Managing the Gray - Marketing for the New Media Professional

A post I did a while ago asking the community if I should buy a MacBook or a MacBook Pro still gets at least one comment every week. I love that people are coming in and reading through the comments and finding out which one they should get. What I learned from that discussion and now my own experience is that if you are going to do anything that is processor intensive I’d go with the Pro model. The faster processor and more RAM makes a world of difference. I also still very much like the keyboard better, but that is a personal preference.

Yesterday I upgraded my main desktop computer from a PC that has served me well (bought off the shelf from a Best Buy), but that has been acting flaky lately. Just like a car it is not uncommon that after three years of heavy use a computer can start to bog down, act funny and just not get you where you want to go as nicely as it could. Sure, it still runs, but not like a shiny new one.

My rule when buying a new computer is simple. Buy the highest level of everything that your budget can afford. Spending that extra bit of money now to have more RAM installed will save you time and aggravation down the road. Also, you need to accept that no matter when you buy a computer (or other gadget) that the price and capabilities will be old and outdated faster then you want it to be. Just accept it and move on. It is not worth dwelling on.

If you are thinking of buying a Mac of any sort then I highly recommend checking out the Mac Buyer’s Guide that based on previous release schedules tells you the optimal time to purchase. I listened to them on my iMac and waiting a couple of weeks was the right move. Bookmark that site now!

Posted in New Media | Comments(3)

Don’t freak out. As far as I know Miley Cyrus is fine. What I’m writing about the death of the brand that is Hannah Montana.

Last week there was all this commotion around some photos that were taken for an issue of Vanity Fair magazine. I love Annie Lebowitz and thought the photos were fine. I actually didn’t think that the one that really got the most attention was that good if I’m being honest. Parents were mad that a young girl would take suggestive photos. Even when in my opinion they was only minimal suggestion in them. But, that is a whole other discussion.

The point in all of this is that it is obvious that we are watching a transition from Hannah Montana (a fake character created by Disney) to Miley Cyrus, pop superstar. This is a planned, calculated first move in a campaign to change her image. People won’t like it all, but it is just like when a product or company renames itself. You’ve got to get people talking about you and guess what? Here we all are talking about it.

My daughter loves both. Isn’t it obvious by this picture? For the longest time she thought of them as separate people. When she bought the CD there were separate ones for each of them. The music was similar but different. I’ve watched as slowly she talks more about Miley and Hannah is forgotten. It has been happening for weeks and she is unaware of all this craziness going on right now.

There is no quicker way to kill off a young innocent girl then to have her grow up. It happens to the best of them and that is what we are seeing.

Soon Miley will be 16. Her fans are growing up as well. Sure, she has the choice of if she stays a “good girl” or she ends up becoming the new poster child for abuse and stupidity (i.e. Britney).

I’m just sick of reading and hearing about people “taking advantage of her” or Miley “not know what is going on” because nothing could be further from the truth. This is all just part of the big brand game and there is sure to be more soon. Sometimes you’ve got to take the good and the bad or as Hannah would sing “the best of both worlds.”

Posted in Brands, New Media | Comments(12)

I seem to have picked up several new listeners from my show on the Manic Mommies which is great. If this is your first show then welcome!

I’m excited to say that I have a new call in number for the show. It is 1-866-384-4522 and if you are a listener of more then one of my shows, that number is going to work for all of them so write it down or throw it into your phone.

Mentioned on the show

• PodCamp NYC 2
  
• mDialog’s PodCamp NYC Video Channel
• PodCamp Boston 3
• MITX
• The Ultra Creatives Podcast

I also mention the scholarships I’m going to be giving away for PodCamp Boston 3, but you’ll have to listen to get the details.

Posted in Events, Podcast | Comments(3)

Kristin and Erin from Manic Mommies swung by on a Sunday morning for conversation and coffee. We talk about a lot of topics including the General Motors sponsorship of their Mommy Escape (the picture here is my wife AT the Escape), their recent trip to the BlogHer Business Conference and the growing of their brand. Not only are they friends of mine, but I’ve really loved watching them grow over the three years since they first started podcasting.

