I have to write things down here or I'll forget them.
Another nice find by DigitalBuzzBlog.
This McDonald’s campaign asks you to watch a :50 YouTube video and look for a certain character hiding in the scene. If you click on the character, you move on to the next level.
It’s actually a little hard at first, so don’t lose your patience the first time to get to the end without spotting Grimace. It’s a neat gimmick for a campaign, and definitely something you could replicate if you have the creativity and motivation.
I don’t really have a good opening paragraph for this post. I think I have a good point, but I don’t quite have the narrative to kick it off.
Now if I was the NFL, I’d have the perfect opening. I’d have crafted the perfect phrase, and delivered a genius punchline.
The NFL started today. And honestly, besides making sure no one on my Fantasy team was having neck surgery, I really didn’t think too much about it as the game kicked off.
Now throughout the evening, as I pounded out some work, handled some wedding stuff, and ran through some old emails, I had a Yahoo page open to keep track of the score.
What started as a blowout, slowly got better. And by the end of the game, I headed upstairs to catch the thrilling last minutes.
And as soon as the game was over, I felt regret. My brain yelled at me “Hell the Saints were on! Why weren’t we watching that??!!?? They were playing Green Bay for criminy sake!!”
The other half of my brain, the calm and rational part (fine, the other 25%), then replied, “Seriously, Andy. We can’t bring the laptop to the living room? That was a good game.”
And so we had both the emotional and practical sides of my brain lamenting about my overall error in judgement. (I find it interesting that my brain never seems to find fault in itself in these matters. It’s much easier to simply cast fault at me.)
And this is why the NFL wins. This is why the NFL will always win.
Yes, the league was on strike because the owners and players needed to figure out a better way to split ALL THE FREAKING PROFITS they are making. And all the fans cared about was how it was going to affect their Fantasy Football draft.
Over in the NBA, you have a different story. You legitimately have owners losing money because they have to pay out the remaining 4 years and 40 million dollars on contracts to guys who get too fat to run up and down the floor and would rather collect their paychecks from a villa at The Palms.
The NFL is the only sport around with this kind of marketing.
1) I sign up for a Fantasy Football League out of habit and as an excuse to to stay in touch with my old friends.
2) On a random Thursday night, while working, I keep the score on in the background, to follow how my opponent’s players are doing.
3) As the score of the actual game gets close, I go upstairs to watch.
4) As the game ends, I think, “Damn, I should have watched that whole thing, and all the commercials.”
5) I go write a blog post about why the NFL is so smart.
Now, you could say, “They got lucky. It could have been 42-7 and you wouldn’t have cared.”
And I would reply – “But that doesn’t happen in the NFL. The NBA would have made sure it was LA vs New York in the opening game, and it might have been 120-80. But the NFL took the 52nd largest market vs the 71st biggest market and put them out there. Which they can do since the 71st market has the reigning Super Bowl champs and both teams have QB’s that you wish you had as brothers in law.”
A conspiracy theorist would say it’s rigged. And maybe it all is. But if it is, somehow the guys writing the NFL scripts cut their chops on Lost, Weeds and Entourage, while the NBA guys were banging out Alf, Brothers and Melrose Place (the new one, not the old one).
Now this may seem like a rant against the NBA, but it’s not. Major League Baseball has almost worked their way into the irrelevance once relished by the NHL. And each now is able to claim a rabid, but niche, fan base that can’t compete head to head. And while soccer is growing, it’s TV viewership still only appeals to people who “get” why 0-0 can be exciting.
So I’d say you have the NFL leading the way, with NCAA football doing everything it can to screw up the halo the NFL provides it. Then the NBA who is arrogant enough to deny it has a problem. Then the other 3 leagues begging for attention.
But at the end of the day, for the forseeable future, the NFL is going to dominate the mind of the rabid, casual and indifferent sports fan. From revenue channels, to marketing, to PR, to labor, to organizational structure, it’s an absolute study in how to build a successful business.
Anyone who watched the NCAA Final on Monday – or more accurately tried to watch it – acknowledges that it was one of the worst performances in a championship game in recent memory.
Now, a few sports radio shows have lobbed theories that there was something wrong with the rims, whcih made the game unplayable. And just about any sports organization that has reason to fear NCAA retribution has flat out denied that could be a reason.
