Monday October 20th

Usual morning, up at 5:30 to feed the dog, but delayed walking him until about 6:30 so I had more light. It was cool this morning, but should be up around 76 today. Fall is amazing, cool nights and warm days. I noticed the sunrise had lots of orange in the sky. Tool the dog for a 1.33 mile walk. So excited, I walked up to a parkette that has blue dog pooh bags, they are scented and smell great.

Sunday October 19th

It's Warm today High of 75. There was a beautiful sunrise, it was a pretty orange in Eastern sky. Fall in California is amazing, warm days and cool nights. Picked up groceries from Gelson's. The Gelson's team always does an amazing job. Went to the 12:00 pm Mass. It was good, the priest’s homily was a bit long. Took, the dog for a couple of nice walks. Watched the Washington Commanders get beaten by the Cowboys on FOX, Watched some of the NASCAR race from Talladega. I was very happy Chase Briscoe won, the race and has made it to the championships. I always root for the Toyotas. All in all it was a relaxing Sunday.

Sunday October 12th

The weather was mild, warmer than I thought it would be, Mid 70's. Made a big breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns and toast. Had an interesting Jelly, caramel and cinnamon, made the toast taste like french toast. Went grocery shopping at Gelson's, actually ordered online and picked up. The Gelson's associates are very nice, both came out to deliver the groceries to the car. I always bring Sam, the Lab, and the associates give me treats (that I provide). The trip to Gelson's is a big part of Sam's week. The rest of the day, was sports oriented, did some yoga and walked Sam for about a mile. Watched some of the NASCAR race. I was glad that Denny Hamlin won. He has raced a long time and never won the championship, so it would be good, if he wins it this year. Spoke to my daughter for about an hour as she plans for her wedding next year. End of the evening watched two new K Dramas on Netflix, “Genie, Make a Wish”, about a genie who seems to be falling in love with the love interest. It's interesting, the Genie is supposed to be evil, and one of the villains is an angel, who does not seem very angel like. The love interest appears to be very jaded and has no feelings. She has been known to take pleasure in hurting others, like dissecting frogs but her Grandmother convinced her that so long as she follows rules, she will not hurt herself or others. The other Kdrama I am watching is “Typhoon Family”. It's interesting there is a son who seems more interested in growing flowers than taking over the family's business, of import/export. It's set in 1997 during the South Korean financial crisis.

Saturday October 11th

The weather was mild high about 75 low 65. Look the dog to the groomer, visited my father in law in Orange county. Went to Big 5 with my wife and picked up some gym equipment.

Friday October 10th

Got up early, took the trash out and walked the dog. I had a job interview for a social Media position, I really hope I get it. Took the dog for a walk while listing to Spotify.

October 3, 2025

A brief summary of today, got up at 5:30 am, feed the dog. Did meditation and took a nice 1.5 mile walk listing to the Grateful Dead's Working Man's Dead. What a great album, from 1970 with tracks like Uncle John's Band, Casey Jones and Cumberland Blues. It's country blues type album with songs that showcase the working man theme.

Two Really Good New Books

I am reading Seth Godin's new book "We all are Weird" were he talks about the decline of normal and the rise of the new weird. The old normal was based on consumers wanting to be like their neighbors and conform to what society said they should be. Industry and commerce were built on producing few products with limited options that appealed to the widest audience. During this period, mass media, especially TV, allowed advertisers to reach a large audience at the lowest costs per thousand (CPM). Advertisers were reaching the great middle and selling products with limited differentiation. In the new normal consumers are free to explore whatever they want in whatever niche appeals to them. Today, consumers have choices not only in the products they choose, but also where they spend their media time. With the rise of the internet and the proliferation of media outlets, a person can find the content they want when they want it no matter how strange or esoteric. You can find a blog or site that focuses on whatever passion you happen to have. Speaking about me, I love new media, surfing and Dr. Who and there are plenty of sites for me to stay current on all those activities. For new media, Mashable, Gizmodo, Venture Beat and All things Digital are just a few of the sites I visit regularly. For surfing, Surfline and Magic Seaweed are two of my favorite sites. Dr. Who is easy, BBC and YouTube. I also love watching old episodes on Netflix. For that matter, my Twitter newsfeed pushes stories to me, about surfing, social, Dr Who, whatever I want. For an advertiser it is all about finding and targeting smaller and smaller groups of consumers. However, these smaller groups of people represent consumers that are passionate about their activities and hopefully passionate about your brand. What an advertiser may miss out in terms of the size of an audience they make up with passion and commitment of that audience. However Seth Godin says an advertiser needs to embrace this new normal and embrace these new groups not with a token commitment, but a total commitment to make products and marketing communications that reflect what this group actually wants. The other book I am reading is “On-Demand Brand” by Rick Mathieson who has the premise that consumers no longer want to wait, instead they want what they want now. He uses Burger King’s famous phrase, “Have it your way” as evidence of a change in consumer behavior. From a macro perspective, Rick is correct. Media choices have evolved from having to wait to watch a weekly TV show to first VCRs and DVRs which allowed you to time shift your favorite show to iTunes, Hulu or Netflix where you can instantly watch whatever you want when you want and on the device you want, TV, tablet, or mobile phone. I love the example of music. In the old days, you listed to a top 40 radio station and if you heard a song you liked, you had to wait until they played the song again. With the rise of online radio stations such as Pandora. Slacker, and Jango you now can listen to groups that are similar to what you wanted, but not your exact song. You can also game these stations, but that’s another story. Now with the rise of Spotify, Rhapsody and others you can listen to whatever song you want when you want and on the device you want and all for about $10 a month. Obviously, iTunes also gives you music on demand but makes you buy the music whereas with Spotify, it’s more like renting than buying. When you combine these two ideas Marketers now must appeal to these smaller groups and must appeal to them with content they want when they want it. We live in an exciting time.

