Spark Minute

If everybody loves Super Bowl ads, then why don’t advertisers always make Super Bowl-quality ads?

David Spark — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:02:22 +0000

If everybody loves the ads during the Super Bowl, yet complain about ads in most all other programming, wouldn’t it be in an advertiser’s best interest to make the ads that appear the other 364 days of the year as appealing and as entertaining as Super Bowl ads?

The reason we like Super Bowl ads so much is that they’re usually entertaining (often funny) and they’re fresh and new. The formula couldn’t be any simpler. Make your ads entertaining, ideally funny, and make lots of them, so people will always have something new to look at. It’s the reason we can’t wait to tune into the next new episode of our favorite show. Why should that be any different in advertising?

Having worked in advertising for ten years I know making lots of anything is not possible given the endless levels of checks and balances for approval (internally and with the client) for one stinking ad. Well instead of creating so much overhead for a simple 30 second ad, why not build out a whole series of ads that tell a continuing story? Sitcom writers create incredibly dense 22 minute scripts every week. Every minute is packed with lots of story and jokes. There’s no reason an ad campaign couldn’t work exactly the same way.

If people watch the Super Bowl as much for the game as the ads, why can’t people start getting excited about the content of ads during any other kind of programming as well? I know in England people like to watch the commercials before a movie in a theater because they’re so entertaining.

Why didn’t every single Super Bowl ad include a web link for further information?

Before I watched the Super Bowl, I was thinking that every single advertiser should include a web link to further their 15 to 60-second story. Sadly, very few did, and it’s a shame because they’re missing a golden opportunity. If you’re blowing $3 million on a TV ad, stretch the value of it by extending the story through other media, especially at a time when people are so prone to share information, like during a world-focused live event. Allow people to take the further step into your story.

There’s so much for advertisers to learn from Super Bowl advertising. Not every advertiser can be in or afford to be in the Super Bowl. But every advertiser can learn lessons from the program and its advertising. Want your interstitial ads to be more effective? Follow these simple steps:

Make your ads entertaining (funny) and/or tell a story (e.g. Google’s Super Bowl ad).
Create lots of new ads. Continue a story or play off the same theme. People get bored seeing the same ad over and over again.
You only have 30 seconds on TV, but you’ve got full control of a potentially never ending experience online. No matter what ad you have, compel people to go online to continue the experience.
Live events often have people engaging in social media during the event. Give them something they can share with their friends online during the event.

Cool and not-so-cool from ‘Teens in Tech’ Conference

David Spark — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:53:22 +0000

On a non-school day, Saturday, I trotted down to Google’s offices in San Francisco to attend the “Teens in Tech” conference. So many of the conferences I attend are filled with the same mix of people. That’s why I always like to attend tech conferences that don’t play to the same audience. For example, I learned so much attending the Blogher conference and the same was true with “Teens in Tech.”

Steve Wozniak chatting with a teen in tech

If you’re ignoring this audience, good luck. Quoting my comedian friend Steve Rosenfield, “Children are our future…and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

As I sat down to write this “Cool and not-so-cool” blog post, which has become kind of a standard for me for many conferences I attend as press (see Cool and not-so-cool of LeWeb), I realized I don’t feel too comfortable saying “not-so-cool” to a bunch of teenagers. Especially teenagers who are doing things more impressive than me at my age, let alone when I was a teenager. But, I was able to find things that are “not-so-cool,” read on. And make sure you also watch my video “What are you learning from teens at the ‘Teens in Tech’ Conference?” where I interviewed Harry McCracken, Robert Scoble, Sam Levin, Daniel Brusilovsky, Carlos Rodela, and Michael Nelson of Google.

