Hey @thetechnologeek - don't rip off someone who is well-known

Louis Gray, who has over 14,000 followers, just tweeted this a few minutes ago:

Who is this mysterious Kate who scrapes my content on http://thetechnologeek.com/ ? The site even has fake "about" and "jobs" pages...

So I checked out one of Kate's posts, which began as follows:

With friend and fellow blogger Jesse Stay in the Bay Area for the day, I played the part of chauffeur and sidekick, hitting a number of key Silicon Valley landmarks this afternoon. After he finished a lunch at eBay/Paypal, the two of us drove up Highway 101 to meet with the API team at Twitter. Then we headed south and caught up with our mutual friend, Robert Scoble, who true to form, turned on the video camera and engaged with us in a discussion around social networking applications, product development, and our thoughts on Twitter, Foursquare, Google Wave, etc. The video is about an hour long, so buckle your seatbelts.

After reading the beginning of that post, I have some questions for Jesse Stay. You see, Jesse did the same types of things with Louis Gray, so why would he do the same thing again with Kate? And why did Robert Scoble make a second video of Jesse, but with a new person in tow? (As it turns out, Robert is apparently suppressing this whole thing - the video is Jesse and Kate is nowhere to be found on the tubes.)

Seriously, if you're going to rip someone off, don't rip someone off who is well-known. In the first place, many people who stumbled upon that post would immediately realize that this was a story about Louis Gray, not Kate. In the second place, when the famous person discovers that he or she is ripped off, it's easy to let people know.

And then lesser-known people like me assign some creative tinyurl's to her "content." To get to the post I referenced above, just go to http://tinyurl.com/stolenfromlg.

But you can't contact "Kate" directly. It's no surprise that the domain for thetechnologeek.com is registered to Domains By Proxy.

But you can learn about Kate from her blog - her friends like Jesse and Robert, maybe even her twins and her wife. Or you can check her Twitter account and see who she's following (Kevin Spacey, Penn Jillette, but not Louis Gray).

Now I have no idea how Gray is pursuing this, or even if he is pursuing this. Perhaps the public exposure is all he wants to do.

P.S. If someone named "Norma" suddenly starts talking her many positions with NEC, Microsoft, Fast Company, and Building43, let me know.

Passion, lack of passion, Jason Calacanis, and New York Private Equity Forums

I just read a Jason Calacanis rant, and he was particularly steamed. In the post, entitled Why startups shouldn’t have to pay to pitch angel investors, this wasn't just a business issue - for Calacanis, this was a moral issue. Here's how he began:

When confronted with an abuse of power, an injustice or a scam I’ve developed a really effective technique: I blog, tweet and whine about it passionately for as long as possible. Basically, I do this until people get sick of me (some of you reading this have at various times told me this–I’m sorry!). I’ve learned over the years that this process is wildly effective in the long-term and has the added bonus of being great therapy. It’s a way for me to relieve the dissonance associated with the injustice, perceived or real, that I see.

So, I fight.

And if you read 1, 2, 3 paragraphs down, you'll see what is he fighting for.

Recently, I was made aware of a group of angel investors that were charging startups to pitch them.

Yes, you heard that correctly: the rich people (angels) are charging the poor people (startup entrepreneurs desperate for cash to fuel their dreams) to hear their pitch. No, I’m not kidding. This is actually happening — and it’s widespread.

Calacanis goes on to detail what he's heard, and why he thinks it's morally wrong. In the process, he states:

I was sent details of one epic bastard that wanted $10-$25,000, plus a couple of percentage points of the value of the deal (you’ll find out who later in this email).

Actually, he names several groups that charge presenters, but my eye focused on the one who required the largest dollar value:

PrivateEquityForums.com (stunnning $14,500 to $25,000 plus 3-5% of your raise to present!) We’ve received information that Mike Segal of Joshua Capital Partners runs this forum that is looking for up to $25,000 and/or 3-10% of how much you raise! I’m in shock by this one… could this possibly be true? Do you know anyone who has attended this event or, worse, actually paid these fees? If so, I need you to email me immediately.

Well, I've never attended one of these angel investor gatherings - I don't think that my Empoprises blog empire is about to get five million dollars in funding - but it's easy enough for me to find the New York Private Equity Forums website and get their side of the story. It appears that they want to charge everyone involved, but I concentrated on their rationale for charging the presenters. But, rest assured - before detailing the advantages of their forum, this assurance is given:

THERE ARE NO FEES JUST TO APPLY TO PRESENT.

So I guess they're not COMPLETE money-grubbing jerks. And hey, I didn't have to pay a fee to view their website. (Obviously News Corp and the Associated Press haven't gotten into the angel investing industry yet.)

Eventually, they do talk about fees:

As our events are not subsidized by vendors or service providers, companies are required to pay a Presenter Fee based upon a number of visibility options. Our forum could be best described as a co-op for the 12 to 15 companies that present. We underwrite the events and the presenting companies share in the cost. They do so because our model ensures them an audience of nearly 100% qualified investors, for an expenditure which generally pencils-out to less than $100 for each capital source in attendance.

In essence, their argument is that they pre-quality both the presenters and the investing attendees, and that it is therefore a worthwhile investment for you to pay, unlike (in their view) other disinterested investors who probably couldn't care less about what you're selling. So, in their view, their "less than $100 for each capital source in attendance" fee is economical:

We sincerely believe that if a company's potential is truly compelling, and that management's vision can be effectively communicated, it will not find a more cost-effective way to reach potential funding sources directly, than by presenting at the upcoming event. Again, this is a unique opportunity to get your message across in “one place and in one day” to active serious investors who want to see fundable deals.

I look forward to hearing from you and learning more about your funding requirements.

Kindest regards,

Mike Segal, President
MJSEGALASSOCIATES
630 W. 246th St. Suite 728
Riverdale, New York 10471
Direct Line: 347 346 6650

Ironically, MJ Segal Associates may be a little TOO selective in some instances. You see, they want more than your money. There are particular qualifications for the presenting companies:

With respect to the Presenter qualifications, we favor companies with some revenues, but will also consider pre-revenue development-stage companies with new platform technology or some proof of concept. Revenues forecast by the third year following funding should approach $15 to $20 million.

When I read that statement, my immediate first thought is that Twitter wouldn't have qualified for funding when it started, and probably wouldn't qualify even today. Yet there are people who are more than willing to plow investment dollars into Twitter...and Twitter probably didn't have to pay for the privilege of pitching. I'll grant that Twitter is an outlier example, but it's instructive, and helps to illustrate what angel investors actually do.

Let's return to Calacanis:

I’ve been in the startup scene since 1994 and in those 15 years I’ve met, interviewed — and in some cases, pitched — the most powerful investors in technology. None of them have ever charged me a dime for doing so.
Why? BECAUSE THEY ARE RICH!...

[T]he more mature — or flat out better — startups would never pay to present. The best ideas by the best entrepreneurs get socialized instantly. As an new angel investor myself, one who has only done two investments of $25,000 and $50,000, I can tell you that I already get flooded with pitches. I can’t even imagine the volume of pitches real angel investors like Matt Coffin, Sandy Climan, Sky Dayton, Tony Hsieh and Ron Conway get inundated with....

