Author Archives: Steve Mays

Inside the Beltway

Posted on by

Dave Winer shares a thoughtful post on whether Barack Obama will turn into an Inside The Beltway guy if he gets elected. Dave, like the rest of us, has seen bright young idealistic people get taken over by the systems they proposed to dismantle.

"I don’t want to be an insider, I don’t want the insiders to rule, I don’t want there to be insiders at all. I want to distribute opportunity and acknowledge intelligence and goodness where ever it appears."

"The Internet destabilizes every hierarchy it contacts. It erases every barrier to entry. The only way to win is to point off-site, in every way you can think of. Win by offering better value, not by locking users in. People will become instant refugees to escape your clutches. Think you’re immune? Think again."

I’ve long thought –but could not put into words– that the Internet might somehow be our salvation. I still think that. 

Microsoft’s Ballmer on future of media?

Posted on by

“In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion. Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”

[from an interview -video/text- at washingtonpost.com]

J. Michael Spooner – Visual Development Design Consultant

Posted on by

Michael Spooner has worked in the animation industry for twenty-five years with such notable studios as Walt Disney, Warner Brothers and DreamWorks.

Michael’s professional career in art began in 1976, when he was invited to join the faculty at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, after graduating with distinction. He taught for twelve years, simultaneously working as a freelance illustrator for clients that included the Public Broadcasting System, Zondervan Publishing House, Masda Motors, the National Football League, NBC Television, Paramount Pictures and Twentieth Century Fox.

Michael ventured into animation as a Layout Artist with Ralph Bakshi’s feature production of Tolkien’s, Lord of the Rings. Shortly after he worked with Filmation Studios on He-Man, Bravestar and Fat Albert and on the Bagdasarian feature, The Chipmunk Adventure.

Joining the Walt Disney Television Animation team in 1988 as a Visual Development Artist and Production Designer, Michael set the style for such episodic shows as, Chip ‘n’ Dale’s Rescue Rangers, Talespin, Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, New Bonkers and Aladdin. He also worked on the direct-to-video production of Aladdin and the King of Thieves.

In 1994, Michael and his family moved to Paris, France, where he headed up the Production Layout team for Disney’s feature film, A Goofy Movie.

Returning to Los Angeles in 1995, Michael Co-Art Directed Warner Brothers first full-length animated feature, Quest for Camelot. Following that he worked independently as a Visual Development Designer Consultant on Disney’s Dinosaurs, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet and Lilo and Stitch. Michael also assisted on early development design of Dreamworks,’ Shrek.

Michael moved to the Chicago area in 1999 to become Vice President of Visual Development and Artist Education with Big Idea Productions, home of the popular 3D animated video series, Veggie Tales. There he developed and headed up the Visual Development process in Story, Concept Design, Modeling and Layout. He also served as Art Director on various productions and as an Art Direction Consultant on Big Idea’s first feature animated film, Jonah.

Today, Michael owns Spoonerville Animation Design, an independent visual development studio, providing both traditional and CGI design concepts for clients such as Big Idea, Inc., Star Farm Productions, ReelFX Creative Studios and Walt Disney Animation Studios.

He lives in the western suburbs of Chicago with his writer-wife Beverly, and son Philip.

Michael is a visiting artist and lecturer, presenting in universities, art schools and animation studios throughout the United States.

You may reach him at: spoonerville1@sbcglobal.net or 630 301-0895

“Waning Days of the Road Warrior”

Posted on by

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.

The War in 2020 by Ralph Peters

Posted on by

I’m reading (for the 4th or 5th time) The War in 2020 by Ralph Peters. One of the minor characters in the novel, written in 1991, is Johathan Water, the black president of the United States. Here are a couple of paragraphs from page 120:

“President Waters had been elected in 2016, on a platform that focused on domestic renewal and on bridging the gap between the increasingly polarized elements in American society.

The candidacy of Jonathan Water succeeded on the premise that all Americans could live together. He promised education, urban renewal, and opportunity, and he was a handsome, magnetic man, who spoke in the rhetoric of Yale rather than the Baptist Church. A campaign-season joke called him the white-man’s black and the black-man’s white… and he felt like the right man for the times to a bare majority of the citizens of his country. He defeated an opponent who was a foreign policy expert, but who had few domestic solutions with which to inspire a troubled nation.”