Cool – Preparation techniques for starting a career in technology – Danny Trinh (@dtrinh), Designer working for Digg, about to leave for college, provided some advice on how to prepare for careers in technology, or in his case specifically, design. Here are some of Trinh’s preparation techniques:

Research and dissect other people’s work.
Seek out a mentor. A good way to approach a mentor is to ask them a question you’re wrestling with.
Don’t try to over-hype yourself, let your work stand for itself.
It’s ok and normal to be scared. If you’re not, especially at your age, you’re doing something wrong.
Be kind and work hard.
Don’t rely on your age as a crutch. Good work speaks for itself. Age doesn’t play into it. Don’t play that card.

Trinh is also a pretty funny guy. If the design technology career falls through, he could launch a career in standup comedy.

Not-so-cool – I’m so NOT a teenager – Wow, after attending this conference I wish I was a teenager now. I was a teenager when personal computers were coming into vogue, pre-Internet. The opportunities were minimal in tech compared to what teenagers have these days. I’m jealous.

Cool – Holding a conference at Google – Rocking wi-fi, tons of free food, and a great room. Gee, I wish all conference setups could be this comfortable.

Joey Primiani makes his entrance

Cool – Plenty of inspiring advice for those of us who aren’t teens – Yes can you learn something from a teenager that can further your career. I did.

Advice from Joey Primiani:

Don’t start companies, start movements.
Focus on how people love themselves.
Keep creative and inspiring friends close.
Invest in yourself. Put money back into your projects.
Hire people who love the product.

Advice from John Ramey and Zak Hassanein, founders of online advertising tool isocket:

Don’t obsess about getting funding at the beginning. Early stage stuff is about building something that’s worthy of getting funding.
Go big at the beginning. Don’t fall into the trap of creating a “lemonade stand.” Don’t assume just because you’re a teenager you have to do one of those youth projects like creating a t-shirt company or textbook swapping site.
Develop a solution first, not a product. That way you’ll start creating something people will pay for.

Cool – Teenagers know how to produce non-boring PowerPoint – I’ve seen so many boring presentations, and most of the teen presenters avoided the boring the bulleted-list style PowerPoint presentations. Although I have bulleted lists in this blog post. Am I “not-so-cool?”

Not-so-cool – Adults at Best Buy still produce boring PowerPoint – I was brought back to the world of dull PowerPoint when a representative from Best Buy got up to present. Everything you’ve seen with boring PowerPoint presentations, white slides with tons of bulleted text, hit the screen and reminded me of all those boring presentations I’ve seen before.

Cool – Best Buy’s @15 program – Thank you Best Buy for sponsoring this event and its philanthropic teen program, @15. Nobody purchases a product at Best Buy without consulting a teen. The average age of a blue shirt rep at their store is 21. By the nature of their business Best Buy is already vested in this community. They realize that they have both an opportunity and a responsibility to the teen community. Although Best Buy has very little focus with this program and the money they’re currently donating ($1 million) is pocket change, I admire the effort and their desire to amplify the messages that teens are creating.

Teens in Tech producers Sam Levin and Daniel Brusilovsky

Not-so-cool – None of these teenagers are creating a time machine – Listening to all these young passionate kids I realize that now is a great time to be a teen in tech. You can do something truly out of passion without worrying about the pressures of life (e.g. mortgage and a family) that require a certain sized paycheck month after month. Ramey and Hassanein admitted when they were starting out they were living off of $800 a month each for two years. Too bad we can’t turn back the clock. I’ll talk to a few teens to see what they can do.

Cool – Booyah’s MyTown – An iPhone/iPod Touch app that’s similar to check-in location-based game applications such as Foursquare, but it’s more like a mobile version of Monopoly with real-world locations. Play the game long enough, attend places, and you can actually “purchase” real-world locations. Anyone who visits your real-world place and checks in, you collect virtual rent from them, giving you more money to purchase more locations.

Cool – Design tips for teens good for everyone – Adam Debreczeni who designed the Teens in Tech conference website, gave a presentation entitled, “How to design for teens” which just should have been entitled, “How to design for everyone.” He pointed out foibles of design especially around advertising. The most sticky and funniest example was his “burning” all the ads on the front page of MySpace. Using a burning animation he made all the ads go up in flames, and after the burnout, all you were left with content-wise was the login box.