Now, before you go saying “Jason is connected and he has access to angels” remember that I hustled my way into this industry from nothing. I networked at free conferences and figured out a way to get on the radar of uber-angels like Ted Leonsis, Fred Wilson and Mark Cuban. They paid attention to me because I had good ideas. If my ideas had sucked, they would have ignored me. Period.

It's significant that people such as Mark Cuban, as well as others who come to mind such as Mike Markkula, are people who are passionate about things. Maybe they're passionate about basketball or IHOP or whatever, but if all goes well they're also passionate about what you're doing. While a return on investment is obviously important to them, that passion also has to be there.

After thinking about this, I went back to the MJ Segal Associates/New York Private Equity Forums website, but this time I went to the invitation to investors (rather than to the invitation to presenters). The question that had formed in my mind - is Mike Segal seeking the PASSIONATE investor who will make a difference, or is Segal seeking money? Here's some of the language that was used:

This is an Exclusive “Invitation-Only” Private Event. Advance Reservations are Required.

Conference Includes a Banquet Luncheon and Gala Dinner/ Reception w/ Live Jazz

Party at the Yale Club, people.

(Companies chosen to present at the forum will feature breakthrough technologies and original business models which can "shape the future" of their respective industries.)

This is the closest to any statement of passion that I found - and it was in the description of the desired presenters, not the desired investors. Segal talked about the networking opportunities for investors, but didn't really specify the types of investors that he sought.

On a whim, I looked up the website for Fred Wilson's Union Square Ventures to see if he happened to use the P-word. He did:

We look to back passionate, experienced entrepreneurs who are focused on creating highly scalable services and significant value propositions for their end users.

Now obviously Wilson wants a return on his investment, but he's also seeking the passion thing. And, try as you might, you can't use $20,000 to buy passion. Well, I guess you can buy one week's worth of passion for $45,000, but it's not the same.

(Picture source, license)

Shipley Associates (the proposal consulting firm) is independent...again

I worked as a proposal writer from 1994 to 2000, and therefore have taken an interest in what is happening in the proposal development community. One of the leading companies in the proposal development space has been Shipley Associates. Tom Boren detailed the early history of the group:

Shipley Associates, when originally founded in 1974, was dedicated to training in the technical writing area. By 1985, Shipley Associates had been introduced to the problems and complexities of managing and writing proposals and opened a new Proposal Development business area. Steven Shipley led this new business opportunity and started offering seminars and workshops, including Developing Capture Plans, How to Write Winning Proposals, How to Manage Winning Proposals, Writing Executive Summaries, Preparing Oral Proposals and Briefings, and Just-In-Time Proposal Training.

But this independent organization didn't stay independent for long:

Along the way, Shipley Associates was merged into Franklin Quest in 1994 and then later into Franklin Covey.

But the Franklin Quest/Covey period was short-lived:

In 1997 the proposal development business area was reacquired from Franklin Covey, and is now operating again under the name Shipley Associates.

That "now" statement was written in the spring of 1999 (in the Association of Proposal Management Professionals newsletter). And as Shipley Associates moved into the 21st century, it got acquired again - this time by Logistic Specialties, Inc. (LSI). And after two decades at the helm, Steven Shipley retired:

I am excited about the future of Shipley Associates and the opportunity to officially pass the leadership torch to Sean Slatter, President and CEO of Logistic Specialties, Inc. (LSI). After over 20 years with Shipley Associates, building the company to be a thought leader in Business Development, I have retired to pursue full-time service opportunities with my church - an opportunity my wife and I havedreamed of for years.

Thanks to the many loyal clients and the friends that have evolved over the years. The Shipley leadership team remains intact and is excited to continue growing the business. I have complete confidence in Sean's leadership and the team's ability to continue to meet your needs. Thank you!!!

Steven P. Shipley, former President Shipley Associates

So Shipley continued as part of LSI...well, until a few days ago, when LSI issued a press release that began as follows:

LSI Announces Sale of Shipley Associates -

10/6/2009 2:10:39 PM

Logistic Specialties, Inc. Provides Full-Service Strategic Integrated Consulting Services for Government and Commercial Clients

LAYTON, UT.--(BUSINESS WIRE)- Logistic Specialties, Inc. (LSI), a consulting and management services company specializing in business development and program support services, announced today that the company has sold Shipley Associates, Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

The press release included the requisite statement from the seller:

"The major changes in government procurement and the maturing of corporate business development capabilities, offer an excellent opportunity for LSI to integrate its 37 years of experience into a more agile, full service business development and program support company," said Sean Slatter, CEO of LSI. "Our clients are increasingly demanding new services and support customized to their changing competitive environments. The sale of Shipley provides the opportunity to invest in meeting these needs in new ways, which will deliver more value to our clients."

However, there was no corresponding statement from the buyer, or even an identification of who the buyer was. Eventually, however, that was cleared up, and the buyer of Shipley Associates was revealed to be...Tom Sant! (No, I'm kidding. A little inside humor there.)

OK, here's the beginning of the Shipley Associates announcement:

Shipley Associates Returns to Prior Ownership

Shipley to Reestablish Leadership Role in Business Development Consulting

Kaysville, Utah – October 6, 2009 -- Shipley Associates announced today that the previous owners of the company have reassumed full operational control and ownership of the company, effective immediately. Shipley was acquired in 2006 by Logistic Specialties Incorporated (LSI). This separation frees Shipley to return to its original mission of helping clients win business.

Now LSI and Shipley know that effective business communications preclude you from trashing competitors in public, but between LSI's attempts to become "more agile" (were the Shipley consultants a bunch of stiffs?), and Shipley's recommitment to "helping clients win business" (was LSI was helping clients lose business?), you have to wonder about what was going on behind the scenes.

Or maybe the church asked Steve to fix the gutters one time to many, and he thought to himself, "Working would be a lot easier than retirement."

(Picture source, license)

(empo-tuulwey) Another look at online journalism

A year ago, in October 2008, I wrote an empo-tuulwey post and didn't know it. The post, which was in my former mrontemp blog, was entitled Distinguishing between methods and technology - what is a newspaper?. It began as follows:

Oftentimes we get caught up in various technologies, and think that the technologies are themselves a solution to a problem.

Actually, they are tools that can be used as a solution to the problem.

In the course of the post, I noted:

[I]t's important to note what [Duncan Riley] is saying and what he isn't saying. Riley is speaking of a particular technology - the technology of taking pieces of paper, printing stuff on them, and delivering them to news stands and homes. He is not saying that professional news organizations will disappear; they'll just shift to a different medium.

A few months later, self-described "recovering journalist" Mark Potts took note of some things happening in the online arena. One example:

Stuck in a traditional one-size-fits-all mentality, many news organizations have had problems thinking about creating great niche sites to target specific audience segments. Gannett, however, has quietly built a network of local sites aimed at mothers that now has dozens of outposts under the MomsLikeMe banner. A recent redesign–which brought the initial sites onto a new platform under one banner–unfortunately cost the sites a lot of their personality. But the MomsLikeMe sites still do a great job of providing a forum where mothers can exchange information, tips, stories, whatever–and where advertisers can reach those moms. The format is much more like a community bulletin board than a traditional news site, with lots of user-generated content. That's a very good thing, because it means authenticity, participation, engagement–and inexpensive content.

Potts also noted some non-community, professional things that were going on.