Why I got into the advertising business

I was a marketing major in college at the University of Richmond and earned my MBA from Pepperdine and I have always been fascinated by advertising. After graduating college, I confess all I knew about advertising was the creative department and account management, I knew nothing about media. However, I answered an ad for a media assistant in the OC Register for an agency in Newport Beach and once I was in media I really enjoyed it. Media is fascinating because it’s always changing.

Even the idea of what is a medium is changing. Is a medium just mass media? Or can it be one to one communication, such as mail, email, or phone calls. What about screens in unusual areas such as on Taxi-cabs, or in the grocery store? The list of media is endless. At one time society was dominated by a top-down media structure where only selected professionals had access to mass communication vehicles, but now we have the democratization of media where anyone with an idea and a computer can communicate to large number of individuals. If anything, the problem now days is how do you filter the millions of websites, blogs, videos and social posts to fine information that is reliable and pertinent. This is why social recommendations are so critical now days to help consumers find not only good media content, but other products and services. Advertising must change to less of a push strategy to more of a partnership with consumers where we provide beneficial content that is compelling and also provides solid rationale for buying a product of service.

Besides, from “Bewitched”, to “Bosom Buddies”, to “Thirtysomething” to “Melrose Place” to “Mad Men”, advertising agencies have always looked cool on TV.

Where Good Ideas Come From

Reading a great book by Steven Johnson on the history of innovation, called Where Good Ideas Come From. It's a must read for anyone that wants to encourage their organization to be more innovative. I love this quote: "Innovative environments are better at helping their inhabitants explore the adjacent possible, because they expose a wide and diverse sample of spare parts-mechanical or conceptual-and they encourage novel ways of recombining those parts (location 494-98 in Kindle).

Thursday: 2/10/11 7:21 am

It's a pretty day in So Cal. There is no fog and there is lots of sun. It's a bit windy. The commute was easy this morning. It took me less than an hour to go from Redondo to Irvine. I was able to talk to my old college friend, Archer Irby for about 25 minutes. Even though he lives in NY, I woke him up when I called at 6:30 my time, 9:30 his time

Saturday January 22, 2010

It was a good day. The weather was mild, mid 60's and sunny. The Santa Ana's kicked in a bit, but it was not too windy. We had one exterminator come by to give us an estimate to fumigate the house and one concrete guy came by to give us an estimate of managing the back yard. We picked up a great Bundt Cake at a small little place in Manhattan Beach. We picked up Mary, my daughter and visited mom and dad in Fullerton. We had a bit of birthday party for mom and headed back up.

What's in my backpack

This morning I was thinking about all the stuff I lug around in my backpack. It’s so heavy that I lean when I carry it like Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

I have paper copies of Blankets, the graphic novel, and Groundswell the book by Forrester on social networking.

I have my Kindle with an electronic copy of Groundswell and books on the Open Source Revolution. I actually love my Kindle because it is so easy to make notes and underline things which you can access quickly to double check a reference.

I have a paper copy of the UCLA Extension Winter Schedule. I don't think I will take a class this quarter since I am still recovering from last semester’s work load.

I have extra thumb drives and pens and paper along with my check book and check register. An interesting thing about the check register, is I don't use it anymore instead I rely on mobile banking to check my balance.

I have bills I need to pay and some like solicitations from Heal the Bay and Surfrider, I don't have to pay, but want to, to help the environment.