The best part about having them over is that it reminds me how much fun it is to have conversations on podcasts. I don’t do that as often as I should. I think it is a new goal for me

If your curious about a whole other side of mine, we recorded an episode of their show where we only talked about parenting. When it is up I’ll put a link here.

Update: The episode of Manic Mommies is now available here.

Posted in New Media, Podcast | Comments(4)

Gary Vaynerchuk is one hell of a nice guy, knows his wine and then dropped this little video that you must watch.

AMEN Gary! Amen!

Posted in Video | Comments(2)

Last night as I was drifting off to sleep I saw this commercial from Sprint. At the end of it they give you the CEO’s e-mail address. ( dan [at] sprint [dot] com)

Of course, the first thing I did this morning was send “him” an e-mail to see what would happen.

As I guessed, I got an auto responder with some nice thank you text and link to their campaign website where I could learn more about their phones if I wanted to.

I’ll give whoever came up with this campaign credit for grabbing my attention and being smart enough to set up the auto response. But, what I’m hoping I get to do is give them praise if he actually ever answers the e-mail. I put in an invitation for him to come on Managing the Gray for an interview about this new approach to get a conversation started with consumers. Hopefully it goes better then the invitation I put over a year ago to politicians and none took me up on.

Posted in Ads, Video | Comments(3)

Why is it that we have to grow up and lose so much of our creativity. Lose is the wrong word because it is always there, but as we get older and learn the ways of the world we put up barriers that restrict our thinking.

This picture is of my daughter Emily. She grabbed a box of chalk and attacked our driveway. She was drawing everything from scribbles to a map of the house. She drew these crazy shapes that made me think of an armada of blimps on the attack and when I said that she laughed at me because in her mind it was nothing of the kind.

When I talk with the kids they often say “wouldn’t it be cool if….” I’ve caught myself a couple of times explaining why an idea wouldn’t ever work and then I stop and have promised myself that I would never do that again. Why should I put up barriers in their minds already when I know eventually some will come anyways and I’d rather see them continue to think the fantastical. We need more people like this in the world don’t we?

So how do you keep your creative edge? Some believe that creativity can come from anywhere. I do believe that it is in all of us, but many are scared to ever let it out to play for fear of “stupid ideas” or “people laughing at me.” Those have got to be the two worse reasons NOT to be creative. I always wondered how the girl or guy who first through out the idea of a pink bunny rabbit banging on a base drum felt in that meeting. Talk about a silly idea that people would laugh at. Who is laughing now though right?

Ever since I got back from SXSW I’ve been thinking a lot about my personal creativity. About how to stretch it. Take it out to play more often then I have been.

When I was little if you were to ask me what I was going to be when I grew up I always said an artist. I was constantly drawing and creating stuff. In one sense I guess I still do that. But, I haven’t painted or doodled much lately and I need to do that. I love to create with my camera and my audio, but I want to do more.

What do you do to stimulate creativity? Do you do anything?

Personally music and being outside stimulate mine. Combine the two with an iPod and a walk in the woods or around the urban jungle and the juices get flowing for me. I also find it in the most unlikely of places. A book, television show or even the once in a million commercial might get things going. Playing a video game with Dylan a few weeks ago sent me off on a tangent of creativity when he went to bed. I got an annual report in the mail last night that while wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be it got me thinking.

I also have items I can always go to. Some would include:

• Colma by Buckethead
• Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez
• Any Tarantino movie
• Behind the scenes videos with David Fincher
• Rules of the Red Rubber Ball (thanks again Whit)
• Dr. Seuss books
• My Cathedral of the Pines

Do you have the equivalent of creativity comfort foods that you can go to when you need them? I can’t be the only one.