...there's The New York Times' David Pogue, the tech reporter who's made a science out of creating witty, guerilla-style videos that trade overproduction for humor, substance and personality. The results are videos that, like the best of YouTube, get forwarded all over the place and viewed by literally millions of people. Rather than trying to out-TV TV, every print news organization should be showcasing newsroom personalities (and newsrooms always have their share of personalities!) in videos that will entertain as well as inform.

In my own backyard, there's David Allen of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. His articles were already written from a personal point of view, so he was the ideal person to branch out into blogging. The blog posts are supplementary to his regular columns in the paper, and venture into topics that probably aren't covered otherwise (to my knowledge, Allen does not speak about company-imposed furloughs in the paper itself).

Of course, when you use a different tool, you have to note the differences in the tool. The main difference between a printed newspaper article and an online article or blog post is the immediacy of response. In the print world, an article on Monday may result in a "letter to the editor" on Wednesday, but in the blog world, a blog post can result in immediate comment, followed by an immediate response from the author. Look at how David Allen does it in his blog. Unfortunately, he apparently doesn't participate in the Topix-hosted comments that are tied to his newspaper articles.

It will be interesting to see how this immediacy of response changes news coverage as time marches on.

Sworn under an oath to war - @drewbrees is fighting his own battle against cancer

While all of the hoopla over the auction of the @drew Twitter account continues (see my prior post), many are wondering if other Drews will step up to the plate and exceed Drew Carey's bid. One person on the lips (or the fingers) of many has been Drew Brees. But even if he doesn't join all the cool kids and bid on our favorite social media pet project, @drewbrees is engaging in charity work of his own. See this tweet:

Looking for charitable projects to fund in New Orleans area thru the Brees Dream Foundation. Send recommendations ASAP to info@drewbrees.com

And it turns out that the Brees Dream Foundation is already sworn under an oath to war against cancer, even if Brees has not chosen to participate in the favorite charity of all the cool kids. The Foundation states:

The Brees Dream Foundation was founded in 2003 with a mission to advance research in the fight against Cancer and provide care, education and opportunities for children in need.

Since its inception, the Brees Dream Foundation has committed more than $4,500,000 to charitable causes and academic institutions in the New Orleans, San Diego and West Lafayette/Purdue communities.

Not too shabby. And New Orleans certainly needs the help.

Sworn under an oath to war - cancer consuming six letters of the @DrewFromTV handle

Earlier this morning I was raving in my music blog about the Siobhan Donaghy song "Ghosts." If you ever take a gander at the lyrics (which I posted), you will probably end up scratching your head. However, at least one of the lyrics was constructed by Donaghy saying something, playing it backwards, and then determining what it sounded like.

I'm not sure if that was the origin of the chorus also, but it's quite possible. The chorus for "Ghosts" is

Sworn under an oath to war

Which brings me to Drew Carey. Even under usual circumstances, I probably would have chosen to follow the @DrewFromTV Twitter account, because I am an admirer of Drew's work, particularly in the U.S. version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway"?

One of the games in this show was called "Superheroes," in which the participants all pretended to be bizarre superheroes battling a terrible enemy. For example, in episode 228 the enemy was dry skin.

Drew would normally sit behind the desk during the Superheroes game, but recently he emerged from the desk, sworn under an oath to war. Or perhaps he was still sitting behind the desk, I don't know. Regardless, Drew started tweeting. Here's a tweet that caught people's attention:

I bid $25k for the @Drew Twitter handle.

This was in response to Drew Olanoff's announcement, shared through Mashable, that he would auction off the aforementioned @Drew Twitter handle, with the proceeeds from the auction going to the LIVESTRONG Foundation.

But Drew Carey didn't stop there. Eleven minutes later, Carey tweeted:

@Drew I'll up my donation to LIVESTRONG to $100k if I get 100k followers by Nov 9th. I have just over 13k followers now.

Oh, and in case you haven't heard, Drew didn't stop there either. No sir.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Yes, that's one million dollars. I guess you can say that the price is right. (You can groan now.)

When Shira Lazar wrote about this, she noted that Drew Carey isn't the first person to use Twitter for charitable purposes:

Ashton Kutcher did it for Malaria No More. So did Hugh Jackman for Charity: Water and Operation of Hope.

Now this Twitter trend is a good thing.

(Picture source, license)

Another salvo in the antivirus war

I recently wrote a post in my Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog about how Wal Mart's low prescription pricing is being beaten by local grocery outlet Stater Brothers, which is offering selected antibiotics for free. Well, Stater Brothers doesn't sell antivirus software, but Microsoft does. Actually, Microsoft doesn't sell it. Security Industry News links to http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/:

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free* download...

Uh, wait a minute. There's a footnote there. What's the catch?

*Your PC must run genuine Windows to install Microsoft Security Essentials.

I can live with that. But can the security industry?

When Microsoft first introduced the beta version of Security Essentials, analysts said the move would cause sleepless nights for competitors McAfee and Symantec, who would be worried about users switching from paid-for to free software....

But Microsoft said Security Essentials was not developed to wipe out the use of other security software. "Free anti-malware is not new," said spokesperson Mac Brown. "Many other vendors provide antivirus solutions at no cost. By adding our free, slimmed-down core anti-malware solution, we believe that we can help address those consumers who want and know they need core anti-malware protection but either cannot afford a full security suite or don't have access to payment instruments like credit cards required for online subscriptions."

Of course, the other vendors had things to say. TechWorld recorded comments from Trend Micro and Symantec. The tones of the two companies' statements differed somewhat.

"I think it's a good thing that they're in the market," said Carol Carpenter, the general manager of Trend Micro's consumer division. "We look forward to the competition ... and I think Microsoft's targeting of developing countries and the unprotected is a good approach."...

"Security Essentials won't change anything," said Jens Meggers, Symantec's vice president of engineering. "Microsoft has a really bad track record in security," he added, ticking off several ventures into consumer security that the giant has tried, including Windows Defender, an anti-spyware tool bundled with Windows Vista and Windows 7; the released-monthly Malicious Software Removal Tool; and OneCare.

"Like OneCare, Security Essentials is a poor product," said Meggers. "It has very average detection rates. And now they've decided to go for the free market, but that's a very crowded market. There's not much room to grow there."

In a company blog, another Symantec employee called Security Essentials a "rerun" of OneCare , and said: "At the end of the day, Microsoft Security Essentials is a rerun no one should watch."

Meggers actually could have made some excellent points, but he chose the wrong tone of voice to do it. Take this statement:

Meggers' take today was even more bearish. "We don't like the notion of 'basic,'" he said. "That makes me very worried, because the risk on the Web today is far too high for 'basic.' Tossing a bunch of little basic tools into the computing environment doesn't make it safe."

Of course, this plays into Symantec's basic FUDdy theme, which is that Microsoft puts out an unsafe operating system, and you need a professional like Symantec to protect you from Microsoft. If you can successfully characterize Microsoft's fix as something as unsafe as the OS itself, you've hit a home run.

However, Paul Smith has some uncertainty and doubt over Symantec's earlier (June) claims of Microsoft's poor performance:

I'm not sure what reviews Symantec are talking about, but I haven't read any data on MSE's performance yet, nor should we expect any for weeks, if not months as that's how long it takes to actual do proper scientific tests. It does however use the same core engine and definitions as OneCare and Forefront, so the logical thing to do would be to use data evaluating OneCare's performance.