Not-so-cool – Turning on the conference Twitter feed behind the presenters – Josh Shipp, a successful young entrepreneur, MTV presenter, and all-around irreverent funny guy had a very difficult time getting through his panel discussion with Teens in Tech Conference’s co-host Daniel Brusilovsky. The cause was an animated Twitter feed projected behind their heads that were echoing and playing off of many of Shipp’s jokes. The audience simply couldn’t stop laughing from all the funny projected tweets. It made it very difficult to get through the interview. There were threats to shut off the Twitter projection, but the audience finally calmed down.

More cool presentations include Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous’ presentation on SmartPowerEd.

Check out more photos from the “Teens in Tech” conference. Thanks to MargiLevin for the photos. Additional photo credits to Mike3K, jolieodell.

VIDEO: What are you learning from teens at the ‘Teens in Tech’ Conference?

David Spark — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:52:44 +0000

Talking to a few of the adults at the conference, I asked them, what are you learning from the teens presenting and attending the conference? In the video are Harry McCracken, Robert Scoble, Sam Levin, Daniel Brusilovsky, Carlos Rodela, and Michael Nelson of Google. Make sure to also read my summary of the event, “Cool and not-so-cool from ‘Teens in Tech’ Conference.”

Where it all started: ‘The Baywatch Report’

David Spark — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 07:56:07 +0000

It’s time for a little Dave Spark trivia. While I’ve written, produced, and appeared in and on more than 30 media outlets, there’s one place where it all started, and that was on radio in Chicago. I used to host a silly segment called “The Baywatch Report” on the most popular morning drive show, “The Kevin Matthews Show” on The Loop. My segment actually appeared just before Danny Bonaduce would go on air. Carlos Rodela, CEO of AllofUsAreFamous and co-host of “Rad on the Web,” interviewed me about my early days in radio.

My podcast listening lineup for 2010

David Spark — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:37:26 +0000

In the past, whenever someone wanted some recommendations for a few good podcasts, I would just point them to my podcast listening lineup. Well, as people recently were asking me for suggestions, I realized that that podcast list was severely dated, by two years.

So here’s my updated list of my favorite shows and why I like them so much. I consume all my podcasts through my iPod Touch.

Audio podcasts

Adam Carolla Podcast – I’m amazed how consistently funny Adam Carolla is. When he conducts interviews, he does most of the talking, and astonishingly it’s not irritating. He’s hysterical. He also cranks out an amazing volume of content.
CNET News.com daily tech news podcast: Great way to get caught up on the day’s tech news in just ten minutes.
Harvard Business IdeaCast: Good short interviews on different business topics.
KCRW’s The Business: This is probably my favorite podcast. Thirty minute weekly show about show business in Hollywood. Great interviews and insightful reporting.
I Love Movies: Former comedy colleague Doug Benson hosts a show where he talks very little about movies, but plenty of funny with other comedians as his guests. At the end, they play a few movie games.
The Moth: This is a story speaking series. Each story (15-20 minute) is incredibly entertaining, funny, and touching.
NPR: Technology Podcast: Just some good tech reporting from NPR. They group together the best tech stories from the week in one podcast.
NPR: Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!: I thought I was getting bored with the format, but it’s still a fun and silly game show.
On the Media: Some of the best reporting on media and journalism outside of The Daily Show.
PRI: The Sound of Young America: Jesse Thorn of Maximum Fun is a great and passionate interviewer. It’s a great source to stay in the know with new rising talent (and some old) across all artistic disciplines.
PRI’s The World: Technology from BBC/PRI/WGBH: Very different style of technology podcast. Each show is focused on stories of people doing unusual things with technology. And it truly is “world” focused. You get amazing stories from all over the place, not just San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
Real Time with Bill Maher: Yeah, it’s a great show and plays off great just in an audio podcast.
Savage Love: Dan Savage is an incredibly entertaining host. Often makes the questions on Loveline seem tame.
Slate’s Culture Gabfest: The smartest nerds you know now have a podcast. They talk about movies, books, music, and give recommendations.
WNYC’s Radio Lab: Fascinating programs that delve into different areas of science. Can be enjoyed by anyone, not just scientists. Got turned onto this show from my friend Pete Alcorn at iTunes. Great audio production. Highly recommended for anyone wanting to learn about audio storytelling.
WTF with Marc Maron: Friend and colleague from my stand-up days, I’ve reconnected with Marc Maron through his podcast. If you can get over the fact that he’s so unbelievably self-absorbed, he’s a great radio host, and given his legendary stature in stand-up, he gets great guests. I especially like it when comedians come on and play characters. Very funny. Great podcast also for comedy nerds that love comedians talking about their craft.