I think the problem could be bigger. There’s a reason we don’t see a lot of basketball games in 70,000 seat football stadiums. It’s a bad environment for hoops. And you get stuck using a temporary floor and temporary rims for your 3 most important games of the season.
This research is not complete, but here’s a first, albeit shallow, look at the last 10 NCAA Final games. All I’ve done is taken the Team Field Goal % for the Winning and Losing Teams, and compare them to how the teams shot during the year on average. Using FG%, and not Total Points, should take out some of the fluctuations that could arise from a shortage or abundance of foul calls during the game.
Quick math shows that Winning teams see their FG% drop from around 48.3% to 45.7% And the Losing teams drop from about 46.4% to 37.1%. So, if both teams see their FG% fall during the only games in which they play in 70,000 seat stadiums, maybe we have to assign a little fault to these temporary rims. And if we are going to assign some fault to the temporary rims, maybe it’s possible the guys who set up THESE temporary rims in Houston were a bunch of numbskulls. More data to come this weekend.
This guy just got $2 Million a year for surfing. I will now go call my dad and ask him why I spent my childhood reading books.
Julian Knows Surfing from Nike 6.0 on Vimeo.
Ok, I’ve had 24 hours to be mad about about this. It’s easy to say, “The vote was rigged. Qatar and Russia bought the Cups.” And while that’s probably true, I don’t think you can just end the conversation there.
For one thing, we’re a country in which college alumni will pay $200k to have a 20 year old quarterback come play for their school. It’s not as if we’re above the whole corruption thing. If the World Cup was up for sale, we were certainly making our own backroom deals. So let’s not pretend we’re innocent angels who weren’t prepared to fight dirty.
Also, we need to look at FIFA. This is an organization that oversees soccer confederations on 6 continents and hosts 12 different soccer tournaments across the globe. Sponsors include companies like Budweiser, Adidas, Coca-Cola, Emirates, etc… Source: Wikipedia. This is a huge company. They aren’t just running the Poinsettia Bowl and taking bribes to give Notre Dame a bid. This is a multi-national, multi-billion dollar organization, whose chief motivation is to make make money for everyone involved in the group. So, for the sake of argument, let’s assume these guys aren’t idiots.
So, making these assumptions that we were ready and prepared to bribe officials, and that FIFA is made up of smart guys, why did England and the US get shunned? Here are some reasons I can imagine:
1) The U.S. story is old – Look, I love Morgan Freeman too. And Bill Clinton has charm. But we came out with the message of, “Look we have a lot of stadiums already, and lots of hotels too. Plus, we have a diverse population. It’s a slam dunk, no risk, low-hanging fruit alternative.” It’s kind of the same argument the Hyatt gives you when you are planning a wedding. “Look, we have a big boring conference room, you can have a choice of steak or chicken, and there will be plenty of parking for the guests.” Not very interesting. Meanwhile Qatar came in with an entirely new message. “Sure we have no stadiums and no infrastructure. But we have money – and lots of it. So we’ll build shiny new carbon neutral, solar powered, soccer specific stadiums that we’ll take down after the event, hook them up to a futuristic transportation system, and develop a giant version of Sim City that the world will marvel at. Think Disney World for Soccer.” That really is a more interesting wedding than one at a hotel.
2) The Perceived Decline of the West – These games are being held in 2018 and 2022, not 2010. And the rest of the world looks at the U.S. and says, “Hmm, I don’t see where they are making their comeback.” I mean when the city of Detroit is eating itself block by block to get rid of unused buildings, I’m not sure where you see that the U.S. is a solid bet to be thriving in 2022. Meanwhile, Qatar and Russia have all that gas and oil money.
3) The Nobel Prize Angle – On one hand, I kind of think FIFA should be congratulated for taking such a giant risk. They are telling a country in the Middle East that they have faith in the region. Now, at least someone has the responsibility for keeping the lunatics at bay. Anyone involved with the 2022 World Cup, especially Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, will have Mid East leaders on speed dial every time they start to get itchy trigger fingers. If the World Cup brings some level of stability to the Mid East, which in turn brings some sort of cooperation between West, East and Mid East, then give Blatter and his guys the Nobel Prize.
4) We don’t have the most money anymore – Let’s face it, this election was bought. And that’s an election style we used to like, because we had the most money. We don’t anymore. This is an international economics story, not a sports story. Maybe now we can admit it’s time to change the way we do things.
