Yearly Archives: 2007

The truth about switching

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This post purports to be an “honest word about what it’s like to switch” to a Mac. It certainly mirrors my experience. My favorite was #13: “You’ll be amazed at how little there is to modify”

“I was the ultimate tweaker in Windows – registry entries, options, toolbar buttons – and was taken aback at how few things there are to tweak on the Mac. At first it seemed to be restrictive, but I’ve realized it has actually freed me to do things other than tweaking, like work on this website.”

If you’re thinking about getting a Mac, this is worth a read.

Towel Art

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Towel ArtI’ve stayed in a few nice hotels so this is not the first time I’ve seen hotel towels folded and arranged in a pleasing manner. But someone in Guest Services here at the Country Inn and Suites (Knoxville) is the Michelangelo of towel folders. I kept using the same towel and wash cloth because I didn’t want to ruin this arrangement. (I did remove one hand cloth before taking this shot)

Then I started wondering how this works from a practical standpoint. Is there just one person who knows how to do this? And he/she races from room to room every day? Or do they require all new hires to learn how to do this? Six weeks of Advanced Towel Sculpture before you move on to Short-Sheeting the Bed?

I’m betting someone on the staff once worked at the Bellagio and was doing rooms one day and decided to have some fun. A supervisor spotted what she had done, called all the other maids in and announced, “Alright ladies… from now on, this is how we fold the towels.”

23+ hours in the air

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It took me 5-6 hours to drive from Jefferson City to Nashville and less than 4 hours from Nashville to Knoxville [blue line]. I was feeling noble for making the drive to see my brother…until he related his flight.

Bandar Lampung (Indonesia) to Jakarta – 30 min
Jakarta to Singapore – 90 min
Singapore to Tokyo – 7 hours
Tokyo to Detroit – 11 hours
Detroit to Knoxville – 1 hour and change [larger image]

He’s been doing this for years and usually with three kids in tow. He’s a hard guy to rattle. And if you need to know how to bribe a corrupt third-world customs official, he’s your guy. I’m just hoping I can find my way back to Jefferson City.

Like a bad marriage

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Kathy Sierra blogs about Creating Passionate Users and says too many companies are like bad marriages:

“It’s been said that the secret to a good marriage is… don’t change. In other words, be the person you were when you were merely dating. Don’t stop paying attention. Don’t stop being kind. Don’t gain 50 pounds. Don’t stop flirting. Stay passionate, stay sexy, stay caring. Answer their calls. Unfortunately, too many companies are all candle-lit dinners, fine wine, and “let’s talk about you” until the deal is sealed. Once they have you (i.e. you became a paying customer), you realize you got a bait-and-switch relationship.”

This is an excellent post with great illustrations (Perfect for that Powerpoint). If you own or manage a company (or department), this is a must-read.

Listeners of tomorrow are online today

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Jerry Del Colliano, Professor of Music Industry at USC and founder of Inside Radio, offers still another warning to radio broadcasters:

“When universal WiFi or its equivalent is available and consumers can take the Internet with them then it’s all over for radio. Ditto for satellite radio. That is, of course, assuming that terrestrial radio broadcasters don’t have an epiphany soon and decide to get into the Internet radio business.

Radio and the merged satellite radio company need to get into the Internet radio business now because tomorrow Internet radio will be the next radio. Why? Because that’s where the listeners will be and universal WiFi will make it all possible.” [via RAIN]

I’m tempted to email Mr. Del Colliano and ask if this applies equally to small and large market broadcasters. But I’m afraid of the answer.

NASA procedure for nuts in space

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“If you’re a NASA astronaut and you totally flip out in space, your crewmates are instructed to restrain you with duct tape, tie you down with bungee cords, and inject you with the anti-psychotic drug Haldol or a tranquilizer like Valium. The plan is outlined in 1,000+ page document that the Associated Press obtained this week outlining how to deal with medical emergencies.” [Boing Boing]

Blogging makes you respectful and clear

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Seth Godin explains two of the biggest benefits of blogging:

“The act of writing a blog changes people, especially business people. The first thing it does is change posture. Once you realize that no one HAS to read your blog, that you can’t MAKE them read your blog, you approach writing with humility and view readers with gratitude. The second thing it does is force you to be clear. If you write something that’s confusing or in shorthand, you fail.

Respectful and clear. That’s a lot to get out of something that doesn’t take much time.”

I’ve been dealing with clients and customers for 35 years and there’s no question that the past five years of blogging has made me better at it.

Mt. Flushmore

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Mt. Flushmore

Longtime pal Randy Evans shares the delightful image above. It is the handiwork of one of the talented photographers at The Des Moines Register (where Randy toils as Assistant Managing Editor). Jerry Perkins, father of Learfield’s John Perkins, is George Washington; Randy is in Abe Lincoln’s spot and Thomas and Teddy are a couple of other Register ragamuffins. This puts my sad little effort to shame.

“Do what you do best. And you link to the rest.”

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That’s what Jeff Jarvis calls “the new architecture of news” in an excellent post at Buzz Machine. He’s writing about newspapers but it applies to any news organization:

“They try to cover everything because they used to have to be all things to all people in their markets. So they had their own reporters replicate the work of other reporters elsewhere so they could say that they did it under their own bylines as a matter of pride and propriety. It’s the way things were done. They also took wire-service copy and reedited it so they could give their audiences the world. But in the age of the link, this is clearly inefficient and unnecessary. You can link to the stories that someone else did and to the rest of the world. And if you do that, it allows you to reallocate your dwindling resources to what matters, which in most cases should be local coverage.”

“Instead of saying, “we should have that” (and replicating what is already out there) you say, “what do we do best?” That is, “what is our unique value?” It means that when you sit down to see a story that others have worked on, you should ask, “can we do it better?” If not, then link. And devote your time to what you can do better.”

What do our news networks do “best?” Easy. We cover the legislature and state government in our respective states. Big newspapers do a great job on this beat but not much with audio. Yet. Some TV stations jump on a story if it has local appeal (and time allows). I still think we do the audio thing best. For now.

By chance or design, our websites have had this same focus. We’ve stayed close to what we do best.

I won’t get into pros and cons of our current network/affiliate business model. That’s too big an issue for this little blog. But it begs the question: Do enough people care about the legislature and state government to give us an audience that will be attractive to advertisers?

I should add that we still attempt to cover news from throughout the state. But it’s getting harder. At the same time, it’s getting easier to find out what’s going 500 miles away. But we are dependent on our affiliate radio stations to cover local stories of statewide significance. And many local radio stations have cut their news departments. As a statewide network, we are the sum of our affiliate parts.

I posted last month about one of our reporters killing a link (that I had added) to a “competing” news organization. Jarvis’ post is for him. If a news outlet was at a press conference that we couldn’t attend and posted a story, we can’t be afraid to link to them. Not if we’re serious about serving our listeners/readers. The fiction that “if they don’t know about it, it didn’t happen (yet)” doesn’t fly anymore. They know about it. And we should help them know about it. Whoever does that best wins. [Thanks, David]