I post frequently about Kay Henderson, the news director of Radio Iowa, our network in…uh, Iowa. Kay is Sheena, Queen of the Political Jungle that is Iowa (pre-election). No better place to follow politics in Iowa than Kay’s blog.
I snatched this photo from The Des Moines Register because it shows Kay in her Secret Service/Stalker mode.
“Here’s the thing about the system of news coverage we have today. If the Walton family, or Lee Raymond, or the heirs to the Mars fortune actually needed the news media to work better than it does now, believe me, it would work better. But they have no such need, because the system is working just fine for them as is. The people it’s failing are the rest of us, and most of the rest of us, apparently, would rather sniff Anna Nicole Smith’s corpse or watch Britney Spears hump a fire hydrant than find out what our tax dollars are actually paying for. Shit, when you think about it that way, why not steal from us? People that dumb don’t deserve to have money.”
This excellent column is a painful reminder of times I argued (with news directors) that we should give people the news they want, not the news they “need.” I was more of a ratings pimp than ratings whore, but I was wrong.
How can you make money blogging? Learfielder Len found this job posting on the Journal of Sports Media blog:
“Career Sports & Entertainment, a sports marketing and PR agency in Atlanta, is looking for qualified journalism students for a program called “AT&T SEC Snapshot.” It will provide weekly coverage for SECsports.com, devoted to Olympic spring sports across the SEC. The student blogger/reporter would provide weekly articles/blogs on SECSports.com. The program is scheduled to launch in early March, so they would like to find a good candidate as soon as possible. If interested, please contact Melanie Jarrett, Career Sports & Entertainment, or 770-995-1300.”
We’ll see more of this. Good, experienced bloggers will be in demand. Can every MSM reporter blog? Some can. But years of traditional writing and reporting seems to rob some of the human voice that the best blogs have.
“Soon, you may be able to hear the death knell for what was initially billed as “riverboat gambling” in Iowa. The Senate State Government Committee will meet tomorrow at 11:30 am in room 22 at the statehouse to take up a bill that will be another big moment in the long-running debate about gambling in Iowa. The bill would erase the requirement that those floating casino “barges” which are sitting on lakes be required to maintain the fantasy that the gambling casino is floating on water.” – O. Kay Henderson, Radio Iowa
We have a similar fantasy here in Missouri. But my favorite part of Kay’s post is the Maverick reference (AUDIO: MP3)
Let me preface this by saying –again– how much I like Hy-Vee. Our local store is working hard and making a big investment to give us an even better shopping experience.
Over the noon hour, I posted about trying to take a photo in our newly remodeled store. No biggie.
Fast-forward less than 10 hours: I search Technorati (a blog search engine) for “Hy-Vee” and get 5,000+ results. My post was #3 on the list.
How many will see my post? Who knows. The point is…in 2007…every customer can be heard. When they walk out of your store, they can sit down at a computer and talk to the world about their experience with your company. Do you know what they’re saying?
My favorite Hy-Vee Supermarket reopened today after a year-long renovation and expansion. I stopped by to get some lunch from the deli (where I get 90% of my hot meals) and took a photo. I would have taken more but one of the corporate neckties came running over to tell me I couldn’t take photos. You can see half of him in this picture.
“It’s okay,” I told him, “I’m a regular. My wife’s out of town on business and couldn’t be here so I’m gonna send her a photo.”
“There will be ‘approved photos’ in the local newspaper. I have no way of knowing what you’re going to do with any pictures.”
I’m sure that…let’s call him “Phil”…Phil has every legal right to tell me I can’t take a photo in his new store. Underlying his panic at the sight of my little Casio, however, is his lack of trust in a customer. He assumed I’d do something nefarious, like race down to Gerbe’s (a competing store)…
smays: (Pant, gasp) “I’ got ’em! I got ’em! Photos of the new deli at Hy-Vee!”
Gerbe’s Store Manger: “Quick, let’s see ’em. We’ve got to plan our strategy!”
As I was checking out, one of the local Hy-Vee guys came over to ask what was going on and I explained.
“What?! (exasperated sound) He’ll be gone tomorrow. You can come back and take as many photos as you like.”
Trust.
So, “Phil,” this post is for you. I’m thrilled to have a bigger, newer, better Hy-Vee and plan to spend even more time and money in your great store. Give my best to the guys in marketing and public relations.
That’s the conclusion of Kurt Anderson in an article on the New York Magazine website. My first-read take-aways:
“The lessons seem obvious: Don’t do Web video if you don’t have anything interesting to show, and don’t compete with TV unless you can do something they can’t or won’t. In other words, use the medium.
The passionate, improvised, innovative reinventings, as opposed to the final, fully professionalized reinventions, are often the coolest moments in cultural history. Think of movies in 1920, TV in 1955, or public radio in 1980.”
A few years ago I was concerned that newspapers could so easily incorporate audio on their websites. It didn’t occur to me that they’d jump straight to video.
The New York Post is reporting the long-awaited merger of Sirius and XM may be announced today. Combining Sirius and XM would result in a single satellite radio operator with more than 12 million total subscribers. A deal would also marry Sirius content, such as Howard Stern, Frank Sinatra and Nascar with XM’s Oprah Winfrey, Bob Dylan and Major League Baseball. More important, analysts widely predict that a deal would also save the two companies nearly $7 billion annually.
Total radio silence from XM Ben on this story. And XM and Sirius have to get this just right to keep me. I’m spending more time with the nano and less with my XM. If they don’t make the merged service better/cheaper… I’ll be gone at the end of the contract.
Countless people saw the story about actor Ralph Fiennes allegedly having sex with a flight attendant in the bathroom of the plane (The flight attendatnt says there was no sex). But nobody gets more comic air miles from the story than Scott Adams:
“How horny do you have to be before you’ll follow a flight attendant into an airline bathroom, knowing that she actually has to use the bathroom? I mean, does that move ever work? I can barely convince myself that ANYONE has ever had sex in an airline bathroom. And that includes the best-case scenarios where:
1. The couple are already lovers
2. Neither person needs to actually USE the bathroom at that moment
3. Neither person is on an STD awareness tour
4. Both lovers are blind, noseless people with disposable shoes.
Adams/Dilbert fans are sure have have mixed feelings about the news that Chris Columbus (the man who directed Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Rent, Mrs. Doubtfire, Home Alone and a score of others) has picked up the theatrical rights to Dilbert.
One of the more frustrating computing challenges I’ve encountered is setting up a wireless network in my home. I knew enough not to attempt to try this on my own and called on some of very clever men and women I work with. But it was a booger, even for them.
Today my buddy George came over and set up my new Apple AirPort Extreme (“Easy as a Mac”):
“Just take the AirPort Extreme out of the box. Plug it in. Install the software, and in five minutes or less, you’re good to go.”
And it literally took George 5 minutes to install and configure the base station. My Netgear base station was doing the job but the AirPort Extreme had a couple of features I wanted.
Before, I had to have my Dell desktop box turned on to print from our laptops. We can now print directly through the router.
I also now have an external hard drive hooked to the router…and visible on my MacBook desktop when I’m at home. No more storage issues and three times a week the MacBook does an automatic back-up.
Yes, I’m sure it’s possible to accomplish these things in Windows on PC’s. But the folks at Apple just made it fast and simple. And I promise to share any problems I have with the new base station down the road.
Speaking of down the road… the Apple TV is scheduled to start shipping in early March and George tells me our new TV has the necessary connections and cables to take advantage of the features.
Update: Surfing from the couch (base station upstairs in the office) and –perceptually– pages are loading twice as fast as before (on the Netgear base station).