ChaosScenario

Mike Rowe for President

If there's anything that can make you appreciate the people who create the illusion of civilized life, it's Mike Rowe's Dirty Jobs. I caught Rowe's TED presentation when I chanced upon this post at slide:ology. (Hat tip to David Armano). If you haven't seen it yet, take 20 minutes to watch it. Unless you cured cancer or some such thing (and in 20 minutes, no less), it may be the best 20 minutes of your week (though if you're a PETA member, it may make you a bit squeamish).

His delivery is flawless, but his point is profound and memorable. We have, he says, declared war against work. We marginalize it at best and quite often attack it outright with overly stringent regulations.

He makes the point more effectively than I can, so please watch the video and visit his new initiative, MikeRoweWORKS.com, including this brilliant, down-to-earth commentary about the AIG bonuses. - Cam Beck

Related posts:
Competence of Heroic Proportions
The World Is Just Awesome

Enemies of Progress: Success and Failure

When things are going well and business is humming along, industries are resistant to change because they don't want to change the model that has been working so well for them. They resist change so much that they will defend the status quo with litigation and legislation (through lobbying efforts) to prevent the market from adapting to changing circumstances and demand. When things are going poorly, often companies in these same industries lack the capital necessary to make the changes they needed to sustain profitability.

A prime example of this is the RIAA, who for years resisted the demand of consumers to download music directly from a distributor for use on their portable devices -- and any other device types they might want to use it. Another example that is far more troublesome is the failure of so many newspapers, whose sunk capital investment and romanticism prevents them from making meaningful change in how they create and distribute the news.

Now the Author's Guild finds itself threatened by the same predicament. Having become accustomed to receiving royalties independently for both physical books and for audio versions of the same book, the Guild is concerned that the new Kindle uses a technology that reads text aloud, using a voice synthesizer.

This technology, they fear, may one day become so good that people will no longer need to buy a separate audio version for their books.

Progress? The horror!

Also, consider the hubris of those who would either deny technological advances or prevent the text from being read aloud by a third-party (this would not be the same as a recording).

To be clear, the Kindle 2, were it to become widely adopted, represents some challenges for authors and how they negotiate royalties. However, it's in their best interests to figure it out quickly -- before their industries fail because of their inability to adapt.

Not all the news is bad. One thing the Kindle may do is, if implemented properly, reduce the barrier for consumption of the authors' work, making it more likely that people will spend the money to purchase it.

If this happens, the natural result is that more people will consume more books.

This is good for everybody.

This will enable their ideas and their fame to more easily gain traction, which actually increases the likelihood that they will make money.

But first they have to get out of the way of progress. For now, the publishing industry doesn't face the same immediate threat that newspapers do. However, if they don't find a way to make this trend work to their advantage, especially if the price for the Kindle falls to the point that it can be more popularly seen as a worthwhile investment, they aren't far behind. - Cam Beck

Navigating Muddy Social Waters

The topic I took on today at MP Daily Fix had so many contributors that it was difficult to settle on the ones I did. As I was formulating the article, I got to bounce some ideas off of friends and colleagues alike, all of whom noticed or agreed on the existence some of the same dilemmas I did:

1. More people were coming out of the woodwork to connect with them on various platforms, and
2. They weren't certain how this would impact the way they (or others) used them.

Alan warned that Facebook might be the new AOL, and Paul remarked (half-jokingly, I presume) that Facebook was becoming the dread of young early-adopting hipsters -- MySpace.

So with this information as the backdrop, I encourage you to read this piece at the MarketingProfs: Daily Fix. I look forward to getting your feedback. - Cam Beck

4 On-Demand Ads That Can Change the World

Although if asked, a lot of people will say differently, ads are not universally despised. Most of the time, people not only don't seek them, they actively avoid them. As it turns out, though, they're just despised when they get in the way. When they're relevant to a specific task at hand, ads are not only tolerated, but welcome.

Consider the following examples:

• Christmas Gifts - The day before Thanksgiving, at 2 p.m., at the request of my wife, I went scouring the area for a newspaper. I ran into a lot of people who, like me, were store-hopping to find a newspaper so that they (or their wives) could find the sales that were going on the day after Thanksgiving.
  
  I stopped by 3 grocery stores and 2 drugstores and one convenience store. The last place I stopped was Walgreens, where the cashier told a group of us looking that all newspapers in the area had sold out by noon.
  
  None of us knew we could view the ads online (though I later found out). Knowing I could have just booted up the computer to show my wife the ads at the time could have saved me an hour of driving in the futile hopes that I could find a recent newspaper. Think of all the gas we could have saved.
  