The latest tests by AV-Comparatives, rank OneCare second in detection of new malware, but also importantly it scores the lowest false positives by far, meaning it won't detect genuine files as being malicious. Which is what led AV Comparatives to award it the highest ranking. Here's the data for new malware detection rates. Where's Symantec, oh right down the bottom with a dismal 35%.

Commenter Mark Sowul stated:

Maybe if Norton hadn't turned into such a pile of rubbish people would use it.

So what does Norton say about competitive comparisons on its website? At the moment, not much:


We will update this space shortly with Norton 2010 product results from Passmark. Here are quick facts on Norton’s speed and protection from last year:

75% Faster Installation:
Norton Internet Security 2009 typically installs in under one minute – far faster than the competition.*

80% Faster Scan Speed:
Virus and spyware scan time for Norton Internet Security is 80% faster than the industry average and over twice as fast the closest competitor.*

29% Faster Boot Time:
Total time to start PC with Norton Internet Security 2009 installed is 29% faster than the industry average.*

6 Times More Frequent Updates:
Norton streams updates to your desktop – providing protection from the latest threats every 5 to 15 minutes – or nearly 6 times more often than the industry average.**

I find it interesting that this page focuses on things such as scan time and number of updates and not about...oh...actual protection from viruses or anything like that.

Over the years I've used computers that have had Symantec, Trend Micro, and Microsoft products. In my experience, they've worked (I did have to change an Adobe software setting to prevent Norton from hogging my CPU, but that was easily fixed). And as I'm considering the purchase of a netbook as a second home computer, the avaialbility of free anti-virus software makes the purchase that much more attractive. Of course, I'll probably have to uninstall Norton or Trend Micro or whatever first. And that may be fun:

I had so many problems getting rid of Norton AntiVirus, I had to Format my entire hard drive which meant that I had to wipe out all the programs, files and documents that was installed on my computer for the past 3 years.

To make it even worse I then had to re-install everything from scratch, which felt like a great pain in the butt if you know what I mean. So you can imagine how much I was annoyed and upset with what I had to go through....

I decided to buy a new computer as my old computer was getting kind of slow and out of date.

Packaged with my new computer was a (2 months Free Trial) of good old Norton AntiVirus.

You can imagine how thrilled I was by that news, but I thought to myself that surely by now Norton would have fixed their issues with uninstalling their software and it should be a piece of cake to remove this sucker from my brand new machine.

What do you think happened next?

You guessed right...Norton files were still inside the computer no matter how many times I tried to uninstall the Free Version.

Of course, that particular page is chock-full of links to the "perfect uninstaller," but the publisher of said uninstaller isn't revealed. It's funny when Symantec, a major FUD purveyor, is itself targeted with FUD.

Welcome to the merry-go-round of the security industry. Now stop going to those warez sites, d00d, and maybe your computer will be safer.

Picture source, license

Hawker-in-Chief

The use of Presidential images to sell advertisements is nothing new. Obviously you see a bunch of Washington and Lincoln images on President's Day, and you can usually count on a car dealer or someone to incorporate the current sitting President in their ads, along with a "celebrity voice impersonated" disclaimer.

But there's a whole different tone to the Presidential advertising this year - and it's just not Presidential.

Perhaps you're flipping the TV dial and you run across an infomercial in which the video and audio shows President Obama speaking, but the crawl at the bottom announces a wonderful home refinance offer.

Or perhaps you're on Facebook and you see an ad like this:



Note the language used by these ads - the advertisers are implying that President Obama is ordering you to buy their products. It would be unpatriotic to do otherwise.

Now perhaps some may counter that citizens have felt deep attachment to many of our Presidents, not just Obama. But I never recall seeing an advertisements stating "President Reagan wants you to tear down your wall and build a new one with FlyByNight Bricks." And although I was very young at the time, I seriously doubt that a 1962 ad declared, "President Kennedy wants you to smoke Dominican cigars."

Now there are some from one end of the spectrum who argue that this is just additional evidence of Obama's secret goal to become a Satanic false messiah, and that citizens are being misled to robotically follow his will. But on the other end of the spectrum, those who probably DO believe that Obama is the Messiah are outraged that The One's message is being co-opted by the fascist capitalists.

But is it legal to use Obama to hawk stuff? This question was raised in Yahoo! Answers (specifically in reference to the commercial that showed an Obama speech), and here is Ryan M's answer:

Very poor taste, but very legal. He is a public figure and they are using footage from a public speech. They are not changing his words. People who think that this is an endorsement are probable not too smart to begin with and that is the commercials target audience. Tacky I agree, unethical (Probably), but 100% legal.

Now there may be other legalities involved - for example, if the advertiser used footage taken by NBC News without NBC's permission - but this ties in with other uses of government-authored material. The next time you get a government publication, look for the copyright notice - there isn't any. Be sure to check at tax time and look at Joe Blow's Tax Guide - you'll probably find a lot of government-authored material in there. And basically, it's legal:

TITLE 17 > CHAPTER 1 > § 105

§ 105. Subject matter of copyright: United States Government works

Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise.

Of course, you have to use some artful wording to imply that Barack endorses your stuff. For example, here's how I'd get Barack Obama AND George W. Bush to "endorse" my Empoprise-BI blog:

President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush don't agree on a lot of things, but they do agree that reading is the sign of a highly cultivated mind. Read the Empoprise-BI business blog, part of the Empoprises series of blogs that was founded during the Bush Administration and continues in the Obama Administration. The Empoprise-BI is capable of being viewed wherever you may be, whether you're in the White House, Capitol Hill, or the Wall Street business centers. Join the Presidents in reading today!

You see, if you surround your product in Presidential veneer, you can make ANYTHING look good.

Coding on the Wave? Old awards die hard, but they die

This has received coverage from Digital Inspiration and Valleywag, but let's go directly to the source - a blog post written by Jon Skeet. Here's how the post begins:

It's with some sadness that I have to announce that as of the start of October, I'm no longer a Microsoft MVP.

As renewal time came round again, I asked my employer whether it was okay for me to renew, and was advised not to do so.

Skeets' employer, by the way, is a company called Google.

Granted that so far we've only heard Skeets' side of the story, but Valleywag's Ryan Tate offered some thoughts anyway:

Google is fine with Skeet programming, on company time, in a language born from their competitor, and the company is fine with him offering extensive help with the language online. But accepting an award for offering help with said language is apparently akin to sleeping with the enemy.

Well, it depends. If I can get Clintonian for a moment, I guess we need to ask whether the award is an award, or if it is an award. Is the Microsoft MVP award designed for the benefit of the honoree, or the benefit of Microsoft? Here's what Microsoft says:

The MVP Award recognizes exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their deep, real-world knowledge about Microsoft technologies with others.

Potential MVPs are nominated by other technical community members, current and former MVPs, and Microsoft personnel who have noted their leadership and their willingness and ability to help others make the most of their Microsoft technology.

To receive the Microsoft MVP Award, MVP nominees undergo a rigorous review process. A panel that includes members of the MVP team and Microsoft product groups evaluates each nominee's technical expertise and voluntary community contributions for the past 12 months. The panel considers the quality, quantity, and level of impact of the MVP nominee's contributions. Active MVPs receive the same level of scrutiny as other new candidates each year.

MVPs are independent of Microsoft, with separate opinions and perspectives, and are able to represent the views of the community members with whom they engage every day.

