Yearly Archives: 2009

Captain Blood

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I love grabbing snippets from old movies or TV shows and sharing them here. The process goes something like this: I hit the record button on the DVR. Then I hook up my old Sony camcorder and pull the video off the DVR. Next, I import the video from the camera to the MacBook. Now, thanks to a new little video capture widget from Elgato, the drill got much easier. (Mac only, sorry)

One end plugs into the video/audio out of any device and the other is a USB connection to the MacBook. And the software is simplicity itself. If you need to get video from your TV or DVR over to your computer, the Elgato Video Capture is a near perfect solution.

My test clip is from Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn.

Scott Adams: Calendar as Filter

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Scott Adams thinks the calendar will be the organizing filter for most of the information flowing into our lives:

“You think you are bombarded with too much information every day, but in reality it is just the timing of the information that is wrong. Once the calendar becomes the organizing paradigm and filter, it won’t seem as if there is so much.”

News: “When I read the news, I’m generally most interested in how stories have unfolded across time. I want to know the “new news,” as in the topics that have never been reported until today, but I also want ongoing charts and graphs about the “old news” such as wars and the economy. My understanding of the war in Iraq, for example, has little to do with what blew up today and a lot to do with the trend lines over the entire war. In other words, I see the news in terms of time.”

Advertisements: “Some time ago I blogged that advertising belongs in your electronic calendar, for your benefit more than for the advertiser. That’s because my interest and desire in certain products and services is linked to timing. If my calendar has a certain birthday coming up in a week, and I’ve checked the boxes saying the person is a certain age and gender, or has certain hobbies, my calendar can start giving me gift suggestions and recommending online flowers and e-cards and the like. In other words, advertisements can move from nuisance to valuable service just by adjusting when you see them.”

I know a lot of folks who use their Outlook email in-box as their primary organizing tool. (shudder) The calendar makes a lot more sense to me, too. Especially working out of iCal that’s sync’d between my desktop, laptop and iPhone.

Listenomics and why things are different this time

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I remember reading Bob Garfield’s The Chaos Scenario as an article in Advertising Age but I’m not sure I listened to the interview Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) posted to his website back in March. More on that in a moment. I don’t think the book is out yet but here’s a blurb from the web page:

“What happens when the old world order collapses and the Brave New World is unprepared to replace it…as an ad medium, as a news source, as a political soapbox, as a channel for new episodes of “Lost?” That is The Chaos Scenario.

In this fascinating, terrifying, instructive and often wildly entertaining book, Garfield is not content to chronicle the ruinous disintegration of traditional media and marketing. No, having established the problem, he travels to five continents for solutions.

What he discovers is the answer for all institutions who wish to survive – and thrive – in a digitally connected, Post-Media Age. He calls this the art and science of Listenomics.”

Mr. Garfield is Advertising Age editor-at-large and co-host of NPR’s On the Media. Looking forward to the book. If you spot it before I do, let me know.

Lance on why he and Sheryl Crow split

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“She wanted marriage, she wanted children; and not that I didn’t want that, but I didn’t want that at that time because I had just gotten out of a marriage, I’d just had kids [Luke, Grace and Bella],” Armstrong, 37, reveals. “Yet we’re up against her biological clock — that pressure is what cracked it.” — New York Post.

MU J-School requires iPhone/iPod Touch. Sort of.

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Freshmen admitted into the University of Missouri School of Journalism (and pre-jounalsim students) will be “required” to have an iPhone or ilPod Touch beginning this fall. But not really. If the device is “required” it can be included in a financial need estimate.

According to the story in the Columbia Missourian, iPods and iPhones are “learning devices” used to record lectures. But student still have the option of using their laptops to record lectures.

People have already started bitching about this. Favoring one brand of computer or device; scamming the financial needs program, etc.

When I saw @georgekopp ‘s tweet on this, I thought it was a good idea but for a reason not mentioned in the story.

News is going (has gone?) mobile. A journalism student can’t begin to understand –and report on– that world without a moblie device and –for the moment– the iPhone and iPod Touch are the of breed. I can’t believe the J-school didn’t make that point.

It would be like coming to photography school without a camera.

[A few hours later]

This is another one of those fantasy courses that are easy to come up with if you’ve never taught a class and have no expectation of doing so.

iPhone Reporting would come somewhere in the middle of j-school, rather than at beginning or end. Might work something like this:

Students are equipped with the new iPhone we’re all hoping will come out this summer. It does still images; audio and video (including editing apps). And that’s it. No laptops, digital cameras recorders… just the iPhone.

Each picks a story to cover for the entire semester. Or maybe they pick one from a hat. Either way.

Students are encouraged to use any and all platforms: YouTube, Twitter, flickr, Facebook, Twitpic, etc. The professor follows along online, offering feedback and suggestions during class time.

For all I know the MU J-School might already offer such a course. Perhaps it’s time for another visit with my old pal Mike McKean. Last time we spoke (almost 4 years ago?!) he had been tapped to head up the school’s new “convergence” program. Four Internet years is a lifetime.

PS: I now see he is in charge of the school’s Futures Lab. This implies there is more than one future. Very quantum.

“The Newspaper & Radio Bailout”

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I’m a little fuzzy on whether the following description of the newspaper business model should be attributed to Warren Buffett or Eric Rhoads (Radio Ink) but the point is the same:

“Write the news, cut down millions or trees for paper, build massive printing plants to print it overnight, have a distribution model that pays people to fold and bag hundreds of papers and burn thousands of gallons of gas to go house-to-house throwing papers out of their car windows so people can walk out into the cold or rain in order to read news that is 12-24 hours old.”

Well, if you put it that way… And I particularly liked the line: “Do they really believe the Internet generation can be convinced to sign up for home delivery?”

Uh, I’m gonna say no.

You can change everything

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In a recent post, Seth Godin reminds us we are not really stuck in a rut. We can, in fact, change everything and then lists a bunch of ways to do that. Some of my favorites: Move to Thiland; Become a vegan; Have all meetings in a room with no chairs, and everyone wears a bath robe over their clothes.

But as one who spends most of his days (and nights) working on websites, this one really spoke to me:

“Delete your website and start over with the simplest possible site”

Might be difficult to make this blog more simple. But some of our company websites could be a LOT leaner and cleaner. I’d love to flush ’em and start over as Seth suggests.