising medium, the Internet is already larger than radio. It will approach $34 billion this year and is on a trajectory to overtake newspaper advertising within five years. In virtually all markets, the largest local Web site (typically run by a newspaper company) is now grossing more ad revenue than the largest radio station in that market. In some markets, the largest site is grossing more than the largest cluster of stations."
"Your radio reps have a bounty on their heads. We survey more than 3,000 local Web sites every year about their revenues, expenses, number of salespeople and other revenue-related topics. The ones with the greatest market share and revenue have an interesting characteristic in common: a star-performing “former radio rep” on the sales staff. The word has spread that radio salespeople know how to sell the Internet, and newspaper and TV Web site managers have been recruiting them left and right. Radio reps know how to cold-call, how to generate new business, and how to sell reach and frequency. That’s a perfect match for Internet sales."
Drop.io is a website where you can create "simple private exchange points" called "drops." The service has no email sign-up and no "accounts." Each drop is private, and only as accessible as you choose to deliberately make it. Create multiple drops, add any type of media, and share or subscribe as you want."
You can share audio or video with friends and family; teachers can share notes and record lectures; work groups can share resources and feedback.
This basically a free, anonymous FTP server. But most folks don't have access to FTP servers and drop.io is much easier to use. I've dropped a short (5 sec) video at drop.io/smaysdropspot if you care to see how this works.[Thanks, David for the tip.io]
"Oh, you shouldn't have!" I shrieked, as I opened yesterday's birthday present. The only way Barb could have known I wanted the Marantz PMD620 Professional Handheld Field Recorder is... I told her.
I've been using the larger PMD660 for a year to two but found that a nice home with Jamie. So far I like almost everything I've seen and heard about the 620. The built-in mics are just so-so but I'll plug in an external mic for most work.
The size is what appealed to me. About the size of a deck of cards. And the display is easier for me to read than with the previous model. Download this short MP3 file if you want to hear what it sounds like. I'm using a Heil PR-20 mic.
A lot of people have trouble explaining Twitter. The people at Common Craft, a series of short explanatory videos, do the job with Twitter in Plain English. I do NOT need one more (micro) blog to care for but I'm test driving Twitter.
I've posted a couple of times on the restrictive policies of the NFL and the MLB regarding audio, video, still images and other content on websites.
Green Bay Packer QB Brett Favre is holding a news conference to officially announce he's hanging it up. First words out of the Packer media guy's mouth: You can broadcast on radio and TV, but no streaming from websites. Except for one: Packers.com.
Hardly a mystery. The Packers do not --as far as I know-- own radio or TV stations. But they DO have a website and and it's got lots of sponsors. Just one more example of how the web is changing --if you'll forgive me-- the playing field. Once upon a time, the teams and the leagues needed the media to reach their fans. They still need them, but maybe not as much and not for everything. As more and more fans --and advertisers-- move to the web, this will be a big issue.
Update: Lost remote reports that traffic at Packers.com was so heavy, they had to switch to a breaking-news layout.
Once again, Mark Ramsey asks the right question:
"So the question your (radio) station must ask itself is this: What would we be and do if we didn't have a broadcast tower at all and only had a website? How would we build this thing?"
Me and a couple of pals drove over to St. Louis this week and stood in line in the bitter cold for most of an hour to watch a taping of Diggnation. If you're not familiar with Diggnation, think Wayne's World for the Internet with lots of beer. And in this case, a live audience of 300+ screaming, twenty-something fans. Almost all male. I've seen less rowdy hockey crowds.
I found this video of the pre-show (we had much better seats) on Digg (appropriately enough). As I watched the taping, I had the sense we were seeing a new kind of entertainment for a new audience. This is not your father's TV. Freed from the constraints of networks and the FCC, the hosts can guzzle beer and say whatever comes to mind. And the crowd was very much part of the show. To which I will post a link once it's up.
