Category: Personal (Page 40 of 47)

Well I don’t have anything to say about the Facebook / MSFT deal that is any smarter or insightful than anything else already published.  But here’s my personal view on how this affects people like us.

The life of the average blogger or other purveyor of Social Media just got better.  Google’s Ad Sense, the gold standard of Internet advertising, had started to get a little stale.  That happens to everyone making truckloads of cash – the need to radically innovate lessens.

But now, MSFT is locked into Facebook forever, and as Facebook impressions rise, MSFT ad impressions rise, and Google has to do more to please the millions of publishers out there.  Competiton is good, and in one investment, MSFT was able to do join up with an established web property haven’t been able to do with any of their homegrown properties – deliver a universally admired user experience, with virtually unlimited growth potential.

And wow, a valuation of $15 billion….. That’s simply amazing.       

I think I’m about 2 years behind on this post….But I saw this little app on someone else’s web site and had to try it out. I know I’ve heard of Slide.com, but I guess I don’t spend enough time on MySpace to have seen it put to good use. And I really haven’t seen it on Facebook yet. (Maybe my Facebook friends aren’t the creative types.) Anyway, it’s a pretty cool way to add some visual functionality to your web site. Check it out at Slide.com (By the way, the images for this little test come from Imagekind.com.)

Seattle’s Ad Club brought Social Media to the forefront today, as Eric Weaver, Principle of Brand Dialogue, and Laura Porto Stockwell, VP and Director of Interactive at Publicis, "explored this new(ish) medium and (taught us) how it affects your brand and you personally."

The house was packed and just about everyone stayed until the end, indicating agencies and professional marketers are at least interested in figuring out how to wrap their arms around this giant mixture of bees and butterflies called Social Media.   Look for more events like this in Social Media, and Spring Creek Group will be at many of them.

This Saturday, the people from Cure Autism Now are hosting ‘Walk Now" at the University of Washington.  Autism attacks more children at a faster rate than any other disorder out there today, and Cure Autism Now is singularly focused on finding cures and treatments.

Autism suffers an invisibilty issue at times, because parents with Autistic parents are often confined to their home and long therapy sessions.  Current treatments can run as much as $90k a year, with many not covered by insurance who call them "Experimental," so think about how much spare time you would have trying to make $200k a year and care for an autistic child at the same time.

Anyway, Walk Now is a great event and gives you a sense about the real effect of Autism.  You can get more info at the Web site, or just show up at the UW this weekend. 

I just stumbled across The Sports Economist, a collection of business related sports stories.  Seemed like a good one to add to the blogroll.

http://thesportseconomist.com/ 

So, I thought I’d throw a few tips out there for any of you about to do a satellite TV interview.  This is all based on the half hour I spent yesterday, shooting at KCPQ 13 in Seattle for a interview with Orlando TV station WOFL Fox 35.

1) You might expect that they will take you to a closed door studio, where you have plenty of privacy in order to make you feel more comfortable and less nervous.  Not so much.  Plan on having a camera and a backdrop situated in the middle of a bustling newsroom, where no one is actually paying attention to you, but they all can hear every word you say.

2) I brought about 7 shirts, 4 ties and 3 jackets so that I could get advice on the best color combo.  Don’t expect much more than, "Don’t wear white," and "I like the blue one." 

3) There will be a camera pointing at you, and a monitor as well, so you will be tempted to use this monitor as a mirror, since you can see yourself.  Except, it’s not a mirror, it’s a monitor, so everything is in reverse.  If your tie is off a little to the right in the monitor, and you do the natural thing and move it to the left, all you have done is basically take your tie halfway off your neck.  So now you must start over.   

4) Most importantly, when you are there to shoot in a 15 minute "window," if it is running late, start figuring out who needs to get something fixed.  Our window got cut short because we started late due to a technical issue that each station thought the other one was fixing.  So, just be aware that 15 minutes means 15 minutes, but only if you start on time.

5) Don’t fidget.  I haven’t seen the tape yet, but apparently I slowly drifted my chair a few inches to the right every minute or so.  So by the end of the shoot I had drifted pretty significantly off center.  It probably won’t be noticed, but try to sit still.

6) It’s a little weird when you can’t see the guy asking the questions but he can see you.  But not nearly as weird as the realization that you are talking to a camera pointed at Orlando, and even though they can all hear youir answers, no one else in the Seattle newsroom klnows what you are being asked.

7) Prepare an opening answer, and nail it.  Then, no matter what the first question is, answer it with your opening statement.  That makes sure all your talking points get across.  If they need to, they’ll go back and edit the question so it sounds more relevant, but chance are they won’t even notice. 

Ok, so now I’m officially a media consultant.  I’ll fire up the WOFL-TV url when the story gets posted.  Thanks to WOFL-TV anchor and old friend Cale Ramaker for the chance to embarass myself, I mean promote MyElectionChoices.com.