I have two recent copies of Wired in my backpack and the most recent copy of The Surfers Journal. In many ways, my backpack is a microcosm of my life and the things I care about for work and recreation. I need a digital frame so I can carry photos of my wife and kids in my backpack, since they are the most important thing in my life.

Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins

Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Official Weblog of Henry Jenkins

Shared via AddThis

Very Cool Photos of Every day People

http://andrewbush.net/vectors%202-10-08/index.htm#5

Recommendations on the switch from analog TV to digital

The purpose of this document is to present a recommendation on how to use social networking as presented in “Momentum” by Allison Fine to ensure that seniors, African Americans and Hispanics are prepared for the switch from analog TV to digital TV on February 17, 2009.

Background

Originally TV licenses were issued based on spectrum availability in a given area with little in the way of costs since the TV stations were licensed to broadcast for the public good. As the market moved to digital TV, it was understood that broadcast stations would not need as many frequencies with digital as they did with analog. Consequently, in 1997 the FCC agreed to allow broadcasters to continue broadcasting over the air TV in the current 700 MHz spectrum for a limited time so they could transition to digital TV (Publicknowledge.org). The FCC at that time agreed to auction off part of the spectrum to raise money to help pay down the Federal deficit. The bands were sectioned in blocks, A, B, C, D & E. The big bidding has been for C block which can be used for national phone and high speed internet access. Blocks A, B and E are reserved for smaller geographic areas in order to ensure that under populated parts of the country obtain wireless service (Anderson, 2007, para. 4). Sales of the A, B and E spectrum will help ensure that the Indian Reservations Colonel Dave Hughes worried about in chapter six of Smart Mobs can actually get high speed internet access (Rheingold, 2002, pp. 144-152). The auction was just completed on March 18, 2008 with results announced on March 20, 2008. Verizon and AT&T were the big winners posting $16.3 Billion of the $19.12 Billion placed in the auction (Kaplan-Reuters, 2008, para 1)

However, there were some surprises in the auction. For one, Google, bid 4.7 Billion on C block inventory, but did not win any of the bands. Most believe Google made their bid to ensure that the FCC received the minimum bid of $4.6 Billion which would ensure the C block was open so that any device could access its broadband network. Another surprise was that Dish Network paid $711 Million for part of the 700 MHz spectrum which may be used for a national video network (Kaplan-Reuters, 2008, Para 3).

The third surprise is that the auction of D block was put on hold since the FCC did receive the $1.3 Billion minimum bid it required. Whoever wins D block will have to share the band with emergency responders. This sharing arrangement may have effected its bid prices (Kaplan-Reuters, 2008, Para 26).

One big issue of the recent auction was satisfied since the nationwide spectrum won by Verizon will be accessible to a range of open devices and platforms.

However, the other issue that is occurring is the very real possibility that 19 million US households will not have access to TV as of 2/17/2009 (Broache, 2007, Para 9). The rest of this paper focuses on the need to inform seniors, African Americans, Hispanics and other underserved minorities about the switch over from analog to digital on 2/17/09.

What’s been done so far?

For starters there is a very good web site developed by the Government (http://www.dtv.gov/) which provides all the details about the switch from analog to digital broadcasting. The web site is in English and in Spanish, plus the site has podcast and downloadable videos. There is even a video using sign language to explain the changes.

The site notes that all analog TV turners will need a digital converter in order to receive digital signals after February 17, 2009. Additionally the site states that all US TV households are eligible to receive two (2) forty dollar coupons for the purchase of an analog to digital converter boxes (Digital Television Basics, 2008). There is a link which allows you to download a coupon online. There is a real concern that better educated, more upscale households will take advantage of the forty dollar coupons, but minorities may be left behind.

To help ensure all understand the changeover, the DTV.gov website all so has an “Outreach Tool Kit” that can be used by activists to spread the word about the count down to digital. For example, the site has static JPEG and Gif banners that can be placed on a person’s web site. There is even a very good flash widget in English and in Spanish that has the countdown in day, hours, minutes and seconds until the shift to digital. The site even has a quiz on the switch to digital that someone can take and earn a DTV Deputy badge.

Emarketer issued a report in on February 15, 2008 which indicated that only 37% of adults 65+ used the internet in the three month period of October – December, 2007. This compares to 92% of Adults 18-29 and 85% of adults 30-49 and even 72% of adults 50 - 64. This data indicates that seniors over 65% are less likely to find out about the government’s switch to Digital because of their lack of internet access. In terms of ethnicity, the same Emarkter study indicates that 76% of whites, 56% of blacks and 79% of Hispanics accessed the internet in the October – December, 2007 period. This would tend to indicate that Hispanics should be reachable through online media. However, the government may have problems targeting African – Americans through online media.

