Geek Soap Box

Today, in a not-so-random conversation with a person to be named later, I referred to one of my professional strengths as believing in the democratic nature of information.  Basically, what I meant is that, in the past, a few individuals — big media, corporate public relations teams, and the like — controlled nearly all of [...]

Blog Maverick: Tax the Hell Out of Wall Street and Give It to Main Street It should always be the natural reaction of any lover of freedom and liberty to be inclined towards opposing any new proposed tax, especially those proffered in the name of the public good.  This blog post from Mark Cuban, though, [...]

I am pleased to report that my first-ever “foray” — pardon the pun — into the world of podcasting is now live!  Go download “This Week in Media” Episode #173 today and listen to us banter for an hour on advertising addressability and why content is king, live from Transformation 2010 in San Francisco, CA! [...]

Cross-posted at 4A’s Events Blog. Whether you work in the advertising/marketing community, the association world, or anywhere in between, chances are you have been to quite a number of conferences over the years. These conferences are all the same on the surface, to a certain extent. They provide an opportunity to meet and share information/stories [...]

Not content with twice-weekly multi-state Mega Millions, Lotto, Take 5, Win 4, Daily Numbers, Sweet Millions, Pick 10, and Quick Draw, New York State is now offering PowerBall — the original multi-million, newsmaking jackpot bonanza — as well as part of its standard lottery offerings. I guess this has to be expected in the wake [...]

Arriving soon, courtesy of the municipal government of the City of New York: the “official” NYC condom, in a special limited designer edition! After assessing hundreds of possible package designs for a special limited-edition NYC Condom, a panel of judges has selected five finalists. The Health Department has received nearly 600 entries since December 15, [...]

One of the most stunning stories to hit the Internet in the past weeks has to be the saga of Newsday, the traditional Long Island newspaper owned and operated by the enigmatic Dolan family. Back in October, the paper took its entire Web presence and placed it behind a subscribers-only firewall available only to area [...]

With over 500 tweets collected and logged into an Excel spreadsheet related to the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, certain key phrases and reactions become readily apparent.  One simple way to organize and display this data is via a “word cloud” — a randomized visual display of the most-repeated words in any given accumulation of text, with [...]

Let’s face it, our lives are pretty decent, and for that we should consider ourselves blessed.  We in the United States and other nations of the “West” are not torn apart by political strife, genocide, or cataclysmic natural disasters.  For the most part, we all are able to wake up each morning, safe and sound, [...]

Newsflash, for those not paying attention: I own and adore desperately my iPhone.  Without it, I feel uncertain and anxious, as if a very part of me has been unplugged from life and I struggle to maintain focus and balance.  It’s utterly ridiculous, but I guess I’m one of the people Strand Consulting is referring [...]

When historians compile a list of New York’s greatest leaders one day, it seems unlikely that our current accidental occupant of the governor’s mansion, will find his name etched into inclusion.  Despite his near blindness, alleged infidelities and drug abuse, David Paterson built himself a steady if unspectacular life as a career politician in one [...]

My work-related e-mail and social media accounts were all a-flutter this morning over AOL’s announcement that it is abandoning it’s traditional running man/triangular logos for something new and fresh. AOL Sunday revealed the new brand identity it will begin using Dec. 10th, when it spins off as a free-standing, publicly traded company from Time Warner. [...]

A few weeks ago, I received an offer from Scott Oser at the College of Association Marketing to participate in a series of Webinars tailored to the novices of the association social media set.  After a great first offering — Intro to Social Media with Deirdre Reid (with me as sidekick/color commentator) — today was [...]

Like my coastal, urban, and enlightened brothers and sisters, I am a proud and loyal Apple Computer aficionado, and my new-found loyalty lies like so many others in my gradual progression from the iPod > iPhone > iMac as I became more familiar with and passionate for the product line.  Just last week, my Windows [...]

(A post in which I “mash-up” my two favorite topics: politics and association management…and in the interest of full disclosure, this is NOT about anything happening at my own association, just one of those random things that can come only to me while reading a wide array of blogs related to both news and my [...]

A post in two parts: I remain forever amazed at how little the politically devout actually know about marketing and messaging their platforms to the larger masses.  Without question, politics inspires a certain form of relentless passion in engaged individuals, but that passion often creates a sort of “mandatory call to action: you must agree [...]

This past weekend, I flew back from a brief four-day respite in Miami’s wonderful South Beach, and found myself constantly staring at an advertisement for a company called Carbonfund in my JetBlue’s 37 channels of DirectTV display. Something was just “off” about this message, I kept telling myself, not even factoring in the post-modern hypocritical [...]

SocialFishing linked this weekend to a pretty cool slide show on “personal vs. professional social media identities” in the world of nonprofit associations.  It’s a rather fascinating issue that likely extends beyond our little insular world of associations into the entire corporate landscape.  Just what is the correct way to engage with your membership or [...]

Many New Yorkers woke up this past Monday morning to a mixture of shock and amazement, as a number of local Dunkin’ Donuts franchises operated by the Riese Restaurants corporation were replaced overnight by Tim Horton’s, the similarly themed chain famous up north in the frozen Canadian tundra.  The “beef” between Riese and Dunkin’ owner [...]

Back in April, the Current Television Network made waves in the new biz community by boldly soliciting agencies to respond to an RFP for an account review via Twitter, the popular upstart social-networking site usually filled with 140-character comments on what users had for breakfast or other pithy commentary. What made the move so innovative, though, [...]

Absolut Vodka has positively taken over NY’s Grand Central Terminal lately with countless advertisements touting the brand’s new campaign, “In an Absolut World…” Look, I know I occasionally have a filthy mind, but surely I can’t be the only one that sees a not-so-subtle vaginal/clitoral theme to these images right?  I mean, what else can [...]

Sometimes I love my adopted career path. Stolen shamelessly from Jonathan MacDonald.

Remember last year’s 4A’s Leadership Conference?  The facilities were awesome, and everyone worked hard to create a great program as always, but there was a definite undercurrent of uncertainty plaguing attendees and casting a shadow over the show.  What was happening to the business?  Were agencies going to be shut out of  “digital” (intentional use [...]

Maybe it’s just because I always seem to have gambling on the mind, but I’ve always loved the classic Foxwoods commercials featuring the smooth jazz singer and his dulcet tones praising “the wonder of it all.”  If you live anywhere in the Northeastern United States, you likely remember it as well.  It was a classic, [...]

It’s ironic that I spent all of last week at a conference dedicated to the evolution of media in the context of advertising.  There is great speculation about how the future consumer will interact with brands and content; will traditional television advertising go the way of the dodo bird, forever abandoned to the realm of [...]