I feel better getting this blog post out. It has been rattling around in my head since I took this picture of Emily. I thought about making it into a podcast or even just an entry in my paper journal, but wanted to brain dump here to get other people’s thoughts.

Posted in Creative | Comments(37)

I’m just back from my time in Austin, TX attending SXSW and wanted to share my thoughts with you about it. Were you there? If so I’d love to hear your thoughts. Give me a call at 206-309-4729 and leave a comment. I’ll play it on the next show.

I talked a lot about what was so great for me about the conference. It was a mix of the people, the events and the overall vibe of it all. The food was great as well! *grin*

Links to some things I talked about:

• My photos from SXSW
• The Fray Cafe
• Jane McGonigal’s Keynote
• SXSW For Newbies video series (client)

And one thing that I think most of us took for granted was that Twitter stayed up the whole time. Last year is when it really broke out and the servers got crushed. They mentioned upgrading the servers just before the conference started and it seemed to work great. Way to go to the team behind the scenes on that one.

Posted in Podcast | Comments(5)

I had read that these would be coming, but I hadn’t been told about one until today when my buddy Britney Mason sent me an invite to check out My Mini Life.

I only had a couple of minutes to play around with it, but it let me build a little house from a template and populate it with a couple of things that I bought from the store. It looks like you can also create your own, sell items and move things around. With the border around my house I’m not sure if I’ll get neighbors someday or how that happens. It all seems to be tied into a bigger site and functionality. I wonder how it all connects?

I’m sure this is just the first of many invites I’m going to get on MySpace. I’m curious how different it is from developing applications in Facebook and if it is more powerful or limiting. Only time will tell. If you know, let me know would you? Thanks in advance

Posted in New Media | Comments(0)

I never in a million years would have thought that I would want to search ads, but I do!

Yesterday while cruising around Facebook I saw an ad for a cabin rental in the Adirondacks. I clicked onto something else before I realized that the ad was of interest to me and then couldn’t find it again. I clicked on the little “more ads” under the space, but it wasn’t there.

I’ve set up these ads before and know that they allow you to target people based on a variety of demographic and key word data. So I obviously fit someone’s profile for who they wanted to target and they got it right because I wanted to find out more. But, now I can’t!

The only thing I can guess is that this particular ad hit a spending limit and that is why it is not visible any more. But, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to look for ads if you wanted to? Sure, the frequency of this happening would be low, but who is going to turn away someone that WANTS to see their ad?

Ok, my mini rant is done. Guess I’ll have to just use good old Google to look for a cabin to rent.

Posted in New Media | Comments(2)

My friend Sarah “Intellagirl” Robbins called me out in a recent blog post.

She wanted to know one tangible way to break out of the fishbowl and get more people into new media. Rather then thinking about it long and hard I hit record and gave the first thing to come to mind. I’d love to hear how else you are are getting new people to try out things in this space. I’m sure we all have stories and sharing them can only help others so please do share.

Call in with your ideas to 206-309-4729 or leave them as a comment on this post. I can’t wait to hear what is on your mind.

Posted in Podcast | Comments(6)

Today I’ve had two experiences that made me want to write a quick blog post about how great it is to see big brands trying slightly new things.

The first happened when I logged into the Apple iTunes Store this morning and this is what I saw.

A complete buy out of the three big advertising spaces at the top of the store. For those of you who don’t use the store, each of those squares traditionally advertises one piece of content and they rotate slowly through usually three different options. Most of the time it is highlighting the newest album, movie or service.

This the first time I’ve seen a complete buy out of all three for one brand and there is no rotation. I’m sure this has to do with all the American Idol content that the store has this year. Performances, audition videos, links to songs that are sung, the works. Kudos to all involved.

The second came as I was checking the news on Boston.com and saw a banner ad from McDonald’s that caught my eye. That in itself takes a lot since like most people I get banner blindness and usually ignore them. Where it took me was The Chilled Out Lounge.