Now, of course, the presence of these independently-minded Microsoft honorees reflects well on Microsoft, since their criteria specify that talent, and not the ability to kowtow the Redmond line, if the chief consideration for being named an MVP.

Although toeing the Redmond line obviously doesn't hurt, as this post about Word's inability to open a Google Doc shows:

Bwwwwaaaaaa hah ha ha ha....

The file you downloaded is a crapulation made by Google :-)

TextEdit can open it because it's not looking at the difficult parts of the
code.

Pages can open it because Pages ignores complex Word formatting.

But anything capable of displaying complex, structured document formatting
is going to barf.

To use an aviation example, light aircraft don't care if the instrument
landing system has errors or not, because they don't use it. But airliners
crash if it is bad.

Tell the lovely chaps at Google to get their act together :-)

Cheers


On 22/09/09 8:07 AM, in article 59b7cfab.1@webcrossing.caR9absDaxw,
"thibaulthalpern@officeformac.com" wrote:

> Er....let me clarify, especially for CyberTaz.
>
> The document downloaded from Google Docs is in .doc (i.e., MS Word) format.
>
> Let me repeat: the document is a .DOC format.
>
> TextEdit can open open this file because it's a .DOC format.
> Pages can also open this file because it's a .DOC format
> In the Finder, the preview column can also display this document because it's
> a .DOC format.
>
> The problem clearly lies at MS Word 2008. It is a .DOC format after all.
>
> Thanks :)

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:john@mcghie.name

Now the opinions of John McGhie are not necessarily the opinions of Steve Ballmer...for all I know, McGhie may LIKE the iPhone. But these MVP-like programs (I'm more familiar with Oracle's ACE program) tend to recognize people who are NOT employed by the award-giver. And in this era of coopetition, it's very likely that a company's tools may be used by a competitor, and that the competitor company might not want to give good press to the original vendor.

Or course, we're assuming that the competitor company has a single mind, and that everyone at Google marches in lockstep and does the exact same thing. All of the third-party coverage made a point of noting that "Google" did this, but I'll bet that the Google higher-ups didn't even know about this until they read Valleywag for the day. I doubt that Google even has a policy about accepting awards from Microsoft.

And you can certainly find other Microsoft competitor employees who have accepted MVPs. Hans Le Roy is a Compuserve Sysop, as is Scott D. Evans. Other than the fact that these profiles are obviously outdated, did AOL raise a stink about Compuserve people receiving Microsoft recognition?

Practicing my FTC disclosures

FTC DISCLOSURE: This blog post is being typed on my home computer, which was funded by my salary as an employee of a large French conglomerate. This same computer has been used to access the e-mail network of said large French conglomerate. Therefore, if you've noticed that this blog has never criticized a particular French conglomerate...it's because I've been bought. You may distrust all posts in this blog accordingly.

Wait until I write a mobile post, using something that I acquired from my former employer.

This will be fun.

P.S. In case you're interested in my true thoughts on the FTC-mandated blogger disclosures, I posted several comments in the Mashable post on the topic. Here's one of them:

For what it's worth, I've been trying to err on the side of caution for some time now, even with Amazon affiliate links and Google ads. You never know...

P.P.S. In this case the picture (license here) deserves additional comment. It is of a sculpture called "Man Controlling Trade," and is outside of the Federal Trade Commission offices in Washington, DC. You can judge whether the man has any control over trade.

P.P.P.S. A subsequent FTC disclosure can be found here in my Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog.

P.P.P.P.S. Ditto for the Empoprise-MU music blog.

(empo-utoobd) YouTube's account termination policy

Continuing in the series of posts that I was inspired to write after receiving a Your account has been permanently disabled message from YouTube, it's appropriate to see what YouTube's own Terms of Service say about account termination.

7. Account Termination Policy

1. YouTube will terminate a User's access to its Website if, under appropriate circumstances, they are determined to be a repeat infringer.

2. YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content or a User Submission is appropriate and complies with these Terms of Service for violations other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscene or defamatory material, or excessive length. YouTube may remove such User Submissions and/or terminate a User's access for uploading such material in violation of these Terms of Service at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion.


The key point here is "without prior notice and at its sole discretion." In essence, I have no right to know why YouTube terminated my account. The Terms of Service can say whatever it wants about "repeat infringer" language or whatever, but in the end it doesn't matter, since YouTube reserves to itself the power to determine when it terminates accounts. And it even reserves the right to post contradictory information:

If a user posts a video or otherwise behaves on the site contrary to these Guidelines, we will generally remove the offending material, and apply a Community Guidelines warning strike against the account of the poster. These strikes stick with the accounts belonging to that user for six months from the date they are received. If a user receives such a strike they will be notified when they next log-in to their YouTube account. For reference, copies of the notice are also sent to the user's email address and YouTube private message inbox.

The first strike on an account is considered a warning. If an account receives two strikes within a six month period, the ability to post new content to YouTube from that account will be temporarily disabled. If there are no further issues, full privileges will be restored automatically after a period. If an account receives a third Community Guidelines strike within six months (before the first strike has expired) the account will be terminated.

When a user has posting privileges temporarily disabled on one account, for the duration of the suspension that user is also prohibited from posting material to YouTube using any other account. Attempts to circumvent this rule may result in immediate termination without warning of all accounts.

Presumably the terms of service take precedence over a "General Policy Enforcement Information" page, which means that despite all of the stuff about notification and strikes, the operative language is still

YouTube may...terminate a User's access for uploading such material in violation of these Terms of Service at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion.

Possible dates for Oracle OpenWorld 2010...and 2011?

I've been attending Oracle OpenWorld for five years now (counting my planned attendance next week), and it's always been a game to me to figure out when the next year's Oracle OpenWorld would be. I've always assumed that it was a deep dark secret that I could never hope to fathom, but perhaps I just didn't try hard enough.

There was a discussion on Oracle Mix that asked about the 2010 date - the questioner was trying to plan something else, but it was difficult to do so when the Oracle event could occur at any time between September and November.

Well, I turned to my trusty web search, and located a PDF file at http://www.sf-japan.or.jp/downroad/090514concalendar2010-2015.pdf. (And yes, that's "downroad," not "download," in the URL, but since my Japanese language skills are non-existent, I can't really throw stones here.) Seeing that this came from a source well outside of San Francisco, I didn't immediately take its statements as gospel truth. However, according to this PDF, which purports to be from the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau, there are Oracle OpenWorld dates for the next several years:

Oracle Corporation, Oracle Openworld - 2010 11/07/10 11/11/10
Oracle Corporation, Oracle Openworld - 2011 10/02/11 10/06/11
Oracle Corporation, Oracle Openworld - 2012 09/30/12 10/04/12
Oracle Corporation, Oracle Openworld - 2013 09/22/13 09/26/13
Oracle Corporation, Oracle Openworld - 2014 09/28/14 10/02/14
Oracle Corporation, Oracle Openworld - 2015 10/25/15 10/29/15

But there's a caveat:

The information contained herein is subject to change at all times

Um..."at all times"? Not "at any time"? The phrase sounds...um...foreign.

In addition, the document says:

Please contact our tourism team at tourismsales@onlyinsanfrancisco.travel
for specific questions.

I hadn't run across something in the .travel domain before, so I thought I'd check it out...and it became very obvious that onlyinsanfrancisco.travel was not associated with the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau...unless said Bureau has seen fit to promote tourism in Sarajevo, Cairo, and Cuba. (Well, I could see San Francisco promoting travel in Cuba...)