That's the question posed in this post by Corey Bergman at Lost Remote:
Last week, a Broadcasting & Cable editorial warned that TV newscasts could follow the way of the newspaper. This week, B&C’s Jennifer Yarter asks, “What happens when the web starts to replace the television?” Yarter said the catalyst of her column was a dinner with a group of tech-savvy 20-somethings who said they don’t watch TV or even subscribe to cable or satellite. They just watch whatever they want online. Yarter writes, “Most of these young adults are falling into a new territory of media consumption that could potentially eliminate the need for local television stations.”
Absolutely, and consider this: the only thing that most local TV stations produce is local news. Local TV news in its current form, when translated online, looks very similar to everyone else’s news. If it’s not truly original or unique, it’s a commodity (especially in aggregated environments). And as more people get their local news online instead of making an appointment to watch it on TV, revenue loss will accelerate. A solution here is to start producing original content that bridges platforms — that’s unique enough to not only to attract an audience but create fans. Fans are people who accept no substitutes. Can local TV news, by itself, create this kind of online loyalty? I don’t believe so. It will require new, innovative, locally-produced niche programming that spans TV, mobile and the web. In other words, a whole new approach. Similar to the newspapers, it will be a matter of survival.
I keep asking myself why nobody in a position to do so, is tackling this. The answer I keep coming up with, time after time is that reinventing your TV station (or your radio station) for the new world we're in is --in the short term-- risky and expensive. And the decision makers are close enough to retirement (or have their fuck-you money put aside) that they have decided (even if they haven't admitted it aloud) to manage their stations to "a profitable demise." Milk the cash cow until Bossie goes dry.
The Generation Iowa Commission, with help from the Iowa Department of Economic Development, has launched a website designed --among other things-- "to keep young people from leaving the state."
GenerationIowa.com will eventually include written material, photos and videos submitted by young Iowans. "We really wanted to make it a user generated content site. We want young folks across Iowa to send their stories, their photos, their videos...and really make it their own website," Rolland said. "We don't want it to just be a state marketing website." [More on the story at RadioIowa.com]
One of the stories on the site ("High Life, Low Price") describes the advantages of living in Iowa compared to Manhattan. Amanda Brend cautions:
"Don't let the bright lights of New York City blind you -- the city is fabulous when you have a New York City-size paycheck. Here's the download on my life as a New York City intern versus my current gig as a Des Moines entrepreneur."
"Here's the download?" "My current gig?" Hmmm. I smell older person trying to write hip.
But wait. One of the comments displayed on the home page reads:
"Hi, This is Amanda Brend from Indianola. While I would like to take credit for such a well written article, I can't, because I did not write this. I have never lived in NYC. I'm not sure why my name is posted on here, but I did not write this. I am, however, a huge advocate for Iowa and maybe someday I'll be able to post MY story. Amanda"
Oops.
Here's a screen shot of the home page and the story in question.
I like Iowa. But if you want to keep young people from leaving, you're gonna need razor wire. Lots and lots of razor wire.
Sales trainer Chris Lytel points to a Wall Street Journal interview with Ram Charan, a business professor turned consultant and author (What the Customer Wants You to Know).
“It has become very hard to differentiate yourself in the eyes of the customer, for business to business sales. So salespeople should not sell the product anymore. They should find out what the customer needs, which will be a combination of products and services and thought leadership.”
“In the old game, one person could do the selling. In the new game, you need a team from your company. The reason you need a team is the solution you’re going to create is going to come form different parts of your company. That means salespeople have to be good leaders, to lead their team, and also persuade the customer team. Because customers also buy in teams.”
Thought leadership. Interesting concept. Increasingly, our "network radio" sales reps are finding that their clients want more than 30 second spots. I suppose you could say they always wanted more than spots... they wanted the sales or mind-share those "spots" could bring.
These days, it's rare that the prospect doesn't bring up the subject of the web as part of their marketing strategy. Knowing a little something about blogging and podcasting has been very useful.