Video podcasts

Flight of the Concords: Funny additional videos from the character Mel, plus replays of silly videos from the show.
Fuel TV: BMX and Skate: OK, I wish I could do all the things they do, but I can’t. Although it’s good to know there are still men in their 30s and 40s still skateboarding.
The Future at Work: This is a rather irregular podcast talking about new technology trends.
Never Not Funny: Extremely funny show hosted by comedian Jimmy Pardo who I’ve known since my stand-up days in Chicago. Only podcast I pay for. Very interesting business model. Learn more by listening/reading my interview with the show’s producer and co-host Matt Belknap.
Old Jews Telling Jokes: Probably the best idea I’ve ever heard for a podcast. They’re a little slow on getting new (old) jokes up this year, but they’ve got an amazing catalog of old jokes. You’ll recognize a good number of them, but plenty of them you won’t. My favorite is “Talking Dog.”
Onion News Network: Consistently funny parody news segments.
TEDTalks: If you don’t learn anything watching sessions at TED, you’re either not listening or you already know everything. In that case, please contact me, I’d love to meet you.

Here are the podcasts that I’ve removed

Here are the podcasts I’ll start listening to again as soon as they start making new episodes

If you’ve got some recommendations, I’d love to hear them, but I must admit that I’m so backlogged on the podcasts I currently have.

Creative Commons photo attribution fatcontroller / CC BY-NC 2.0

Personal productivity tips I actually use every day

David Spark — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:33:46 +0000

Lifehacking, personal productivity, there is an endless slew of advice and information, much of which isn’t applicable to you. While all of this personal productivity information is interesting, it’s not always applicable. I have to admit that I sometimes offer productivity tips that I don’t adhere to myself.

So that’s why I decided to write an article about personal productivity tips I use on a daily basis. My interest in this subject piqued when I heard entrepreneur Stephen Jagger describe how he has moved many of his company’s business operations to the cloud using cheap to free Web 2.0 applications. What made his story so interesting is it wasn’t just “advice,” he was actually using these tools regularly for his business.

So I’ve decided to do the same. I’m going to walk through every element of how I’ve improved the efficiency of my work process, personal branding, and media consumption. It’s far from perfect. I can still be highly distracted and I’m always looking for new productivity tips. If there are any that you can recommend, I’m always up for updating my regimen.

Tools and tips I use for everyday productivity

Run in the morning – First thing I do in the morning. Sometimes I’ll blow it off with the rationale “I’ve got too much work to do.” If I do what results is I’m far more sluggish and I don’t think I’m nearly as productive. The run definitely helps amp me up for the rest of the day.

Password memorization – I have more than 300 accounts on various sites. Before I had a password memorization tool, I used to type in a variety of usernames and passwords hoping that I got the right one. Today, I skip that fruitless pastime and just use Roboform2Go, a password memorization tool that you install on a USB drive. The advantage of using a flash drive is I can take my passwords wherever I go and use it on any computer, even if it isn’t my own. Passwords are erased when I remove the stick. For more, read my article “Products I love and actually use – Roboform2Go.”

Personal content management – I use two tools: Microsoft OneNote for any communications and scraps of info I find. And I use my blog as a thought space to collect my ideas on different topics and issues.