  
• Electronics - Every Friday, particularly among the programmers and techno-mavens, is "Fry's Day," when we all flock to the coffee room to huddle around thefull 4 page broadsheet ad placed in the Dallas Morning News by Fry's Electronics store.
  
  There's typically only one of these available for viewing at a time, so at times we're practically throwing elbows for a little room.
  
  It's possible to find the ad online, just like the Christmas ads, but it's impossible to spontaneously buy online directly from the ad.
  
  Failing to deliver this useful feature simply encourages comparison shopping and undoubtedly costs them sales.
   
• Groceries - Every Sunday, thousands and thousands of thrifty shoppers get their local paper (often two) to find the best deals and coupons, hoping to save money at the grocery store.
  
  The process of clipping coupons and organizing them effectively can take hours each week.
  
  Wouldn't it be cool if you could just subscribe to (and even pay for) access to an online coupon retriever, set up preferences so that you can download, print, or send to your mobile phone the coupons you want each week?
  
  Now, there are accounting rules to consider with this solution, and the rules that govern coupons' impact on balance sheets almost certainly should be updated in order to meet the demands of customers and make the entire process more efficient. Doing so may marginally increase productivity and would be less wasteful.
  
  
  
• Movie Trailers - Imagine you're sitting at home on Friday evening with your spouse, flipping through the 329 channels on your DVR-enabled satellite receiver only to discover there's nothing good on.
  
  "Hey, honey, why don't we see a movie? Twilight is playing."
  
  "Twilight? What's that again?"
  
  "Let me show you."
  
  You then choose the menu item that displays the latest movie trailers. Choose "Now Playing" and select your trailer.
  
  Distributors could pay to have their trailers listed and/or based on how many households view them.

These things are not necessarily logistically easy, but for most of them the individual pieces exist independently somewhere. All it will take is the willingness of category experts (as well as their financiers) to expend the effort to make it happen. - Cam Beck

Advertising to Calculus Students: The Standard of Proof

Try these math problems on for size:

1. Tom Farber, a calculus teacher in San Diego, California, has a $316 budget for copies. He needs $500 to provide his students with the practice they need to master the course.
   
   True or False? $316 < $500
2. Getting a larger budget from the school is not an option. There is no discretionary or R&D budget. What is the most sustainable way for Mr. Farber to solve this problem?
   
   A. Pay the $184 difference out of his own pocket.
   B. Keep printing tests as normal, hoping the $184 would be found somewhere between now and then.
   C. Reduce the number of tests. Use up only what his budget allows, possibly sacrificing the course's effectiveness.
   D. None of the above.

Assuming his methods really are effective, give Mr. Farber extra credit for choosing "D" and refusing to sacrifice the quality of his students' education. When faced with the prospect of a budget shortfall, Farber invented a way to make up for it.

He sold advertising.

On tests.

And worksheets.

Even the final exam.

But is it ethical?

The managing director of Commercial Alert, an organization formed explicitly to prevent commercial interests from intruding on spaces they deem ought to be impenetrable, is worried that, since Mr. Farber raised nearly twice as much as his shortfall, this feat might be duplicated by other struggling schools.

Before jumping to conclusions, here are a few questions worth asking:

1. Do Mr. Farber's extra tests make the course more effective at teaching Calculus?
2. Can that effectiveness be duplicated by some other means, less expensively?
3. Does selling any ad space, whatsoever, in any format, inherently corrupt the education process?
4. Do ads inherently corrupt the students?
5. Is it possible to corrupt students with advertising?
6. What measures can be taken to prevent it?

When are sponsored ads on tests justified?

If the answer to #1 is yes and #s 2-5 are no, then by all means, sell the ads and let the kids learn.

If the answer to #1 is no, then it doesn't much matter what the other answers are, because the problem isn't with the number of tests, but with the teaching method.

If the answer to only #1 and #5 are yes, then it becomes necessary to answer #6 and to determine which option costs less: Forking over the dough for copies or investing the time, energy, and money to institute proper safeguards that prevent the corruption of the students or the process.

Who is responsible for finding out?

The teacher and the school have the duty to educate the children under their care. Thus, it is up to them to confirm the effectiveness and integrity of the system.

Once they've established a positive correlation between number of tests and better grades, they can determine if the better grades were caused by another factor, such as some sort of quid pro quo between the teacher and the advertiser.