Google News now allows you to localize a section of the stories. Scroll down just beneath the fold for the box to type in your city or zip code. I plugged in my local zip code for Jefferson City:
“This is pretty huge, folks, and it spotlights the need for everybody in the local news business to adopt best practices when it comes to unbundled distribution,” writes Terry Heaton. True enough, as Google News ranked #9 in Nielsen-Netratings for December — higher than USAToday.com and WashingtonPost.com.
If you're a local news guy and look at this and say, "Ah, but they missed some stories!" ... you're missing the point.
Mark Ramsey shares some thoughts on a story in the Sunday Times of London about the growing number of Brits tuning in to personalized Internet "radio" every week (and tuning out traditional radio).
Sunday Times: "Personalised broadcasts of the future will probably have either advertising or a price tag attached, just as they do today. But once your radio knows exactly what you want to hear, the idea of a human DJ – however cheeky his banter – might start to sound a little dated."
Ramsey: "Over the long haul I fully expect the influence of music-oriented radio to diminish. Because music, my friends, is a commodity. Not only can anyone string together a playlist, but nobody can string together my favorite playlist better than I can."
"What it all adds up to is the gradual near-obsolescence of music radio, not in a blink, but by a slow and persistent siphoning of audience and attention and interest and advertisers. This process will take years to happen."
I read a lot of stories like this but very few on the impact of Internet "stations" on non-music formats. Are news-talk formats feeling any effect from the web? My radio pals can feel free to post an anonymous comment.
A week ago I posted about doing an iChat consultation with my new doc. Tonight I found this story about a doctor in Washington who has taken his entire practice online:
Dr. Howard Stark's office is quiet. Very quiet. No patients sit in his waiting room. No receptionist answers the telephone. Stark does not have a receptionist. Instead, he and his assistant Michele Norris-Bell check e-mail alerts on handheld devices and -- between seeing patients in person -- on a desktop computer.
Stark has moved most of his practice, based in Washington, onto the Internet and he couldn't be happier. Since he started his Web-based service two years ago, he has received 14,000 e-mails. And yet, he feels more like an old-fashioned family doctor in a small town than a modern, harried physician.
' "That's 14,000 phone calls that we did not have to answer and that patients did not have to make," ' Stark said.
He does not charge for answering an e-mail. "You have to come in one time a year for an annual exam," Stark said.
The idea --which makes more sense if you read the full story-- came to him while booking a flight.
"I was sitting here and making a seat assignment to go to Miami. And I said, 'why is it I can make a seat assignment four months in advance and my patients can't book a half-hour appointment? I started thinking of other things that could be done online."
For instance, written instructions on how to prepare for a colonoscopy, general health tips, or information on Lyme disease.
Which reminded me of the Living Healthy Podcast.
I really think we'll be seeing more of this.
My former family physician was/is a very wired guy. Very web/tech savvy. That was handy because I could shoot him an email when I had a question and he'd respond. When he hung up his stethoscope, I gave up any notion of finding another doc similarly disposed.
I'm pleased to report that my new doc (who must remain nameless) is equally geeked out. So when he suggested we might try a "virtual office visit," I was surprised and delighted.
We did a little trial run this morning (not him or me in the photo). I had a few questions and he answered them. It was like sitting in his examining room. Of course, there will be times when he'll need to lay on hands but for a lot of doctor-patient communication, video chat works fine.
Is this the future of medicine? Who knows. Certainly not for everyone. But for the right physician and the right patient... it's a pretty efficient use of resources and time.
Microsoft is developing what a British newspaper (TimesOnline) describes as "Big Brother" software that will allow employers remotely to monitor their workers' productivity, competence and physical well-being to a degree never before seen.
Among other data, wireless sensors will provide employers with workers' heart rates and stress level, and determine whether they are smiling or frowning.
"The systems work not only through desktop or laptop computers but even through mobile phones or handheld PCs, meaning that even out of the office the employee can still be monitored. In its most advanced format, the system will monitor users’ private interests.
The system works by recording and analyzing what words and numbers are used or websites visited, and by watching the user’s heart rate, breathing, body temperature, facial expressions and blood pressure. The patent application explains: “The system can also automatically detect frustrations or stress in the user via physiological and environmental sensors and then offer or provide some assistance accordingly.”