I decided it was time to find the REAL San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau website, which happens to be http://www.sfcvb.org/. I explored the website, and got to http://www.sfcvb.org/convention/calendar.asp, which includes a search facility to find conventions for the next 24 months. So I entered the search term "openworld":

11.12.07 - 11.16.07
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Openworld - 2007
Monday, 11/12/2007 through Friday, 11/16/2007
Attendance: 45000
Peak Rooms: 15000

09.21.08 - 09.25.08
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Openworld - 2008
Sunday, 9/21/2008 through Thursday, 9/25/2008
Attendance: 42976
Peak Rooms: 15300

10.11.09 - 10.15.09
Oracle Corporation
Oracle OpenWorld - 2009
Sunday, 10/11/2009 through Thursday, 10/15/2009
Attendance: 45000
Peak Rooms: 15500

09.19.10 - 09.23.10
Oracle Corporation
Oracle OpenWorld - 2010
Sunday, 9/19/2010 through Thursday, 9/23/2010
Attendance: 45000
Peak Rooms: 15500

10.02.11 - 10.06.11
Oracle Corporation
Oracle OpenWorld - 2011
Sunday, 10/2/2011 through Thursday, 10/6/2011
Attendance: 45000
Peak Rooms: 15700

But even here, a caveat is in order. This is what the convention bureau says are the dates for the next two years - but has Oracle officially signed up to those dates? In the past, I linked to an April 2007 article that noted that Oracle OpenWorld 2008 was almost moved to another city.

An Oracle spokesman downplayed the company's talks with other cities, including one six weeks ago with the mayor of Chicago, as routine. He said the company did not end up seriously considering moving OpenWorld and emphasized the company is "committed to keeping the show in San Francisco."

But article writer Ryan Tate also noted:

There remains a strong possibility that Oracle will pull the show out of San Francisco within the next few years as it continues to grow, [city] officials said.

Now I obviously have no way of knowing the internal workings of the Bureau and Oracle, so I have no idea whether Oracle has agreed to the 2011 dates listed at the Bureau website, much less than 2012-2015 dates that I downloaded from my Japanese source.

But I'm not booking my travel plans for 2010, 2011, or 2015 just yet.

(empo-tuulwey) Proprietary, limited profile organizer? Count me LinkedOut

The announcement came in the LinkedIn blog:

I often come across interesting profiles on LinkedIn, but I’ve found it challenging to save profiles so I can easily come back to them later. Usually, I resort to bookmarking the profiles in my web browser or scribbling down names on a piece of paper.

Today we are launching Profile Organizer, a new Premium feature that lets you save profiles, organize them into folders, and add notes. Anytime you find an interesting profile, simply click “Save Profile” and the profile is bookmarked for you within LinkedIn.

Duct Tape Marketing commented:

So, let’s say you are scouting out journalists at a certain publication. You can do a search, set up a folder, and save all the profiles you like in that folder for later contact.


So how do you get this feature? There's a cost:

Profile Organizer is a part of a LinkedIn Premium Account, along with InMail messages, advanced search tools, and more.

The cost of a Premium Account? A minimum of $24.95 per month - and that only allows you to create five folders. Even if you pay $499.95 per month, you're limited to 25 folders. And, in a comment, Ted Meulenkamp noted another drawback:

this is a very interesting feature for recruiters and BUT it would be even better if there was an easy way to share those folders with others so that you could work with others on a search (and I know you now will try to sell me the recruiter module :-) Another feature that I would find interesting is the ability to add “tags” to candidates.

One other drawback of the offering is that it is tied to LinkedIn information only. So while someone can use the new feature to store my LinkedIn profile, they can't throw other information about me into the folder, such as Mark Brunelli's 2006 Oracle Database article that quoted me, or the abstract of the paper that I co-authored in 1991.

Once you start thinking about it, the $24.95 LinkedIn solution may not be for you, and you might find that another tool gives you better performance and better meets your needs. Perhaps a tool like...electronic mail. Depending upon your mail service, you can create unlimited folders and/or unlimited tags to your heart's content, store any content that you want in there, and save a ton of money.

On the other hand, if LinkedIn is a major portion of your life, or if you're using LinkedIn's premium features anyway, $24.95 may be a bargain. But even then, is the five folder limitation practical?

Picture source, license

Working on the move? Multitasking gone awry

Probably the best thing that's resulted from my participation in BloggersBase is the discovery of several talented bloggers, among them KEckerle, who describes herself as a "location independent professional" who has conducted business virtually from a recreational vehicle. When I ran across this New York Times article, I initially thought it was a similar story, but it turned out to be a very different tale. Here's an excerpt:

Scrambling to protect his company’s credibility with a big customer, he grabbed his cellphone to arrange a new shipment, cradling it between his left ear and shoulder, and with his right hand e-mailed instructions to his staff from his laptop computer — all while driving his rental car in a construction zone on a two-lane highway in North Carolina.

The article asserted that there was a difference between different types of distracted drivers:

For white-collar employees, pressures to multitask are largely self-imposed. For blue-collar workers, the demands to stay connected while driving are often imposed by their bosses.

More here.

Picture source, license

Empoprise-BI News - 4 October 2009

Empoprise-BI News

The news letter for Empoprise-BI - An Empoprises vertical information service for business news.

Welcome to Empoprise-BI News

An abbreviated version this week.

Yup, I got posts coming up, including some "empo-tuulwey" (a tool is not a way of life) posts, and at least one "empo-utoobd" post.

Personally, the post from last week that I enjoyed writing the most was the Friday post If hotels were like airlines - a cautionary tale. If you missed it, it was the fictional (?) story of an airline executive who ran into a hotel that practiced the same kind of add-on pricing that the airlines love to do these days.

I don't know what it is, but airlines bring out the best (or worst) in my parodical style. One of my first parody blog posts was one I wrote back in July 2004, They Weren't Terrorists...They Weren't Desert Casino-Bound Musicians...They Were Girlie Men! It was a parody of Annie Jacobsen's original "Terror in the Skies" post, except my version had a bunch of Finnish people in a Denny's, rather than a bunch of Arab people in an airplane. Sample:

Once we ordered our iced teas and club sodas, the unusual activity began. I overheard someone asking for a tuna fish pizza.

There's a personal story behind that second sentence, but I'm not going to tell it now. Suffice it to say that my version was almost as over-the-top as Jacobsen's original account. Incidentally, Women's Wall Street does not appear to exist, but snopes.com quotes a portion of Jacobsen's original account. But there's still my post about "Nour Mehana and his bathroom-loving band."

So what happened to Women's Wall Street? Did the recession do it in?

A survey of thought on internal linking

I just ran across this statement in FriendFeed:

Swear to god, I am getting so ticked off with TC. They keep interlinking or whatever you call it and I just can't get to the damn thing they are talking about.

Holden then linked to a TechCrunch post that begin with several bits of linked text. The first, "Facebook Desktop Notification," went to a TechCrunch post. So did the second, "Facebook Prototypes," and the third, "Gmail Labs." The fourth one, however, did not go to a TechCrunch post - instead, it went to the TechCrunch 50 website. Not until the fifth link (the word "here") were you sent to a non-TechCrunch related page.