OneNote is hugely advantageous in that I can pop in and out of different projects incredibly quickly and content is really well organized in tabs and folders. Opening, naming, and saving Word documents when you’re parsing out a variety of different information is simply not possible. OneNote makes it possible. Read my article “Products I love and actually use – OneNote.”

The blog is great when I want to collect my thoughts on a specific subject. I used to do this in long emails. When I wanted to share it with someone else I’d have to hunt for that email and forward it. Now I just write a blog post. When someone brings up an issue for which I’ve written something about it, I just search my blog, and then attach the link to an email.

Quick access to sites – There are about ten sites I consistently go to every single day. I used to type them in and let the browser’s auto-complete finish it off. Instead, I just create toolbar buttons at the top of my screen. The trick to getting them all in one row is trimming down the letters of the site’s name or removing them altogether and just leaving icons.

Bookmarking – I used to stick bookmarks in a folder and then they would disappear and I’d never see them again. Now I use Delicious along with the Delicious Firefox plugin to quickly bookmark and catalog items I see online. Often I’ll see something that will be of use to me in the future. A quick click of the Tag button and a couple clicks of the suggested tags of the site, and that page is bookmarked, making it easy to find again in the future.

Keeping up with trends – I use real-time search tools such as OneRiot and Twitter Search. For more on real-time search, read my report “Real-Time Search and Discovery of the Social Web” (20 page PDF). If I need to understand what a certain hashtag means, I take advantage of WhatTheTrend.

Mobile communications – My BlackBerry on Verizon. Yes, the iPhone is cool, but it does one thing very poorly, make calls. Where I live is an AT&T dead zone. My Verizon phone is awesome. I’ve yet to have a dropped call. Yes you read that correctly, NO DROPPED CALLS. As for that, the only thing I use daily on my BlackBerry is email and Twitter with Twitterberry.

Digital communications – Beyond email, I heavily use Twitter and instant messaging. Much can be debated as to whether they’re making me more or less efficient. All I can say is at least they’re keeping me entertained. The two applications I use are Twhirl for Twitter and Trillian as an all-in-one instant messaging application. While I know most Twitter goons have graduated to Seesmic or TweetDeck, I’m still very happy with Twhirl for its simplicity and small footprint on my desktop. Similarly, that’s why I also like the latest version of Trillian. Although when you first install Trillian, it doesn’t seem that simple. Tons of annoying alerts pop up. The trick is to go through the settings and turn them all off, and then only turn on the ones you need.

Consuming the news – Google Reader as my homepage is invaluable. Although I need to get it to cycle other news sources to the front. Another tool I started using to speed up my reading is Zap Reader. If you highlight some text, and then click a Zap Reader button on your toolbar, it will immediately load the text in the Zap Reader. Depending on the speed settings you had previously set, the words from the document will flash through in sequence allowing you read the document quickly without moving your eyes. I’ve just started using it and it’s become really valuable for concentrating and reading online documents more quickly.

The other time I use to consume news is during what I call my semi-distracted time, where I’m doing something else that doesn’t require mental concentration, such as running, cleaning up, or commuting. I figure I have somewhere between 1-3 hours of semi-distracted time every day. During those times I can’t read, but I can listen so I take advantage of those semi-distracted moments by consuming podcasts. When I used to hold an office job, I’d listen to my industry news on the way to work. So when I got to my job, I already knew what was happening. Podcasts are very valuable for keeping me informed and entertained. Check out my podcast listening lineup for 2010.

Promotions – I manually post every blog post to Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and StumbleUpon. I tried Ping.fm for mass posting across multiple services but the problem is submitting to the different sites is nuanced. No two are really exactly the same. That’s why I customize my promotions for each service differently. It’s obvious when people use the auto or mass-posting services. I kind of get turned off by them and start ignoring auto-postings. I just don’t feel comfortable doing it myself. It is a little extra effort, but for the audience I think it’s definitely worth it.

