Putting Ana Marie back on the plane

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AmcblogAna Marie Cox was covering the McCain campaign for Radar Magazine until it shut it’s doors on Friday. AMC tweeted us to her blog for the story:

“It will cost about $1500 to cover just the last day of the campaign, and over $1000 a day for each day leading up to it. While I still blog for TIME’s “Swampland” * — and I will for as long as they let me! — I am without a source for travel funds. So, you know, anyone interested in sponsoring a foul-mouthed blogger, slightly used?”

Like a public radio fund drive, she offered premiums for different levels of giving.

“Over $100: My instant message screen name, regular personal updates via email and/or instant messages on election night.”

I kicked in$150 because I’m a fan and liked the idea of helping a blogger. Seems like I wasn’t alone.

“At the moment, donations come to about $2500 — a thousand past my goal of simply seeing the McCain campaign off into the gentle night come Nov. 4 (literally! sort of!), and just about enough to cover spending election eve out on the trail as well.”

Ana Marie is hardly the first blogger to ask her readers to support her work. But I think I would have been willing to pay $5 or $10 a month for a year to fund her efforts. Is this some kind of model for the future?

Update: 10/28/08

Too busy to post

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Spent most of Saturday morning at the Coffee Zone with George, Tom and assorted pals, while George migrated files from the old Mac Book to the new one. There are Windows utils that will copy a lot of your stuff from one PC to another, but then you have to go back and reinstall all the apps, one at at time. Yes, I know there are ways to avoid this but not for Joe the Dumbass (me).

My my first hands-on impressions of the new Mac Book Pro are extremely positive. Too soon for me to try to share much here but once I stop stroking the case, I noticed the new multi-touch pad is amazing. WAY better than even the most tricked out mouse. I’ll show you when I know enough to do so.

And the new NVIDIA graphic cards make everything damned fast and beautiful.

From the Coffee Zone it was out to the Prairie Garden Trust to work with Henry on a little video project. We’ll post it here when it’s done (assuming it doesn’t suck, in which case you’ll never hear another word about it). We had a beautiful fall day for.

So no post on Saturday. A rarity. Sometimes life just gets in the way of blogging.

Seth: Be careful who you work for

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“The single most important marketing decision most people make is also the one we spend precious little time on: where you work.

Think about this for a second. Your boss and your job determine not only what you do all day, but what you learn and who you interact with. Where you work is what you market.

If you want to become the kind of person that any company would kill to have as an employee, you need to be the kind of employee that’s really picky about who you align with.”

Seth Godin is the only blogger I quote so frequently I had to create a category for those posts. The nuggets above are from a longer post I encourage you to read.

I’ve only worked for two companies in my adult life and they’ve both been great. And if that’s important in good times, it’s true in spades in tough times.

Radio station streaming live video from Palin event

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Hit99fmvideoSarah Palin is holding a rally in Springfield, Missouri, and radio station Hit 99 FM is streaming video live from the event. They could have made it easier to find but deserve props for the effort. I’m having trouble getting audio but perhaps that will change when the event gets underway.

Interesting that this is a music formatted station, not a news/talk’er. David Brazeal is there and might interview someone from the station. We’ll post it here if he does.

PS: This is what we lovingly refer to as “a face for radio.”

Learning “New Media” tools

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I’ll be in our Dallas office for a few days next week. The agenda is kind of loose and open-ended. Our sports division (HQ in Dallas) is exploring ways to use more “new media” tools and I’ll try to help them find ways to do this. I think. My point is, what a great job.

And here’s what I’ve learned. Just about every online tool you need is out there. Cheap or free and easy to use. The hard part is finding people who… I wish I could come up with a better word… people who “get” this whole Internet thing. Sure, everybody uses email and Google and all that, but for most the net is where you go to find something rather than create something.

Posting photos to flickr, writing a blog, even something as simple as Twitter involves sharing something of your self. Expressing who you are. It’s walking out on that high school stage and singing Killing Me Softly. A lot of people just can’t do it.

But when I meet (discover?) such a kindred spirit, someone who has something to say and a passion for saying it, it’s great fun showing them things I’ve discovered on my endless surfing safaris.