I’m sure I’ll add to this post soon.
(Additions)
5) One thing that surprises me is that FIFA has now made it impossible for China to get a World Cup until at least 2034. And who knows what the world will look like by then.
6) JR makes a good point below that diversification could be a reason. But, diversification doesn’t explain going all the way to the limit of Qatar. You could have solved the diversification point with any of the candidates – Australia, Spain/Portugal or Netherlands/Belgium.
7) To expand on a point I was trying to make above, it’s an absolute pity that the U.S. couldn’t make any kinds of claims to have carbon-neutral stadiums and an efficient transportation system 12 years from now. Doesn’t that seem weird and sad that it doesn’t even cross our minds that we could lead the world in architectural and transportation innovation?
If you are downtown tomorrow morning at 6:30am, I suggest you swing by FX McCrory’s. There, Mick will be serving breakfast and hosting a live viewing of the selection of the host countries of the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. RSVP here.
This should be exciting and slightly nerve-wracking for everyone hoping the U.S. is chosen for 2022. It’s been a pretty dirty selection process thus far, so even though common sense says that the United States would be a better host than Qatar, well, money talks and Fifa’s selection committee members are human beings who like money and the items money buys.
If you want to watch the US Presentation, lead by President Bill Clinton, you can watch it here. (Sounders fans, skip ahead to 16:45 or so if you want to see how Seattle is presented as a sign of soccer’s growth in the US.)
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/bidders/live/newsid=1343822/index.html
Let the mocking begin. The Boston Red Sox have purchased the proud English franchise. And to commemorate the occasion, a T-Shirt company has already suggested a new uniform look and feel – “The Fenway Edition.”
Not many people under the age of 55 would disagree with the idea that local news needs to be reworked. In previous times, the local anchor was one of a few links between the scary, confusing news story and the viewer who needed it explained.
But over time, that bond has eroded. Some would argue the anchor did not evolve with the rest of the news gathering process. Most of us are more than comfortable being our own editor. We navigate from website to website, focusing on topics we self-select in filters and rss readers.
So what role does the news anchor play now? Down in Houston, KIAH is going to see if that answer is, “They don’t have a role.”
Word is that KIAH will try an anchorless newscast. The concept is still a work in progress, so no other insight is available. But an anchorless newscast enables a wide range of sweeping changes in the local news. At the very least, the 4 talking heads could be consolidated into a single one, news magazine and national newscast style. And managing editors could be guided by popular opinion or some form of viewer input.
Will people watch a TV screen that has no differentiation from a YouTube channel or web site? Either way, it will be an interesting to story to follow.
You’d be hard-pressed to find someone with a tougher executive position than Carol Bartz. As the CEO of Yahoo, she had to step into the shoes of the Founder, fix the mess he caused with the board, figure out what her company actually “does” these days, and then decide how to compete in ecosystems dominated by Google, Microsoft and the sports and entertainment giants. So when I heard the UW Foster School of Business was bringing her into town for their “Redefining Leadership” series, it was a can’t miss opportunity.
First impression – I was shocked and pleased by how personable and affable she is. It was a fairly conservative environment – a large auditorium and a moderator doing Q+A – but she was candid and downright funny. The moderator did not take us through much of a story arc in his line of questions, so rather than recap the event in paragraph form, here are a few bullets that stood out.
On teamwork:
(paraphrase) Business schools put too much emphasis on “teamwork.” Individuals have different goals, even within a team. It’s unnatural to think that in a team setting, you can all be motivated by the same thing. Learn teamwork on a sports field instead.
On Corporate Strategy vs Executing on Tactics:
It’s tempting to go into a firestorm and put your head down, and ignore what the road looks like outside the fire. 3,4, or 5 year plans never work. In fact, any plan that you had in December is now wrong. But there are always people in a company who love thinking long term about what the company should be doing down the road.
You need to build your business so that 70-80% is stable and going to be consistent, but that 20-30% can change and be changed to adapt quickly to what is happening around you.
Thinking is a skill. Understand when you have someone who is good at it.
On Joining Yahoo:
Yahoo had been working with tons of data, but hadn’t actually made any real decisions for a while. She needed to make a couple of decisions quickly to shake people up. She also found that people were hungry for interaction, or even communication, from the executive level.