Writing faster – For filling out forms online, I turn once again to Roboform2Go which also has a built in utility that auto fills out online forms. These services have been around for a while and I used to just ignore them as silly until I started using them.

While I may not fill out a form every day, I do type a lot of the same text every day, such as my phone numbers, web sites, email addresses, and more. To speed up the monotony, I started using a small macro utility called Texter that works in all applications in Windows. Simple to use and I use it multiple times every day.

Getting around town – When driving, I rely on Google Maps, but I don’t take advantage of them on my mobile phone solely because of the small text. I print out directions first. But the real life saver for me is NextMUNI which is a service from the San Francisco transit system that tells me when the next bus is arriving, This is an ENORMOUS life saver as bus delays allow me to plan my schedule accordingly or take a different route. On my BlackBerry I’ve bookmarked my most frequent routes.

OK, that’s it for me. I’m eager to hear your suggestions on what productivity tips and tools you use on a daily basis.

One quarter of all people who friend me on Facebook don’t respond to personal messages

David Spark — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:38:54 +0000

I’ve just started receiving a flurry of Facebook friend requests from people I don’t even know. And like my mother, Facebook is recommending people for me to be friends with. I suspect the increase in friend invites has everything to do with Facebook’s new design feature which offers friend recommendations on the front page. It’s right there next to my news feed of my actual friends. It’s so intrusive. Just like my mother.

Want to be someone’s friend? Introduce yourself

It’s odd that I have to write a subtitle like that. But sadly given the mechanisms and behaviors around social media, it comes off as perfectly normal to ask someone we don’t know to be our friend through a social network without introducing ourselves. And to a degree I’ve seen this behavior bleed into the real world, but only by a few select people. Ever have someone come up to you and say, “Can I have your card?” and then nothing else? Or someone walk around at a business function and just shove their business card in your face without even speaking to you? Yes, I’ve seen both happen, but gladly only a few times.

If you’re going to friend a complete stranger, introduce yourself and why you’d like to connect. Again, why the hell do I have to write this? Because I just received about a dozen friend invites in the past week from people I don’t know and only two of them actually spent the time to write one sentence introducing themselves. Why, why, why wouldn’t you introduce yourself to someone you don’t even know? What is a person who doesn’t introduce them self thinking? Do they believe because I have 1,500+ friends on Facebook that I’m just collecting these friends like bottle caps? If they do believe that, is that how they want me to think of them? As much as I value a bottle cap?

But I don’t jump down people’s throat who don’t introduce themselves. Instead, I send a standard reply to everyone, but personalize it by putting their actual name in the message. Here’s my standard reply:

TITLE: Friend Request

Hey ______:

I saw your friend request. Thanks. Excuse me for my ignorance, but have we met before?

David

About 3/4th of the people do reply. Usually it’s a situation of us not having met before but we have similar interests or they saw that we have a lot friends in common. If they just reply, then I’m more than happy to be their friend on Facebook, but if they don’t reply I refuse to friend them. And that’s what astounds me. The people who want to be my friend on Facebook yet refuse to engage in dialogue.

One quarter of all people who friend me on Facebook don’t respond to personal messages

It’s amazing the number of people who DON’T respond to that message right after they send a friend request. Of the people I don’t know who send me friend requests, I estimate it’s about 25 percent. That’s mind blowing. I can’t even begin to think what’s going through their head. What’s the logic? Have any of you readers ever done this? Can you explain it to me? I’ll have to interview the next person who does this to me to determine why the lack of response.

Lack of response after a friend request can actually be damaging

If you choose to ignore a direct message after a friend request, don’t expect anything from that person again. That’s exactly what happened to me. Some guy sent a friend request, I responded with a personal response, and then he ignored me. Two months later his PR firm sent me a request asking if I would write a blog post about his company. The nerve and gall was amazing. I’m sure he never realized that his ignoring me would slap him in the face later on. This is a really fascinating two part story that begins with the PR firm treating me like a tool, and then the client being clueless. Give it a read.