Now I like to think that I'm a better-behaved citizen, and that when I'm linking to internal material (as I often do, since I have nearly six years' worth of posts that I can draw upon), I at least let the reader know that I'm linking to my own stuff. For example, I wrote a post on Friday that began with the words

If you read this Empoprise-BI business blog, you may have seen my Tuesday afternoon post entitled...

which were then followed by the title of the post in question and a link to it.

And, needless to say, I also link to external sources. For example, a September 30 post began

Peter Kim recently wrote on the plague of plagiarism.

Now the fact that the beginning of the September 30 post was completely ripped off from someone else - a fact that I acknoweldged in the fifth paragraph, when I linked to Adam Singer's Steal This Blog Post, in no way dampens the fact that I was linking to external sources.

However, I don't always highlight the fact that I'm linking to something that I previously wrote. My recent parody post included a link attached to the phrase "...were all doing this," and I didn't acknoweledge that I was linking to my own material. However, I will say in my defense that the linked material was certainly germane to the discussion of airline pricing.

But enough about me - what do others say about the practice of internal linking? In a discussion about internal linking, a webmaster asked the following:

I'm wondering if I make all references to "blue widgets", sitewide, be links back to the "blue widgets" product group page, the one I want Google to show, would that be ok? Would Google look at it as spam? We have about 800 pages indexed by Google, I would imagine 50 relate to "blue widgets", each having probably have 5-10 "blue widgets" references in their body that we could make links.

Here's one of the responses:

Sounds like too much to me. Yes, your internal link structure and anchor text will tell Google which pages you consider to be important for a given topic, but take it easy and make it natural. linking every occurence of the phrase will most likely cause troubles.

But discussions of linking inevitably lead to a discussion of "nofollow". Let's set the stage:

For those of you who don't know what rel="nofollow" is. Its a tag attribute that stops Google from passing Link Juice to a target page. This is most commonly used on the comment sections of blogs to stop spammers from leaching some Trust/Page Rank from adding links to their own websites from related blog posts. It's also the reason why Wikipedia is #1 for almost everything.

So what does Mark Rushworth suggest? Several things, beginning with this:

The first thing you are probably going to do is add rel="nofollow" to any links to your Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions or other pages who’s content really doesn’t contribute to your site SEO relevancy to your target terms.

Rushworth's other "nofollow" suggestions are here, as is his proposed goal:

The end result you’re looking for is a site where only keyword anchor text is followed. Oh and one final thing to remember, try and keep the anchor text the same on all links into a page and don’t repeat the anchor to 2 different pages on the same linked page (hope that makes sense).

I'm still digesting these tips, but I'd like to hear what you have to say.

Postscript - Holden's original discussion continues. See it here.

(empo-tymshft) Community statements - the multiplier effect

For years and years and years, it's been a truism that bad news travels more than good news. This is not merely a recent phenomenon - I'd be willing to bet that if Mr. Lee had poor service at an Alexandria pub, he would certainly let his friend Mr. Washington know about it. Of course, if Mr. Lee and Mr. Washington had 21st century Twitter accounts, that news would travel much more quickly, and even Mr. Adams would think twice on his next visit to Alexandria.

Now it's also true that bad news travels more quickly when a celebrity is involved. If I received poor service at a store, my dog and a few people would care, but if Taylor Swift received poor service at a store, many people would care.

Benjamin Golub is not a celebrity in the Taylor Swift sense of the term, but he is well-known in certain circles. My main reference point for Golub was his role as the creator of the fftogo service which allows FriendFeed access from mobile phones. Golub ended up getting hired by FriendFeed, which means that Golub is now an employee of Facebook, helping to ... Benjamin, I'm really happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish, but MySpace has one of the best music video sites of all time ... C'mon, you knew that the mentions of Taylor Swift would result in a Kanye West reference, didn't you?

So anyways, Benjamin Golub is well-known in certain parts, and his blog is ready by many people. Here's part of a recent blog post:

...about a month ago my bank, Charter One (a local name for Citizens Bank), stopped updating in Mint. There have been a lot of complaints in the forums; some people are upset at Mint but I'm not.

Instead of blaming either company; I'm just moving on. Mint provides a service I can't get elsewhere but banking at Charter One is generic. So I opened a checking account at USAA.

In and of itself, it's a post. But Benjamin's "celebrity" factor, coupled with improvements in online communication, have helped to spread the story more quickly than it would have been spread in the days of Washington and Lee.

You see, after Benjamin wrote his post, Jesse Stay of SocialToo fame commented on it. But Stay didn't just comment; he also shared the story in Google Reader, which resulted in it appearing in FriendFeed. And now, for what it's worth, I'm writing about it. And a Google search for charter one mint is hitting on both Golub's post and some of the forum activity that Golub mentioned.

The difference is speed. I'm working on a future post that notes how the speed of response could affect journalism, but it can obviously affect a lot of other things.

If hotels were like airlines - a cautionary tale

Relationship Marketing VP Sandra Gergen had just arrived in town for an executive meeting. Because her employer, Generic Airlines, had just initiated service to Bozeman, Montana, the meeting was held there. This was primarily a cost-cutting move, since it allowed the executives to show up in Bozeman for the grand opening of Generic Airlines service there, and then have their meeting after the mayor and everyone else had left.

And it was an important meeting, too. Generic Airlines had just completed its second quarter of its "Value Pricing" campaign, which talked endlessly about customer value but was in reality designed to provide Generic Airlines with new revenue streams. A la carte was the word of the day, and any item with a perceived value was reclassified as an optional additional-charge item. Generic's competitors were all doing this, and Generic was right there in the pack.

The next day's meeting was going to show the results of the new promotion, since the financial executives would by then have complete figures on the first six months of the program. Sandra, and the other executives, were looking forward to hearing how much additional revenue Generic Airlines was receiving from the new program.


But right then, Sandra Gergen was just interested in sleep. From Generic Airlines' headquarters in Tampa, she had flown to the carrier's eastern hub in Nashville, then to the western hub in Salt Lake City, and then up to Bozeman. (Only senior vice presidents and above were entitled to use private planes.) Because of weather and mechanical delays, she didn't arrive at her hotel room until after midnight, and all that she wanted was a good night's sleep.

"May I help you?"

"Yes. My name is Sandra Gergen, and I have a reservation for tonight."

"Ah, Ms. Gergen, we've been expecting you. Welcome to the Value Luxury Hotel. Let me pull up your reservation...yes, you booked the 99 dollar Value Luxury Palace."

"Hmm, 99 dollars. That's the same price that we're charging for our introductory flights to Bozeman."

"Hmm...you're with Generic Airlines, then? Oh, I see that you are."

"So have you flown one of our 99 dollar flights?"


"Um...yes I have. (Pause) So since you're with Generic, you'll probably be very familiar with the pricing structure here at the Value Luxury Hotel. Would you like me to go over it with you?"

"Right now I just want to fix myself a stiff drink on ice, take a shower, and fall into bed."

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem, Ms. Gergen."

"I assume that you have alcohol in the room in one of those refrigerators, right?"

"We do have alcohol in the room, yes. But it's on a special table. Would you like me to add a refrigerator to your room?"

"Add? Um, no thank you."


"Now you also wanted to add ice to your drink, is that correct?"

"Yes. You DO have ice machines, don't you?"

"Yes, and all of our ice machines take all major credit cards."

"Excuse me?"