In her first 5 weeks, Bartz held 45 minute conversations with staff members, and always ended the conversation with, “Who else should I be talking to?” From this, a clear pattern of thought leaders and key influencers developed, which didn’t necessarily map to an org chart. The standout members at Yahoo were recognized by multiple people she talked to.
The Yahoo Ad campaign was meant as much for the staff as more the consumers. She needed to show the staff that Yahoo was relevant, and being on national TV helped that.
On Change:
If you look at life, the biggest mistakes are always the things you didn’t do.
Change is a muscle. If you don’t exercise it, you lose the ability to do it, or do it well.
You need to have a good understanding about what in your business needs to stay stable, and what parts can change. Know that your people need to be able to handle that.
You need people who can be interrupted without negative effects.
On Culture:
You have to pick your battles and understand what is really important. Your culture is secondary to having a company that a) Makes Decisions, b) Moves Forward and c) Gets Things Done. You can’t sacrifice any of these things for “company culture.”
On Identying Strong Performers, and Career Development:
Think of a bell curve. It’s really easy to spot the folks on either extreme. Your top performers easily stand out. They volunteer for projects, they are the ones you think of first to solve a problem for you, and they tend to self-select and join in a pack together. So, they are pretty recognizable.
But the harder thing is to find the people with that same potential, and stretch them to turn them into top performers. They may be quieter, or not on the projects that get as much recognition. So it’s important to find these folks and put them in positions where they can become stars. They aren’t the average employees making the most noise – so you need to look hard for the hidden talents and figure out ways to cultivate these quiet ones with potential.
On the other end, you need to be direct and clear with the ones who slow you down. They’ll perform well somewhere, it’s just not necessarily in your company. The worst thing is that the rest of the team knows when an employee is a bad fit. and it makes management look bad when they don’t help them move on to a place where they can be more successful. You do everyone a favor when you cut them loose and help them find a better fit.
Every employee should be involved with sales. Sales is not a dirty world. You simply can never really understand what your company does until you actually try to sell it to someone. Understanding why someone says “no” to you will help you figure out what your company can do better.
On Personal Life vs A Business Life
Yahoo delivers 100 Billion emails a day, and filters out another 600 Billion spam messages. When their servers go down, it’s a big deal. But, Yahoo doesn’t cure cancer. It’s a web site. Your job is probably not curing cancer either. Enjoy yourself, experiment, laugh – don’t pretend you are more important than you are just because you have a boss or client who wants something. Chances are pretty good the world will go on without you completing that one task you are stressing out about.
Don’t add pressure to yourself by thinking about the “would haves, should have or could haves.”
On Developing Employees:
Annual reviews are a waste of time. Yahoo quit doing them. Instead employees and managers are tasked with making sure they have a substantive conversation at least once a quarter.
An annual review is useless because you have an opportunity for feedback, and have to sit on it for 6 months. You wouldn’t wait 6 months to reprimand your puppy for going to the bathroom in the house, why treat a human that way?
Difference Between Succeeding in Technology vs Other Industries:
At the end of the day, business fundamentals are the same no matter what. a) Understand what your customer wants, and deliver it. b) Measure your success and failures. c) Recruit and cultivate talented employees.
I’m not writing a review of the iPad. Since I’m not a tech blogger, I’ll leave that to JetCityDigital, Mashable, Jeff Jarvis, and AllThingsD. (And yes, I did put Ron Schott in the same sentence as Walt Mossberg, so remember this post in 10 years people.)
I don’t want to debate if the iPad is a laptop killer, or simply the media companies’ attempt to put us all back in a walled garden. I have a much simpler question.
In every publication I read, articles focus on 10% unemployment, a looming deficit, and the fact that we’re all doomed. So why on earth do we need a laptop that’s not a laptop, or a phone that’s too big to be a phone, or a $500 way to read magazines that still cost $5 per issue to download? The iPad seems like something we should have gotten in 1998, when we all used $100 bills as post-it notes. But in a recession? Who needs to drop that kind of coin on a device that serves a secondary function for all the functions we already have solutions for?
I got the iPod. I got the iPhone. I get Android. I get the iPad in Tokyo or Shanghai. I may even get the iPad in the U.S. in 2 years, or if the content was all free. But I have to admit, I’m not sure how far “shiny” and “new” takes you in 2010 middle America… I’m looking forward to being wrong on this…
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