I just realized that I haven’t mentioned the Beancast recently, it’s a great Marketing Podcast with a panel – basically TWiT for Marketing. Last week I was on with Saul Colt, the smartest man in the world, and that in itself is reason enough to listen. Not surprisingly, I get to be sarcastic
[audio:http://beancast.evanbooth.com/shows/088_The_BeanCast_Marketing_Podcast_Brands_Politics.mp3]Things have been a bit slow here at the blog, that’s because all the work lately has been behind the scenes. Finally the time has come, a lot of stuff is shipping this week. In fact all 3 of the major projects from the past 3 months have all come down to Tuesday.
At work we had a major product launch, that’s been eating up a ton of time, and just for fun let’s throw in the company kickoff and a bunch of powerpoint decks.
Marketing Over Coffee also had two big projects – for the past month I’ve been sitting on the secret of the next big interview – on Monday I finally dropped a half hour conversation with Seth Godin on his new book Linchpin.
A big chunk of Q4 last year was finishing an eBook an email marketing strategies. Right now the sponsor has exclusive rights to it but if you go over to Seth’s Squidoo page and vote up the Marketing Over Coffee interview and then tell me, I will see what I can do about getting you a copy.
I hate partial feeds – blogs that only show the first paragraph of the post, forcing you to click through for a page view. When I started this blog I inadvertently left partial feeds enabled, and then removed all the links. If you are still seeing a partial feed, please delete the old subscription and re-subscribe. If that doesn’t do it, please tell me so I can fix it – because I hate partial feeds.
Thanks for your help!
This is kind of a spring cleaning post – stuff that I have on my list to write about (which forces me to think about), but after review is cool but for whatever reason there’s not much to say beyond “check this out”.
Chrome OS – Google’s OS, the fact that you would log into any computer and if it was connected to the web it would be “your” machine. This makes you think differently, one thing I love is that it would choke out viruses quickly.
Chrome Extensions – The one thing that kept me on Firefox was that Chrome didn’t have extensions (specifically my delicious tags). But now I’m thinking that if I install all the crap I have in firefox that suddenly chrome wouldn’t seem as blazingly fast anymore…
Sprint Premier – One of the most popular posts on this blog is Screw Your Customers where I bitched about strangers off the street getting better deals than loyal customers. Sprint Premier is great, if you are a heavy customer you get the new customer deals. You’d think everyone would do this, but they are the first people I’ve seen going the extra mile. Nice Job!
And with that I am back to paying bills and trying to get my tax stuff together… Have a good weekend!
Another year has passed and here’s my scorecard:
Overall a pretty good year, 80% of goal in raw numbers, although they aren’t really relevant here. I don’t show all the details to maintain my own privacy, but here’s a deeper look:
Family: Our family has grown by one and I did get to spend time with my relatives in both Michigan and California, and that’s everything I really wanted to do. There’s always more I could do here, but there’s only so much vacation time to go around.
Financial Goals: In spite of the recession, it was a pretty good year. The goals of aggressive savings, and better management of the portfolio and insurance were met, hitting 100%
Professional: My 5th year at work was a big one, and M Show productions continues to run at break even, meaning that I’m paying for my gadgets and getting to go to a few conferences. Another goal where 75% completed of what I planned at the start of the year is a huge win given the state of the economy.
Personal: This was where I fell short, although I’m happy with 50%. I was hoping to shoot more video, I did have some 4th quarter heroics getting a chance to really play with iMovie this month, and GH hooked me up huge with the new HD Flip cam, so that’s pretty cool. I was hoping to have the house painted, but other maintenance took precedence. This is one of those things where it pays to adjust your goals if possible – I got a zero percent for house painting but if I had updated it at mid-year to “maintenance projects” I could take 100%. I’m in the same shape I was at the start of 2009, I finished Falmouth, but one of my worst times. Give my home situation I’m happy just to be getting enough sleep to function and not being sick. I will again shoot at Falmouth, but 2010 Goals will be coming soon!
I hope your 2009 goals were met and wish you the best in 2010.
For non-fanboys, Doctor Who is the story of a man who travels in a ship that is a police box (a blue phonebooth) on the outside but is larger on the inside. He travels through both space and time, leaving the writers all of the universe and history to draw stories from. Better yet, he has the ability to physically regenerate from fatal injury, giving the writers the ultimate flexibility of having a new actor take over the role every few years.
The show is nearing its 50th anniversary, it ran from 1963 to 1989, and known for great stories, but terrible special effects. It was revived in 2005 and has been done with top notch special effects and has been excellent viewing.
I have to give the BBC credit for finally running new episodes 1 day after they run in the UK. It’s kind of a running joke among US fans about getting the show off the torrents or other non-kosher means. The David Tennant finale aired this weekend (actor Matt Smith takes over in the spring) and I was able to watch it on my Tivo like any other TV show. But still, I’d be willing to pay for HD on Apple TV…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnPUF8an-XE[/youtube]
I’ve talked a number of times about John Wall, who’s become the hottest thing going in college hoops. Although it’s killing my personal SEO, that would be worth the price if he can deliver a show like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4y_awwptf30[/youtube]
With some time to read I dug into a few things over the holidays:
Thinking with Type: An interesting book about design and fonts. I picked up a lot of interesting little things (such as the fact that the upper case letters were stored in the top case near the printing press, the “smaller” letters in the case below that – the lower case), but I didn’t walk away from it thinking that I would do a better job of laying out type. The book would be perfect if you were taking a course but like most design books I’ve read, they don’t make you a pro.