Hey PR, bloggers are not tools to be used
My appearance on John C. Dvorak’s Cranky Geeks. Right at the beginning, John and I go at it talking about this story.
UPDATE: Bad PR experience story. PR firm’s client is obtuse.

How best to be recognized and remembered by a new Facebook friend

This advice is definitely not for the people who don’t want to spend the fifteen seconds to write a simple note to introduce themselves. To be recognized and remembered by a new Facebook friend, you need to be the first person to extend effort and show it. Here are some techniques that others have used on me, and I definitely remember them as a result.

Find what other content that person has published online. Ideally, they’ll have a blog. If not, it might be a Flickr, Twitter, or YouTube account. Best way to figure this out is to search for them on FriendFeed. That’s where they’ll have all their social media publishing services listed.
Read at minimum two blog posts over two weeks. Leave comments on those blog posts.You want that person to know that you’re following them in earnest.
After the two weeks, send a friend request introducing yourself.

It definitely takes a little extra work, but I guarantee you’ll be recognized and remembered. And isn’t that what you want, rather being tossed off as yet another bottle cap?

Creative Commons photo attribution to fbouly / CC BY-ND 2.0

Cranky Geeks asks, “Are we living in a Googleopoly?”

David Spark — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:11:18 +0000

Yesterday, on Cranky Geeks, John C. Dvorak and co-host Sebastian Rupley, argued with myself and Cade Metz, U.S. editor of The Register. We complained about Google claiming that it’s going to pull its operations out of China, me getting uninvited to a press party, and my favorite, sex robots! Watch the 30 minute show.

Is Google dominating or leading the way?

David Spark — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 01:40:19 +0000

Friday night I appeared on KQED’s “This Week in Northern California” to discuss Google’s announcement of its Nexus One a.k.a. “Google Phone.” As mentioned by one of the reporters on the show, so many articles about Google lead with the headline “Are they trying to take over the world?”

(Video automatically skips ahead to my segment (6 min). Watch larger version.)

Most articles don’t follow through with telling the “Google taking over the world” story. The title comes off as more of a ploy just to get people to read the article. In my appearance I talked about how any business that’s delivering digital goods can get and are getting into anyone else’s business that also delivers digital goods. We’ve already been seeing it with cable companies becoming phone companies and vice versa.

In Google’s case, they’re not just getting into other people’s business, but they’re trying to help others get into each others’ business. Because their ultimate goal is so that their business, selling ads, can be seen on more screens, most notably the ones that everyone is looking at, the new age of smart phones.

See the whole episode and more on KQED’s “This Week in Northern California” site.

Pepcom: We’d like to invite you to a party that we don’t want you to attend

David Spark — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:42:00 +0000

Last week I received a nice invitation from Pepcom to attend yet another one of their press events, called “Digital Experience” being held at CES next year in January. I’ll be attending CES this year so I said sure, and thanked Pepcom for the invite. Over the past six years I’ve attended a handful of Pepcom’s press-only events such as “Digital Experience” and “MobileFocus” which are connected to existing major conferences such as CES and CTIA, respectively. The advantage of these events over the general trade show floor is I get to see a lot of new companies, new product announcements, plus it’s an opportunity to schmooze with my fellow journalists. I’m a 14-year veteran tech journalist and analyst that’s written and appeared in more than 30 media outlets in print, radio, and TV. I currently write and appear on ABC Radio, Mashable, Socialmedia.biz, Technologizer, Green 960 radio, Cranky Geeks (I’m on this week too), and KQED, not to mention blogging here at the Spark Minute.

After I graciously accepted the invitation to the event, I received the following message:

“Thanks for getting back to me, but unfortunately we will no longer be able to admit you. I just took a look at your site and saw you are doing media consulting. Please see our attached media guidelines. Of course this is nothing personal, just our policy!” – Pepcom representative

You invited me to an event and then you uninvited me? Wow, that’s rude.

