Yearly Archives: 2007
Long live King Bob!
Friend and co-worker Bob Feldisch has been with our company about a year longer than I. He’s taking on new duties and the post on our corporate blog is note-worthy.
When King Bob started with Learfield:
- Ronald Reagan was President
- Lee Iacocca was pitching K-Cars
- “The Terminator” was released
- Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire while filming a Pepsi commercial
- Apple released the very first Macintosh
Since that time:
- King Bob has logged about one million frequent flyer miles serving his clients
- He’s driven over half a million miles across Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Illinois and Oklahoma
- He has generated nearly 30 million dollars in sales for the company
This makes a great blog post but you probably wouldn’t see this much imagination and fun in a corporate, inter-office news release. I love the fact that the blog was was the first and –as far as I know– only place this news was posted.
World’s smallest indoor radio-controlled airplane
Reply
“The Butterfly” and it is billed as “The Living Room Flier” a full radio controlled mini plane you can fly around your living room. “Full Proportional radio control enables you to fly with precision in any room 12′ X 16′. Just add 4-AA batteries to the combination transmitter/charger and you’ll be ready for action anytime Take the Butterfly with you ANYWHERE in it’s own protective aluminum briefcase (included!). The Butterfly costs $239 and it would take Lucy about 2 seconds to shred it.
Calculate your Real Age
I love these things because they almost always tell me what I want to hear. You answer 10 or 20 questions about life style, diet, family medical history and so forth. Sort of the web’s answer to those scales that would tell your future as well as your weight.
My Real Age is 44.5 (not that there’s anything wrong with 59), my life expectancy is 92.5 (compared to average of 78), which means I can expect to live 12,200 days. But who’s counting.
Terry Heaton: Gratitude
“…we are most vulnerable at the moment of success. It’s when we choose to shine a light on US and all our greatness. This is why it’s so important that we maintain a heart full of thanks, one of gratitude that will survive the roller coaster ride of life. For in the end, we have no power over anything — only in how we react. And I can tell you from experience, my friends, that a heart full of gratitude will survive where others will not.”
— Terry Heaton
Music videos, guerrilla style
“As far as I know, MTV and VH1 don’t play music videos anymore; it’s all reality TV and game shows, so I don’t know if they’ll really pick up a video. To me, it’s an interesting time because you used to make a video for a million dollars with a great director. Now, you spend $10,000, if that, with no hair and makeup, and do it completely guerrilla style. For example, we did a song called “God Bless This Mess” about the war and we shot it in front of the White House and nobody stopped us. It’s really really exciting to just go out and shoot, like how Bob Dylan shot “Don’t Look Back” — it’s just a guy with a camera and you’re performing the song.”
— Sheryl Crow on using YouTube to promote her new CD
Scott Adams: Apology to Iraqi people
“Whatever you think about the reasons for invading (Iraq), everyone seems to agree that we botched the occupation, and the results have been a disaster for the Iraqi civilian population. I feel like I owe them an apology for letting my idiot government screw them so thoroughly.
Your first reaction might be to explain all the rationalizations, and how war is messy, and it was really Saddam’s fault, and blah, blah, blah. But apologies don’t work that way. I could be wrong, but I think the Iraqi people who were minding their own business would like to hear an apology.
But how? My idiot government won’t apologize on my behalf. And if I fire them and get a new idiot government, they won’t do it either, until fifty years are past. That seems too late.
So here’s my public apology to the Iraqi civilians who did nothing to deserve their current situation: I’m sorry I trusted my idiot government to handle things correctly. I should have been watching more closely. To be honest, I never once thought to even ask if there was a post-war plan. That was clearly a mistake on my part. For that, I am sorry.”
Full post at Dilbert.Blog
“I’m sorry for the way things are in China, I’m sorry things ain’t what they used to be.” — John Denver
IBM Report: “The End of Advertising as We Know It”
Podcasting News points to a report compiled by IBM with the scary title: “The End of Advertising as We Know It.” I’m not sure what IBM knows about the state of advertising but they surveyed more than 2,400 consumers and 89 ad execs globally.
The report from Big Blue forecasts “greater disruption for the advertising industry in the next five years than occurred in the previous 50.”
When I read stuff like this, I ask the men and women in our company (who sell a LOT of advertising) if they get a similar read and the answer is always, “Nope, everything is A-OK.” No changes on the horizon. Everything is hunky-dory.
Well, five years isn’t that long. We shall see what we shall see.
PS: Here’s one more graph from the report summary:
More than half of ad professionals polled by IBM expect that in the next five years open advertising exchanges (currently led by companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL) will take 30 percent of current revenues now commanded by traditional broadcasters and media. Nearly half of the advertising survey respondents anticipate a significant (greater than 10%) revenue shift away from the 30-second spot within the next five years, and almost 10 percent of respondents thought there would be a dramatic (greater than 25 percent) shift. Two-thirds of advertising experts surveyed by IBM expect 20 percent of advertising revenue to move from impression-based to impact-based formats within three years.
Early green screen effort
One of the new features (toys) in Leopard I’ve been most excited about is the addition of green screening in iChat and Photo Booth. This is the effect they use on The Daily Show (and the evening news) to make it look like the reporter is standing in front of the White House or the Supreme Court.
Mr. Jobs left me with the impression that I could put a still image or video behind me and have hours of fun. You can see the result above. I think I could get the lighting and the green screen working but the sound is off for some reason. One hopes this is fixed in a future update.
More ads flowing to blogs?
The Society for New Communications Research is a think tank on new media. They recently asked a couple of hundred advertising agencies about their plans to advertise and market in “conversational media” (blogs and podcasts and such). Among the findings:
“In the next five years, a majority of advertising and marketing professionals expect to spend more money on so-called conversational media–or online media that encompasses things like blogs and podcasts–than on advertising through traditional media such as newspapers or magazines.
Today, a majority of these agencies said that they spend about 2.5 percent of their total budgets on conversational media, but by 2012, they plan to tip that percentage to more than they spend on traditional media.”
From a post by Stefanie Olsen over at the C|Net Blog (Thanks to Kevin O’Keefe at LexBlog for the pointer.)
As one who has made his living from “radio spots” for 30+ years, this is hard to imagine. But five years isn’t that long. I guess we’ll see.