You don’t have to change your name…just go away.

Posted on April 2, 2005 by Steve Mays

This is a true story although I have changed the names to protect the innocent and the clueless.

A couple of months ago, a friend (I’ll call him Ishmael) started a blog called “Telemarketing Wiz” and began posting all kinds of interesting stuff about telemarketing. He started hearing from others in the telemarketing business and people started linking to his blog. He got a little buzz going. Not a raging wildfire, but a little brush fire. Google “telemarketing” and his blog is #3 in the results.

One day recently, Ishmael has a meeting with someone at a publication called “Telemarketing.” (Remember, all of the names have been changed. This has nothing to do with telemarketing) The Telemarketing executive tells Ishmael they are not happy with him using the name “telemarketing” and they’d really like for him to stop. They even offered him a few worthless incentives.

Ishmael was shocked and said he’d think about it but wasn’t inclined to change the name of his blog. There were dozens of companies using the term “telemarketing”… why was the Big Publication concerned about him? Could it be that Big Publication was getting tired of hearing about Telemarketing Wiz?

Legal issues aside, this is a nice example of cluelessness on the part of MSM. I suggested to Ishmael that he change the name of his blog to “TelemarketingSucks.com,” but he’s more of a grown-up than I.

Would it have made more sense for Big Publisher to say, “We’ve noticed what you’re doing and think it’s pretty exciting. We’d like to hire you to blog for our publication.”

I’m sure that Telemarketing is a very good publication. Maybe the best. With lots of talented writers and editors and advertisers and big building with a nice lobby. A great place to read about telemarketing. But not the only place.

If Ishmael was writing a little paper newletter and mailing to a few hundred people, Big Publisher probably wouldn’t care what he called it. But the web is national. It’s global. Anybody can play. It’s no longer about who can come up with a few hundred thousand (million?)dollars to start a magazine. One guy, with a computer, and a head full of good ideas can get in the game. It’s a new day.

You want 60’s or 30’s?

Posted on March 31, 2005 by Steve Mays

According to TNS Media Intelligence report (March 8, 2005), Internet ad spending ($7.4 billion) in 2004 exceeded (for the first time) that of local radio ($7.3 billion).

Painful Wrestling Holds

Posted on March 26, 2005 by Steve Mays

I hope this wrestling move is so uncommon, so obscure… that it doesn’t have or need a name. But should that dark day come… The Full Colon; The Rectal Takedown; Four Fingers of Death. Coach Ron has compiled photos of other painful wrestling holds.

Nonsense Generator

Posted on March 24, 2005 by Steve Mays

Gosh, one stringent caterpillar vivaciously haltered together with this nefarious bandicoot. Wow, that tarantula is much more indignant than one repulsive cat. Oh my, one ambidextrous leopard frenetically gurgled in front of the zealous boa. Dear me, one goose is far less absentminded than the various man-of-war. Gosh, this wolverine is far less attentive than some pesky bandicoot. Nonsense Generator

Mel’s Country Cafe

Posted on March 23, 2005 by Steve Mays

I eat breakfast two or three times a week at Mel’s Country Cafe. Nothing fancy about Mel’s and the menu never changes. It’s the kind of place where you can get mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a piece of banana cream pie. (If you’re from Kennett, think Palace Cafe or McCormick’s)

And you can have a cigarette with your meal at Mel’s. And lots of folks do. They made the back room smoke-free a few years ago but you have to walk through a cloud of smoke to get there and back through it when you’re done.

When I walked into Mel’s on Tuesday, one of the servers informed me that the smaller room in back is now the smoking room and the larger, front room is smoke free. Whoa. I took a seat and looked around and noticed most of the same faces, sitting in their usual places. All the smokers sitting in the smoke-free room.

I asked my server how the new policy was going over. “Not so good,” he admitted. “A couple of them have gone back to the smoking room long enough to have a cigarette, and then came back to their usual spot.”

I grew up in a smoking family. I understand smokers and the power of their addiction. I’ve known smokers that would get a divorce or quit a good job rather than give up the habit. Family members who no longer speak as a result of long-ago arguments about smoking. These are the same people that stand hunched in the freezing rain to get their fix. What force could make them stop smoking long enough to have some ham and eggs? And it hit me.

Routine. It would be more shocking to their nicotine-soaked nerve endings to sit in a different chair…at a different table…IN A DIFFERENT ROOM! I’m told this is a common phenomenon among regular church goers who have their regular pew. We dedicate this song to all the men and women jonesing through breakfast at Mel’s.

PrairieLinks.com

Posted on March 17, 2005 by Steve Mays

Spent the morning visiting with Dwayne Leslie (5 min interview). He’s a farmer from Manitoba, Canada, who –five years ago– decided to build a web page to help pass the cold winter days when he couldn’t farm. He created PrairieLinks.com which is the #1 ag portal in Canada. When he couldn’t find any good farm auction sites, he started FarmAuctionGuide.com which attracts 10,000 unique visitors daily. Do not tell me that farmers are not plugged in.

Randy Michaels on future of radio

Posted on March 15, 2005 by Steve Mays

“People today are being entertained different, and that’s a problem for radio. (By the) time a profit is made, satellite radio will be eclipsed by something more profound. Namely, Internet-based radio stations available nationwide thanks to wireless broadband technology. Radio is going to be interactive, and it’s not going to be delivered just by transmitters. The next thing is not satellite, which is another form of point-to-multipoint technology. It will be interactive, two-way communication that’s available to everybody that is the next big thing. Radio companies will have no more defense in defending their business than the railroads did when airplanes came in and took their freight business.”

— Randy Michaels, former Clear Channel Radio CEO, on the future of radio

Milton Glaser’s Ten Things I Have Learned

Posted on March 11, 2005 by Steve Mays

“Never have a job, because if you have a job someday someone will take it away from you and then you will be unprepared for your old age.”

— Number Two of Milton Glaser’s list of “Ten Things I Have Learned” [PDF]

Call me Omar.

Posted on March 11, 2005 by Steve Mays

A Sioux City man convicted of first degree murder in connection with a drug-related slaying will NOT get a new trial. Omar Rasheen Wilkins asked for a new trial because the prosecutor kept calling him “O-J” during the trial. The justices on the Iowa Supreme Court say the prosecutor’s conduct is “clearly subject to criticism” but probably did not affect the jury’s verdict. The justices also point out Wilkins’ own attorney slipped and called him O-J once during the trial, too.

57

Posted on March 7, 2005 by Steve Mays

Another year, another birthday. Fifty-seven. (Shudder) Man, I can throw a rock and hit sixty from here. But I feel great. Shoot, I weigh exactly what I did when I graduated from college in 1970. Or do I? Surely a lifetime of experiences and memories must have some infinitesimal mass. All the good times must weigh something, even if you subtract a few bad moments. Of course the answer is right there in the mirror. I couldn’t find the quote but it’s something like at twenty you have the face god gave you and and sixty you have the face you earned. Damn. I just don’t think that’s accurate. Life’s been better than I look.

smays.com

“You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm.“ — Sam Harris

Category Archives: Miscellany