We exchanged a few more emails and I told her all my media credentials but she wouldn’t budge. Because she just discovered I also generate revenue from consulting, I couldn’t attend their event anymore.

What did Pepcom do wrong?

What has Pepcom been doing for the six years I’ve been attending their events? – I’ve been on Pepcom’s mailing list for six years and they “just” looked at my site and saw I was doing media consulting? I’ve never hidden my professional and journalistic occupations. I’ve been in journalism, production, media consulting, and custom publishing for more than seven years. A visit to my business site, blog, or LinkedIn profile would have revealed all of that information. I know them. They obviously didn’t know me.

Why is Pepcom sending invites to a party I can’t attend? – Why were they sending me invites if by their standards I wasn’t qualified to attend? How about you don’t send me an invite in the first place? Look at your mailing list first and determine who is and isn’t qualified before you extend invitations.

If you made a mistake on an invitation, then it’s your fault, not mine – If you invite someone to an event, and you make a mistake about the person’s perceived qualifications, then that’s your mistake. Simply suck it up, and then don’t invite the person to the next event. You don’t uninvite them. Who does this…ever?! Sure, you can say, “It’s nothing personal,” but unfortunately it is. In fact, it’s extremely rude. What do you think etiquette expert Letitia Baldrige would say of your behavior?

Don’t hide your mistake behind your company policy – To defend their position of uninviting me, the Pepcom representative attached a copy of their 11-year-old policy. The reason for this policy is they’ve received complaints from event sponsors that journalists who also worked as consultants were using the forum to pitch their services. That seems a bit harsh to negate all journalists/consultants, but it’s their policy and their event, so be it. I asked the Pepcom representative if anybody had been complaining about me in particular? I didn’t get an answer, but I’m assuming not. Because if anyone did, they probably would have removed me from their invite list.

Insult a journalist, and they’re going to write about it – Journalists and bloggers are always looking for stories. This Pepcom representative obviously didn’t realize that this was going to become a story I’d write about.

They don’t accept journalists that generate additional revenue outside of journalism – Their disclaimer also mentioned that they only accepted full-time journalists. I have not been a full-time journalist for the past six years I’ve been attending their events. And I know many of the people who have been attending their events haven’t either. I suggested she start to dig into her list more and she’ll realize that many of the journalists she’s inviting are generating revenue via one of their unaccepted businesses such as educational, government, non-profit, industry associations, and think tanks. Yes, there are plenty of pure journalists still out there, but given the media climate many of them, even the good ones, have to find other ways to make money. To not invite them comes off as elitist.

What should have Pepcom done?

Eat your mistakes – As previously mentioned, if you make a mistake, you have to swallow it. What’s the worst that could happen? I attend the event and no one complains about me like they haven’t for the past six years. But by uninviting me I was so personally offended (although from their vantage they claim it wasn’t personal – just an 11-year-old company policy) that I was moved to write a blog post attacking their business practices. It would have been a lot safer for them to say nothing and then remove me from their invite list for future events.

Qualify your mailing list before you send out invitations – Everyone does this. Why doesn’t Pepcom? What made them think that qualifying invites after people have accepted would be a good idea?

Send an apology email to all the journalists removed from the list - After you qualify your mailing list and before you send out the invite, send out a message to all the people you removed explaining why they’ve been removed. Apologize, but give them an option to point out their journalistic credentials that you may have missed. My friend Esme Vos, editor and producer of many events for MuniWireless, advises that Pepcom goes one step further and throws an event for all the people they had to remove. Doesn’t need to be as costly and as large as the other event. Maybe just a mixer.

Don’t negate journalists that wear other hats – Your sponsors are looking for quality people that represent media outlets they want to appear in. That should be your deciding factor. Not whether that person makes all their money from journalism and nothing else.

I’m sure there’s far more history to Pepcom’s events than what I experienced in my single little incident. They’ve got more than 11 years of stories to tell. I invite them to engage in this public discussion.

Top photo, Creative Commons attribution (Vissago / CC BY-NC 2.0)