McDonald’s has said it wants to move beyond just fast food and wants to go directly after Starbucks in the coffee market. This is obviously a play in that direction. Not sure I’ll personally ever be able to think of McDonald’s as anything other then a place I can’t eat ever since watching Super Size Me.

The point of this post is to showcase some big brands trying new things. Nothing earth shattering or mind blowing here. Certainly nothing that has not been done before, but it was unique enough that I wanted to share it here.

Posted in Campaigns | Comments(1)

Earlier this week, I was given a personal walk through of the all new Overlay.TV and I was quite impressed. We’ve seen this concept in video tried before. To sum it up, as you watch a video any item in it could be tagged so that you could click on it and get more information and even buy that product. Not sure why this has never taken off before, but I’m thinking this time it might.

What makes Overlay.TV different is that anyone can tag any video. It does not touch the original uploaded file. It can pull a video from most of the major video services (Brightcove is one I asked about which is coming) or from an uploaded movie file on your own server and then people can place overlays on the video highlighting products and services.

In the demo we pulled in a video of a trumpet player from YouTube and tagged his t-shirt to go to Amazon to buy a similar one. Anyone can take any video and place overlays on it. The process is quick, easy and powerful. The options on if the overlay is just a simple hot sport or actually a mini pop up is up to the user. Adding product information is done via a bookmarklet that allows for one click copy and past of descriptions, prices and other needed information from any web site.

I can see some big potential for this from lots of different angles. Brands (especially retail ones) will be adding overlays to their viral videos. Bands can link out to their CDs and equipment sponsors. Fans can take anything they are in love with and create their own overlays and then embed it all on their blogs and Facebook profiles.

Some people might freak since this could be viewed as changing a video, but it is not. It is just putting a screen over the video and allowing for people to link items in it. I’m interested to see the community nature of this and also how companies can leverage it on their own sites. I’m also interested to see if this gets popular if performance will degrade and if items won’t seamlessly sync up.

Take a moment and check it out when you have a moment. To get a feel for what I’m talking about they’ve made this throw back infomercial as well:

Posted in Cool Tools, New Media | Comments(4)

I love when people take their love for a product to a level of parody of the competition.

That is exactly what my good friend Mitch Joel did in his video showing why he loves his Sony Vaio.

Posted in Video | Comments(1)

You may have seen posts around the web talking about My ooVoo Day and I’m happy to say that I’m part of it as well.

On February 11th if you’d like I’ll be online for two hours to chat with anyone about anything. It would be great to connect and you can sign up here.

I’ve played with ooVoo for a while now. It is good to see that they are finally out with a Mac friendly client because I think the ability to do live video chat with five other people is a very powerful thing and something that a lot of people can benefit from.

What makes me most happy about this day is that I was told that I’d have $1500 to donate towards charity. I am a HUGE supporter of giving back in any way possible so this made my day. I’m splitting my donation between the Frozen Pea Fund for breast cancer and the Ma Chen- Autism School in China that my good friend Whitney is championing.

The screen shot is from the sign up page and includes a few of the other great participants. I’m personally looking forward to signing up and chatting with others such as Mitch Joel and Scott Sigler as well.

Hope to see you there.

Posted in New Media | Comments(4)

I woke up this morning and the first thing I saw on the web was this blog post from Mitch Joel talking about virtual worlds and it got my mind rolling as I brought the kids to school. When I got home rather then sharing my thoughts in a blog post I thought it would make a better podcast so I could just rattle off my thoughts about how the usability of virtual worlds must get better, how kids are growing up on them and how more people need to start thinking about virtual worlds as social networks.

Some links mentioned on the show in case you want to find out more:

• Webkinz
• Second Life
• Littlest Pet Shop VIPs
• Six Pixels of Separation Podcast

I also briefly mentioned at the end of the show two client projects we are working with on Facebook. One was the online trivia game from Trivya and the other was the aerie kissing booth.

Feedback always welcome at 206-309-4729 or drop me an e-mail.