Beyond that, the public can subject the process to what is called a "reasonable person" test. According to Wikipedia:

The reasonable person is a legal fiction of the common law representing an objective standard against which any individual's conduct can be measured. It is used to determine if a breach of the standard of care has occurred, provided a duty of care can be proven.

The standard performs a crucial role in determining negligence in both criminal law—that is, criminal negligence—and tort law. The standard also has a presence in contract law, though its use there is substantially different.

Therefore, if Commercial Alert or any other advocacy group believes the practice of exposing students to advertising is harmful in some way, they are obligated to not only assert, but provide a body of evidence that shows how what they claim could be true.

It is incumbent on them to do so, because they propose such advertising be eradicated by statute, and in doing so they eliminate a potentially effective resource for overcoming budget problems in a way that doesn't require compulsion.

Because unlike individual taxpayers, sponsors have the choice as to whether or not they will participate.

The standard of proof has to rise above the level of indignation - feigned or otherwise. Commercial Alert may have a point. But they may be blowhards. It's up to them to convince the public which category they fall under.

Likewise, Mr. Farber and his school shouldn't get a free pass, either. We shouldn't take on faith that his approach is necessarily better than one requiring fewer tests. But in this case, there should be a mountain of statistical studies already that suggest one thing or another.

All they need to do is cite them. - Cam Beck

Don't Vote. Stay Home.

If you can be convinced of this advice, you probably should follow it.

If you cannot name the three branches of government and explain how power is divided between state and federal governments, as outlined in the supreme governing document of the land, please stay home.

If you think voting is too inconvenient and needs to be made easier, please stay home.

Some barriers exist to ensure the commitment of those who stand in front of them.

Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, so justice demands people have a right to vote for the representatives who comprise the government. But in order for the consent to be meaningful, it must be an informed consent.

If you go to a doctor, he may recommend a specific treatment or medicine. He usually tells you how the medicine will help and what the side effects are. That way you can weigh the risks and rewards on your own and decide if the treatment is worth the price you will pay (both financially and in terms of the effects).

If the doctor misleads you about those effects, the doctor is liable for damages that arise out of those effects.

However, if you've been warned of the side-effects or can be reasonably expected to know them, you and you alone are morally responsible for any damages that occur on the basis of those side-effects.

Don't go crying to mommy.

Don't curse the doctor.

Don't protest outside of the pharmaceutical company.

Don't go whining to the courts.

Sure, you may sue and you may win if you get a jury naive or corrupt enough. But winning doesn't make you right.

Eternal vigilance, not ignorance, is the price of liberty. So if you haven't taken the time to ensure your consent is informed, don't vote. Stay home.

Just as you would neither trust nor offer the uninformed to decide on a treatment for your cancer, you should neither trust nor provide an uninformed vote that affects the health and prosperity of everyone else. - Cam Beck

What's a Harvard MBA Worth in an Economic Downturn?

According to this millionaire hedge fund guru, not much.

"The low-hanging fruit, ie idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking," he wrote. "These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government," he said.

"All of this behaviour supporting the aristocracy only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other side of my trades. God bless America."

There are a couple ways we could react to this less-than-fond farewell.

Rage. We could mistake his profiting from the collapse of the subprime mortgages as his having caused it, which is not the case. There are at least 5 parties to the mess.

1. The government that encouraged the practice
2. The borrower
3. The lender
4. The seller
5. The buyer

We could also resent how glib he's being, but that's not very productive either. We'll just work up our blood pressure and we'll be no closer to recovery.

Pity. I know. He's a mega millionaire, and I make it a habit to avoid feeling pity for mega millionaires. But think about it. This guy's only 37, but this lifestyle has left his health in shambles. The article doesn't say if he has or had a family, but if he does or did, you can bet the bank that they suffered.

Ambivalence. This is my preferred reaction (only his highly egocentric "farewell, world" letter caught my attention). So he made a bunch of money. Big deal. Good for him, too, for whatever it can buy him (apparently he's partial to pot).

I hope he finds the peace he obviously needs. His response to the stress in his life was more extreme than most of us can afford, but there's a grain of truth to his advice to businesspeople so tied to their jobs that they can't take a 2-week vacation without being glued to their Blackberries.

""Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life." - Cam Beck

The Calm After the Storm

When I was a boy, sometime between 7 and 10, I lived with my family in Okinawa, a tiny island located in the Pacific. It seems like we were hit by one or two typhoons (basically a hurricane by another name) every year. Most of them weren't serious. We just bunkered down, lit up the candles, and occasionally toweled up the water coming in under the doors. I used to stare out the window with my two older brothers and count the seconds between the flash of lightning and the thunder that accompanied it.