More Ads on the way

A CNET blog quoting The Wall Street Journal indicated that the cable and broadcast industry has already committed $900 Million to advertising the switch from analog to digital (Reardon, Para 4). However, the FCC is requesting that the broadcast and cable industry increase the number of public service messages to four per day and then 12 per day as the changeover gets closer. The FCC also indicated that most of the current public service announcements are running from 12 midnight to 6:00 AM when most people are sleeping (Reardon, Para 3).

Recommendation

While the increased advertising may help build awareness of the switch over among general consumers, this recommends the government develops an outreach program for Seniors 65+, Hispanics and African Americans. Specifics recommendations for the outreach are as follows:

For seniors, the government should encourage each consumer to notify at least one adult 65+ about the new change over. People can notify their parents, grandparents, or neighbors. The government can post senior notification profiles on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook and encourage the viral sharing of widgets such as their countdown widget to make those under 65 aware of how important it is to help seniors adjust to this changeover. For example, in times of emergency it is important that seniors can get life saving information which will not be as available if they do not have access to digital broadcast TV.

For Hispanics, since this group is already involved with the Internet, the government should continue to push out information about the digital changeover. The use of key Hispanics TV stations such as Telemundo or Univision is also critical to get the message out about the change over to digital.

Finally, for African-Americans, it is important to push information out through the schools about the change over to digital. Additionally, the government can reach out to email databases and such as “Afro-Netizen.org to encourage younger African-Americans to reach out to their parents, grandparents and neighbors so that all members of the African-American community know about the change over to digital TV (Fine, 2006)

Conclusion

By increasing public awareness advertising, by outreach programs to under-serviced minorities such as seniors, Hispanics and African-Americans, the government can ensure that all Americans can participate in the digital revolution. The goal should be no TV set left behind.

Notes,

Public Knowledge, Retrieved 20 March, 2008 from:

http://www.publicknowledge.org/issues/spectrum-reform

Anderson, N. (2007). 700 MHz auction: What’s really up for grabs, and why it won’t be monopolized. Retrieved 23 March, 2008 from: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070815-700mhz-auction-whats-really-up-for-grabs-and-why-it-wont-be-monopolized.html

Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart Mobs. Cambridge, MA: Basic Books.

Kaplan, P, Reuters, (2008) Verizon, AT&T dominate U.S. airwaves auction, Retrieved 23 March, 2008 from:

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/03/20/2008-03-21T004122Z_01_N20420234_RTRIDST_0_WIRELESS-AUCTION-UPDATE-4.html

Woyke, E, Forbes, (2008), Google's Android Gets Game, Retrieved 23 March, 2008 from:

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/01/11/google-android-wifiarmy-tech-wire-cx_ew_0111android.html

Kaplan, P, Reuters, (2008) Verizon, AT&T dominate U.S. airwaves auction, Retrieved 23 March, 2008 from:

http://www.forbes.com/reuters/feeds/reuters/2008/03/20/2008-03-21T004122Z_01_N20420234_RTRIDST_0_WIRELESS-AUCTION-UPDATE-4.html

New Definition of Mobilize

I was in a meeting with the sales rep from Yahoo! Mobile, who said that they “mobilized” the Fantasy Sports section of their web site in order to place it on their mobile site or WAP site. WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol; it’s a reference to a mobile web site and has to with the type of coding you have to do to get it up and running.

Anyway the thing that struck me was the way he had changed the meaning of the word “mobilize” from mobilize troops for war to turn a web site into a mobile application.

Smart Mobs - Thomas Ray Post

This is a paper I wrote for class that I thought I would share with others.

In his book, Smart Mobs, the next social revolution, Howard Rheingold paints a picture of where technology is today (circa, 2000 – 2002), the history of how we got to where we are today, and where he sees technology going. The book’s title concerns the following: “Smart mobs consist of people who are able to act in concert even if they don’t know each other. The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devises that posses both communication and computing capabilities”. (1) To me Rheingold made the following positive points in his book:

• Mobile Technology is changing the world and giving consumers new ways to connect with friends, families and other communities.
• Mobile Technology is enabling consumers to mobilize as a group in order to bring about political and social change.
• The proliferation of computer chips in quantity, processing power and speed allows for the development of “smart” furniture, roadways, buildings and other objects that will allow consumers to interact in new and different ways to their environment.
• Wireless technology can be developed inexpensively which gives consumers access to the internet in places where cables can either not be laid (eg., Africa’s Tanzania or remote native American reservations in the Western United States) or in areas where consumers would prefer to be unwired (e.g., working from a park bench or at the beach).