This just seems to far-out and scary to be true. For the record... I am happier than I appear.
Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism) points to a very interesting post by Paul Conley. Mr. Conley has held senior positions at Knight-Ridder, CNN, Primedia/Prism and Bloomberg. He serves on the professional advisory boards of College Media Advisers, the national group that works with student journalists, and Northwest Missouri State University’s Mass Communications program. His clients include Primedia/Prism, Reed Business, About.com and IDG.
"I'm urging employers not to offer any training in Web journalism. There are two reasons for this. Here they are:
1. You cannot train someone to be part of a culture.
For someone to work on the Web, they must be part of the Web. That, after all, is what the Web means. The Web is a web. It exists as a series of connections. An online journalist isn't a journalist who works online. He's a journalist who lives online. He's part of the Web.
It's a waste of time and money to teach multimedia skills and technology to someone who hasn't already become part of the Web. And there's no need to teach skills and technology to the journalists who are already part of Web culture, because the culture requires participation in skills and technology.
Or, to put it another way -- I cannot teach the Web. No one can. Yet all of us who are part of the Web are learning the Web.
2. When the fighting begins, the training must end.
We cannot move backward to round up the stragglers and train them to fight. It's too late to try to convince print journalists that the Web has value. It's too late to tell them that an Internet connection is worth a few dollars a month. As revenue shrinks, we can't spend money on training. We can't gather up the print folks and "prepare them as online journalists."
You can't prepare people to dig a fighting (fox?) hole. You just tell them to dig. And the ones who don't dig fast enough, deep enough or well enough, die."
Wow. I confess that I agree with Conley but would never say it around my reporter friends. What good can come of telling them it's too late. The train left the station and they can't run fast enough to catch it. Ms. McAdams isn't sure she agrees, so read her post, too.
Will we still get carpet bombed by mindless 30 second commercials in the future? (And by future I mean a couple of weeks from now.) Seems unlikely, but how will savvy marketers reach --and more importantly-- engage us? How do you "reach people who are so media-saturated they block all attempts to get through."
Perhaps with alternate reality games (ARG's). That's the subject of a fascinating article by Frank Rose in this month's Wired Magazine (Issue 16.01).
"The initial clue was so subtle that for nearly two days nobody noticed it. On February 10, 2007, the first night of Nine Inch Nails' European tour, T-shirts went on sale at a 19th-century Lisbon concert hall with what looked to be a printing error: Random letters in the tour schedule on the back seemed slightly boldfaced. Then a 27-year-old Lisbon photographer named Nuno Foros realized that, strung together, the boldface letters spelled "i am trying to believe." Foros posted a photo of his T-shirt on the Spiral, the Nine Inch Nails fan forum. People started typing "iamtryingtobelieve.com" into their Web browsers. That led them to a site denouncing something called Parepin, a drug apparently introduced into the US water supply. Ostensibly, Parepin was an antidote to bioterror agents, but in reality, the page declared, it was part of a government plot to confuse and sedate citizens. Email sent to the site's contact link generated a cryptic auto-response: "I'm drinking the water. So should you." Online, fans worldwide debated what this had to do with Nine Inch Nails. A setup for the next album? Some kind of interactive game? Or what?"
I'm not a gamer. At all. But I love shit like this. Reminds me of the viral video snippets in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition. The Wired article is well worth the read.
TUAW.COM: "You're riding in the car and a great song comes on the radio. You're dying to know what it is so you can go buy it ASAP but there's no satellite radio receiver to tell you what's playing. How can you find out what song it is? Whip out your iPhone, put it near the car speakers, and watch the screen. Poof! There's the song, artist, and album."
Okay. This could make me trade in my Tracfone. iPhoner Tom promises to try this out and let me know how it works.
The guy has a sense of humor and is not afraid to be the butt of the joke. I especially liked the scene with the exercise ball. [Video at Gizmodo]