The Accidental Millionaire: If you know who Gary Fong is, then you should read this book. He’s had an interesting life and tells a good story, many of them funny. There are some weird grammatical things in it but I got the feeling that they were there to keep a conversational tone. If you are not into photography or the owner of a “Fong Dong” you should probably move along. I’ve been impressed with the great job he does teaching people about his products on his website, and you actually don’t feel ripped off buying a $2 piece of plastic from him for $50 because he tells a great story and the product does completely kick ass.
I also fired up the Apple TV to watch:
The Prisoner: A remake of a classic late 60’s early 70’s TV show. Amazing visuals, but like the Torchwood miniseries I recently watched, having to sit through 5 or 6 hours for a 20 minute payoff is not worth it. I would recommend watching the original and taking a pass on this one.
As a gift I got Spiderman: Web of Shadows for Xbox 360 – It’s pretty good but the graphics aren’t the best that the Xbox can do. I haven’t found a Marvel game that beats the Hulk game for the original Xbox, and Batman: Arkham Asylum is, hands down, the best I’ve played.
I’ve also started The Design of Everyday Things, and will report back on that.
Here’s some of the stuff that I ran across over the past couple of weeks during my self-inflicted blogging exile:
What will Sports Illustrated Look like? I am a huge fan of SI because of fantastic writing and incredible pictures, I follow sports in the papers but the magazine is in a league of it’s own. Mike Troiano had pointed this out in his blog:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntyXvLnxyXk[/youtube]
What can film makers do with next generation DSLRs that shoot video? The evil mastermind behind Ask a Ninja shows what can be done with with a DSLR (regular camera) that can shoot video, hard to tell the difference between it an your average Rom-Com.
You really need to fail more. My Marketing Over Coffee co-host writes about the importance of failure. This was driven home for me listening to This American Life last week, it’s a fantastic audio program and one of the reasons why is that 8 stories get developed and the best 3 or 4 make it to the show
Will graphic novels transition to digital devices? Yes. I tried out the PSP comic reader a few weeks ago and it’s really good. It’s a comic store’s worst nightmare – easy to buy online and download wirelessly, and it actually is easy to read. Check out the demo here. As a DC fan I’m kind of disappointed that they are launching with Marvel – Dan DiDio, what’s the deal? I’d rather buy your stuff…
Ok, I need to finish my holiday cards and shopping, I hope your stress level is below the boiling point for December.
Even though I said I was taking November off, I’m back again. A friend asked me about recording a phone interview and I wrote so much that I thought it would be a shame not to get a post out of it too.
The Phone Tree Option in Order of Sound Quality:
Best – Skype to Skype
Still good – Skype to regular phone (Skype Out) A lot of people use this if your interview subject can’t handle skype (doesn’t have the bandwidth, or the technical skill).
Last Option – Phone to Phone
For skype to skype or skype to skype out, use one computer for skype and another, or a digital recorder to record, do not skype and record on the same machine (yes, I know, lots of people do skype and record on one machine, remember that you’ve only listened to their successes, you haven’t heard the files that were lost or ruined). Another benefit of this method is that you get full studio sound on your side.
Ways to do phone to phone: like most tech stuff, the trade offs are that cheap and/or easy are at the expense of sound quality.
One thing to test is cell vs. land line. Cell can be clearer, but if reception is an issue go to land line.
Another important factor – headsets are best, handset next, Polycom conference phone is rough, speakerphones are terrible.
Cheapest and easiest: Many conference call services, such as the good folks of TelSpan can record your conference call (I am a customer of theirs). Give your subject the number, tell the service in advance that you want this one recorded, and download an mp3 when you are done. This is as low a quality can go, but it does work.
Next, if you already have recording gear, put the subject on a polycom and record the room. You get studio sound on one side and this method is a good compromise on price / sound quality. The setup we use for Marketing Over Coffee (this link goes to a page with the full gear listing) is great for that, it’s about $600 but is NPR quality sound and durability. You can go cheaper, but the question is: “How screwed would you be if you lost an interview?” for some it’s no big deal, for others it may be once in a lifetime opportunity.
Most expensive – a device that operates as a phone but pulls the caller into your mixer and pushes your mic back down the line. I don’t know many people that go this route since skyping out is cheaper and better sound quality. But, it should be noted that JK Audio has a full assortment of devices that do this (as well as some other devices that are great if you want to do your own webinars – again, I am a customer and vouch for them).
It will also depend on if you are doing it once or if it’s an ongoing project, for one time call in some favors, rent gear, or pay a pro. If it’s a regular thing, get some decent gear.
Another big tip – when you are done, run it through the Levelator, it’s a free software tool that balances out the volume levels.
Have fun, and Happy Thanksgiving!