In our third and final year in Okinawa, we were hit by probably the worst one we'd ever seen since we arrived. I seem to remember it being a category 3, but I wouldn't stake my life on it. The domiciles built for the military were pretty sturdy and we lived on a hill, so we never really worried about the roof crashing in or being overcome by a flood.

When it was over, life continued as normal. There were a few uprooted trees, which at the time I thought was pretty cool, but as it turns out, the worst of the storms didn't signal the end of time.

Later, when we moved back to coastal North Carolina, we encountered the same type of storm once or twice, but afterwards we picked up the pieces and went back to work (or school, as was the case for my brothers and me).

While I was at boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina, Hurricane Andrew (the costliest natural disaster in the U.S. until Katrina) came up the coast caused a bit of a mess, but after it was over... you guessed it... we picked up the pieces and soldiered on.

Of course, I've already documented the plight of my wife's family after Hurricane Rita hit the gulf coast.

As flawed human beings, we have a tendency to look at each crisis as the worst that has ever occurred, and the worst that will ever occur.

These storms taught me, and history has confirmed, that we are resilient. We adapt. We find ways to persevere relying on nothing more than the sweat off our backs and the goodwill of our neighbors. Sure, there are tough times ahead, and after this one is over, there will be more we can look forward to.

They will always seem worse than the ones that came before. But we will get up the next morning, strap on our tool belts and rebuild what had been destroyed. That's what we do. And we will gladly help each other along the way. - Cam Beck

Will traditional marketers ever understand online

Those people who adopt a technology, product or even philosophy have long been identified as early adopters. It's one of those things that's taught in Marketing 101. The early adopters are the first ones to try it, represent a small group of people and generally are considered influencers that the rest of us follow.

Traditional marketers seem yet to embrace the changes that are not only happening in our discipline but also our society. Back in 2000, right after the dot com bust, there were many people who were publicly saying that the internet was a fad. Now days most traditional marketers give it lip service but don't really embrace it. I've encountered my fair share of traditional marketers or public relations experts who feel that the internet or digital solutions are a "channel". They treat it as such not wanting to take the time to understand how their particular audience uses the medium or will in the near future.

I don't think I have to tell anyone who reads this blog how wrong that way of thinking is. What I do wonder, however, is when that way of thinking will stop being part of traditional firms. I think now that most traditional marketers give the changes that the internet has brought to the discipline lip service. To not do so would make them look asleep at the wheel. When the rubber meets the road however, there is still a LOT of these marketers that treat it as a channel. They're not really interested in how relationships are forming online, how early adopters can predict the ways that their audience will behave in the future and how to take advantage of that now. For the most part, they just want a simple tactic or advertising campaign that will complement (but not extend) the offline campaign.

It makes me wonder how much longer these types of firms can hold on to talent. Just like Yahoo! and Microsoft didn't foresee what Google would do, will there be a new type of company that will attract talent and provide a new way for companies to  provide marketing. Or will there be a company or agency that can transform itself?  - Paul Herring

(image courtesy of www.marketinginprogress.com/)

Would You Explore the Web in 3D?

ExitReality created a plugin that allows users to navigate websites in a 3-dimensional environment.

Supposedly there is a social component to this sort of browsing, as it should allow users on the same site to communicate with one another.

That may be an interesting feature around websites that have established internal communities -- particularly those communities that have a real-world component.

However, it appears from the video that each environment requires finding unique cues for orientation, making it cumbersome to actually consume the content on the site.

Company founder Danny Stefanic seems to realize this in some way but draws entirely the wrong lesson. 

"Users would normally spend no longer than a couple of minutes on a 2D website...In a 3D environment, this time can extend to half an hour, creating a huge potential for the website owner to maximise user engagement."

Well, yes. If you put barriers in everyone's way to get to what they came there for, that may cause them to take longer to find it, but that annoyance does not equal user engagement.

The social aspect to it is the most intriguing, though, and I hope they continue to develop the idea.  This has applications for games that can be loosely related to the site the user is on. Also, it may be both fun and fulfilling to integrate a web chat feature sort of like ooVoo into such an environment, so that it's not just avatar talking to avatar -- it's much more intimate and, yes, engaging.

For the anthropological reason why 2D interfaces generally work better than 3D, view Jakob Nielsen's analysis. 

What do you think? Would you ever browse this way? In what circumstances? - Cam Beck