"Ms. Gergen, in an effort to provide greater value to our customers, a bucket of ice costs five dollars. The ice machine will accept your credit card, although we impose a two dollar surcharge on American Express card use."

"What? That's...oh well, I guess warm booze won't be that bad. Can I have my room now?"

"Just a minute, Ms. Gergen. You mentioned that you wanted to take a shower, correct?"

"Why? Are you going to charge me for the water?"

"Oh course not, Ms. Gergen. The health department wouldn't allow it. But did you bring your own towels?"

"What? You have to buy the towels?"

"Actually, the towels are rented. You can rent them for ten dollars per hour, two hour minimum. Be sure to specify whether you want a bath towel, a pool towel, or a washcloth."

"So I pay twenty bucks for a towel, and twenty bucks for a washcloth?"

"Only if you want to, Ms. Gergen. At Value Luxury Hotel, we put the customer in control of their value luxury experience."

"OK, just add it to my bill. I'll go wild and spring for the washcloth AND the towel."

"Done, Ms. Gergen. And one more thing -"

"WHAT NOW?"


"You mentioned that you wanted to go to bed after your shower was done."

"Now wait just a minute. Perhaps Generic Airlines uses a value pricing method also, but at least the standard airfare includes a seat. Do you mean to say that the hotel doesn't include a bed as part of its standard package?"

"At Value Pricing Hotel, we do provide sleeping accommodations standard. If you would prefer the added luxury of a bed, we can provide a room with the bed of your choice. At Value Luxury Hotel, we put the customer in control of their..."

Pictures: Bozeman Airport (license), Lobby (license), Ice Machine (license), Sleeping Bags (license)

The original draft of this post can be found here

Business-related observations on fly-drive fun

If you read this Empoprise-BI business blog, you may have seen my Tuesday afternoon post entitled Expedia reverses single sign-on, doesn't say why.

And if you read my companion Empoprise-IE Inland Empire blog, you may have seen my Thursday morning post entitled More airport news.

That's a lot of airport talk - but there's a reason for that.

As of Tuesday afternoon, I knew that I was going to have to make a one-way trip to Las Vegas on Saturday, and I was trying to decide whether to fly, or take the bus. But in a James 4 sort of way, the stuff that I knew on Tuesday afternoon no longer applied on Thursday afternoon. By Thursday afternoon, I knew that I was going to take the plane, not the bus - and that I was going to do it that same day.

And I knew that I wasn't going to use Expedia. In fact, since I was flying out of Ontario airport, I ended up going directly to the Southwest Airlines website and booking my travel there.

I booked my travel at about 1:45 pm on Thursday afternoon, which began ten hours of fun. I already tweeted about it, but let me give the more than 140 characters version of the story.

• I had a meeting at 2:00, so I didn't leave my office in Orange County until around 2:30. When I got home to Ontario, I packed a small bag, just in case I had to stay overnight. Because I had already been thinking about going on Saturday, the packing was very quick.


• I then got a ride to Terminal 4 at Ontario International Airport, arriving at 4:20. I went directly to the ticket counter, not realizing that they had separate kiosks in the terminal for people who weren't checking any bags.


• One thing to note - I purposely chose NOT to use Foursquare during this trip, so I didn't check in to Foursquare when I got to the airport terminal, even though the venue is in Foursquare. (There's a separate entry for Terminal 2.) Foursquare check-ins are opt-in, and I chose not to opt-in at that time.


• Note to airport shop owners - if you want to sell your Jelly Belly product to me, (a) it would help if you posted the price, and (b) it would help if you displayed the bags for the candy. I would have had to ask the price, and ask where the bags were, and by the time I got to that stage, I decided that I probably didn't need the candy anyway.



• The flight had an advertised departure time of 6:20 pm, with an advertised arrival time of 7:20 pm. The plane didn't take off until 6:30, but we still arrived at the gate at 7:20. Underpromising and overdelivering works every time.


• The purpose of the flight to Las Vegas was to pick up a car and drive it back to Ontario. I had to gas up the car before we left Las Vegas, and I paid a price of $2.699/gallon. (By way of comparison, I had bought gas the night before this in Claremont, and paid $2.959/gallon for it.) Usually the gas in Las Vegas is a little cheaper than the gas in the Inland Empire/Orange County area, but I don't think I've ever seen THIS large a price difference.


• I wasn't that tired, so I was able to drive straight through, arriving at the Cajon Pass a little before 11:00 pm. A couple of miles south of the Cajon summit, I passed a fire that was burning east of the freeway. At the time I passed, there were no freeway closures, even for northbound traffic. I'm not sure what happened later.


• I would have been home by 11:30, except that right after I passed the Foothill Boulevard exit, traffic on the southbound I-15 was reduced to one lane for construction. There was no notice of this before the Foothill Boulevard exit, nor was there any notice of this before the I-15/I-215 split. As a result, all of us funneled directly into a massive traffic jam that could have been avoided.


• I finally got home at 11:45, ten hours after I had made the original reservations. I'm taking a vacation day today - sort of.

And I don't plan to go to another airport for...a week. Then I fly to San Francisco for Oracle OpenWorld. But I don't think I'll drive back.

Picture source, license

Abbie Hoffman never wrote for the web

Peter Kim recently wrote on the plague of plagiarism. I don’t really see it as a plague, having your work copied is merely a byproduct of producing digital content. Many fight it. I’ve put it to work for my music and I do the same for the words I write.

Steal this blog post. I’m not joking. Copy-paste this post onto your own blog or site. You can credit me if you want to (this blog is registered under a creative commons license meaning you’re encouraged to do this) but if you don’t want to, that’s just fine.

Why?

I want to see my ideas spread

I don’t necessarily care if my name is always behind them. Which is a good thing, because I (John Bredehoft) did not write any of the stuff that preceded this sentence. All of it was lifted, verbatim, from a post entitled Steal This Blog Post by Adam Singer.

OK, from here on in I'll properly credit him. (Man, I hope Singer isn't a member of the Associated Press; if he is, I probably racked up a huge bill there.)

Why is Singer willing to let his ideas float away, as it were? Two main arguments of Singer's deserve attention:

• First, he notes that scraper sites are so obvious that people would immediately know that the scraper site was not the originator of the idea. (I've written about scraper sites before.) While he's right, there are exceptions to the rule. I knew of a case in which two professionals, who worked at the same company (not any of my employers), both had blogs. One would write a blog with original content, while the second would merely copy what the first person wrote, without attributing it to him. As far as I know, there was no malice intended - the second person wanted the first person's ideas to be available to more people - but by the same token, the second person didn't explicitly acknowledge that another person had written the material. The site looked nothing like a scraper site, but it was a scraper site nonetheless.


• Singer's second point is related to the first - namely, that in the end, the original result will be higher in searches than the copycat site. Not necessarily! What if the original post was written by an obscure writer, and the copycat post was written by a more popular writer, and/or was posted on a more popular website? It can happen.

Singer does say some additional things about what to do when content is copied, but I encourage you to go to the original post and read them.

P.S. If you don't get the Abbie Hoffman reference, read this Wikipedia article. A bunch of people wrote it.

P.P.S. By appropriating Singer's work, I am in a sense violating a principle which Chris Brogan recently enunciated regarding the dangers of tagging on to a popular brand - enunciations, incidentally, with which I heartily agree. I'd comment on this, but then I'd be ripping off Alanis Morissette.

(Picture source, license)