September 2008

This whole Palin thing

I’ve been meaning to write something about the Sarah Palin thing since I first learned about it. Of course I’ve been swamped and bullshit politics seems to always get pushed down the list of things I want to think about but I wanted to actually say something before the election actually happens. I read the incredibly thought out piece that danah boyd wrote about being offended, as a women, by this choice and watched this video that Jason DeFillippo posted.

And those folks said, much better than I could, pretty much everything I was thinking. Choosing her was such a transparent grab for votes it’s amazing. I’ve had good things to say about McCain in the past but this is so shady and so spineless it’s fairly clear, to me at least, that none of what he’s said in the past holds true and he’s right in line with “cheat and play every dirty move so long as we win” policies that Bush laid out. What’s worse is that people are buying it. I don’t recall a time recently where the two biggest public reactions I’ve seen to a political move have been “Are you serious, you’d have to be a complete idiot to not see that this is a total scam move” and “Amazing! Best move ever!” It’s shocking, it’s embarrassing, and it’s disappointing. In my travels outside of the country I’m frequently confronted by folks who want to know how Americans can be so stupid as to support Bush enough to elect him twice, and I have to explain that it was a close call and there’s a lot of people who don’t agree and actually think things through. But then something like this happens and I can’t turn on the news without seeing some a mic shoved in some housewife’s face while she goes on and on about how she either used to support Hillary but since she’s out Palin is clearly the choice, or how she wasn’t sold on McCain but with the addition of Palin she’s 110% behind him while her husband stands supportively behind her nodding. Hook. Line. Sinker.

And today, the “lipstick on a pig” thing. I can’t believe the McCain camp thinks anyone believes they are offended by it. I can’t believe the McCain camp thought that would be the good thing to pull out of context and over react about. I can’t believe that McCain supporters are jumping right in line behind this and wagging their fingers. I can’t believe it. Yet it’s happening right here in front of me. A month ago I was positive there was nothing McCain could do to win, and that Obama was locked in already. I think I was giving the Republicans too much credit.

Going to O-Town

I just posted about this over on Orlando Metbogs but I’m heading that direction tomorrow as I’m participating in IZEAfest which runs Thursday, Friday and Saturday. This is a new conference so I don’t know what to expect but looking at the list of folks who will be talking and the topics at hand means it’s a pretty safe bet it’ll be interesting. I’ve been contacted by a few folks who found me though that (either they are also speaking, or attending or something) about how I can make a bunch of money with their service/product/widget and my blog all of which have been responded to with a clear “I don’t fucking think so” which leads me to believe there will be some lively discussion there to say the least. I know for a fact that the panel I’m on will be discussing the ROI on social networking. Yep. I’m curious about the ROI on a dinner party and hanging out at a coffee shop myself. Also the ROI on playing Rock Band is questionable. Guess we’ll find out!

I’m pretty excited that my special lady friend was able to grab a day or two off and will be flying over to hang out and provide the moral support I’ll need due to stepping foot in Florida. The awesome part is I’m finally going to stay at The Veranda which is a bed and breakfast that my cousin and his wife own. I’ve been there a few times and seen it through many stages of remodeling but I’ve never actually stayed there so this should be fun. The downside is, well, I guess I already pointed out the “going to Florida” aspect of it.

I don’t know if or how many old Florida friends might read this in time, but if you are around and wanna swing by while I’m there please do. I’d love to see anyone who can make it.

Is that marketing or a pile of trash? Is there a difference?

Ineffective Marketing at TC50

The amount of marketing materials being thrown around at TechCrunch50 is insane. There’s literally piles of printed flyers and stickers and brochures on every table to the point where people have to brush it off in big stacks to even sit down. This is completely useless as the chances of visually identifying one brand out of the rest when walking by is next to none, and when sitting at a table it’s essentially a pile trash that just happens to be on your table. I can’t begin the imagine the cash that is being wasted on this, not to mention the unneeded waste building up because of it. These companies should be fined.

As I’m writing this I’m sitting here talking with some other folks at this table about how useless this kind of promotion is and how could anyone look at this mess and decide they had to throw their stuff into the mix, talking out loud about it being bad and people are still walking right up to the table, making no eye contact and throwing down their flyers. It’s nuts!

Crap on tables

Adding to the crap

More PR spam, I was right! Thanks NowPublic!

Remember this little back and forth with NowPublic a few weeks back? In that post I noted that the original announcement e-mail had been sent to me by a PR firm at that I suspected that wouldn’t be the last time I heard from them. I wrote:

“To make this even worse, I’m going to assume all those folks just got added to a another list at the marketing firm and will be spammed with whatever the next thing they want to hype is. I’d love to be wrong about that of course, but I’ve got very little faith in the scruples of PR flacks.”

Well guess what was sitting in my inbox this morning? An e-mail from C at Morris King with a tidbit he thought I’d “get a kick out of.” Oh, and coincidentally that tidbit came with a press release attached. C is the same guy who sent me the NowPublic announcement and I’m just delighted that he’s kept me in mind with whatever the next thing he’s getting paid to push on people. Oh wait, no I’m not.

So I sent back this:

“Hi C-
Thanks for keeping me in mind with this announcement. You are right, I did get a kick out of it. A kick right in the nuts. When you first contacted me with an announcement from NowPublic a few weeks ago I publicly speculated that you and or your firm would now start spamming me with other announcements and unfortunately it seems I was right. Apparently you think that’s OK, I don’t, in fact I think it’s repulsive. I’d love to think I could just ask nicely to be removed from your mailing list but my experience with PR dudes like yourself leads me to believe that wouldn’t make a shred of difference. I just wanted to let you know that I’m adding @morris-king.com to my auto-delete black list as a bit of insurance on my end. And since you are so keen on me telling people about stuff, guess I’ll pass this tidbit along as well.
A good day to you sir,
-s”

Whats even better is chances are this guy never even saw the NowPublic thing where I predicted he’d spam me, even though it was his e-mail that set the whole thing into motion. Thanks NowPublic, I hope you are happy that a company you paid to promote your “most influential” list is now spamming those very people for their other clients and getting paid to do it. Disgusting.