Rheingold also makes the following points concerning the negative aspects of technology.

• Wireless technology can be used in unprecedented ways to monitor consumers’ activity from bits of phone conversation picked up on a street to the digital footprints of cell phones as the government triangulates on a person’s location.
• The threats to a consumer’s quality of life, when they live “in an always-on, hyper-connected culture” (2)
• The lack of direct contact with people and the lack of nuisance of language and tone can lead to misunderstandings or conflict.
• Taken to its logical extreme some have even questioned the need for a human body with its mortality and susceptibility to disease and instead suggested that a cyborg existence that transcends our body may be in order.

Rheingold raises so many questions and goes into so many different areas, all of which are relevant to us in 2008 that is hard to know where to start discussing this book. For example, I do not believe that “wearable computers” have really taken off, but I could be wrong. However, as an owner of an iphone, I believe I have all the technology that Steve Mann had as a cyborg in the book at his figure tips. For example, I use maps to find directions to any address I need to go to, I have a built-in ipod to listen to my music and in discussions, I have a search component to give me instant answers the way Rheingold, described how Thad Starner used his wearable computer to “look up something online” while in middle of a discussion. (3)

One of the interesting areas that Rheingold discussed in his book is the power of “Smart Mobs” to influence social and political change. Rheingold describes how texting mobs in the Philippines where able to bring down President Joseph Estrada and force him from office. He also described how Smart Mobs in Seattle were able to mobilize quickly and disrupt the World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in 1999.

I was reminded of Rheingold’s Smart Mobs this week, when I read where crowds on Twitter, a mobile social networking site, were able to disrupt the keynote address at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, TX, between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and journalist Sarah Lacy. For those who do not know, Mark Zuckerberg is 23 years old and he invented Facebook while still at Harvard as an undergraduate. Last year, Microsoft invested $240 million in Facebook which gives the site a $15 Billion dollar value (4) Apparently, Lacy, used an informal friendly interview style that did not sit well with the developers and programmers at the festival. Additionally, some in the audience believed that Lacy was not prepared for the interview and did not ask meaningful questions. Wired.com did a good job covering the whole thing and I have posted their URL below.

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/sxsw-mark-zucke.html

Notes,
1) Smart Mobs, by Howard Rheingold, page xii, Basic Books, 2002
2) Rheingold, Smart Mobs, page 190
3) Ibid, page 110
4) Source: NY Post, October 26, 2007, quoting RBC Capital Markets, analyst David Brink

What is media and how does it impact your daily life?

What is media and how does it impact your daily life?

Media can be defined a number of ways, Wikipedia breaks down media into the following segments: communication, life sciences, computing and fine arts with a definition of media for each segment. Under communication it indicates that “media is a tool used to store and deliver information”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media)

In the text book, “Advertising Media Planning”, media is defined as “existing primarily to deliver entertainment, information and advertising to a vast audience” (Sissors & Bumba, 1997, page 4).

To me media is any form of oral, visual or written communication that conveys meaning from a sender to multiple receivers. Media is usually commercial, but could also be used by non-profits to convey their messages. Media is not one to one communication as in the case of a personal conversation, nor is it one to many in the case of a speech at a political rally. However, media does not necessarily have to reach a vast audience, for example, if you go to Justin.TV, you can see lifecasters who are using the internet as their medium and broadcasting their lives to less than 100 people at a time.

Media can be electronic in terms of TV, Radio, online or mobile or printed in terms of magazines or newspapers. Media is usually mass communication in which the few are distributing information to the masses. However today, anyone can post on a social networking site or develop a video for YouTube so that any consumer can make content for others and even the control of that content has passed from corporations to the consumer. In the world of mash-ups, even the idea of who owns what can be debated.

As a consumer and a knowledge worker, I am constantly exposed to messages. On my way to work, I pass billboards and listen to the radio to check sports scores. At work, I check newsletters and blogs for the latest information. I then check Facebook for updates from the night before. Since most of the programs that I use for work, are online based, I use my IGoogle page constantly through out the day which means I stay informed of news, sports and weather throughout the day. On my way home, I pass billboards and listen to the radio again. I usually multitask at night, watching TV and reading magazines or surfing the web. I also use my phone to download music and to text to my friends and family. Media informs me. It keeps me current on politics and trends in music and other lifestyle issues that are important to me. Media entertains me with the latest movies and shows on TV or on the web.

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media

Sissors, Jack Z. & Bumba, Lincoln, Advertising Media Planning, NTC Business Books, Chicago, IL, 1997