Archive for August, 2012

Monday, August 27th, 2012

The Deaths of Two Heroes

Armstrong is a name much in the news this week.

Neil and Lance.

Two heroes. Both dead.

One of natural causes at the end of a long and storied life of humility and public service. The other had his reputation killed at the end of a long-drawn-out and sordid scandal.

One will be a hero forever…enshrined in our memories – forever in my opinion – as the stuff of legend and worship like the Odyssey, the Kon-Tiki, the Vikings, Marco Polo and many other trailblazers from many ages and cultures the world over. Neil Armstrong will be an icon of what we can achieve as people with the added grace and modesty that the truly great bring to our world.

The other will be remembered as a fallen hero and will of course have a few die-hard fans and protectors (all fallen angels do), while most will hold up his tarnished memory as a lesson to what people will do to stay on top and the dangers of a culture that demands “winners” and rewards the fastest, richest, strongest no matter what. Lance Armstrong will be an icon of the sad outcome of excess that has no limits in its pursuit of success.

At one time – they were similar figures in my personal pantheon of heroes. While I never met Neil Armstrong, I am and have always been enamored with space travel, and as a teenager I remember watching his moonwalk and spending a sleepless night in awe of his accomplishment that ignited my imagination in ways that still spark today.

I did meet Lance, though, and was involved in the famous sponsorship of his Racing Team by the US Postal Service many years ago. Truth is, he ignited all of our imaginations too. Imagine a US Team winning the Tour de France – unheard of – absurd. But he was so passionate – so convincing – so sincere. They won – and won again – and again – crazy (it was a great sponsorship!). His illness. The comeback – amazing…LIVESTRONG – I was/am a supporter and believer. And then this…bad enough the allegations; the letdown – the notion that other athletes who suffered and toiled in pain without enhancements lost to a machine – worse…no accountability – none. And what about the cause? How the mighty have fallen.

So a thought as we near the end of August – two Armstrongs; two heroes – both had dreams that others thought were impossible. Both faced negative odds that most would not bet against. Both tilted at windmills…but with diametrically opposite outcomes…

Listen to this small piece from my favorite play of all time – Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand:

DE GUICHE (who has controlled himself, smiling): …Have you read ‘Don Quixote’?

CYRANO: Yes. And take off my hat to that knight of mad excess.

DE GUICHE: So think again…About the chapter on windmills!…For when you tilt at windmills you often find…That a swirl of the sails on their huge arms will hurl you in the mire!…

CYRANO: Or among the stars!

One was hurled in the mire – the other among the stars.

Two Armstrongs – two outcomes – the mire and the stars.

I for one will be celebrating the life and achievements of Neil – who is truly among the stars…and hoping that LIVESTRONG will not be tainted by the mire.

What do you think?

Posted by David on 08/27 at 03:41 PM
Monday, August 20th, 2012

Admit It!!!

ADMIT IT!!!

I did already and will again….

I was addicted to the London Olympics…in fact, so was my whole family.

So don’t be embarrassed that you watched some of it…no matter how cheesy you think it was…

Don’t feel bad…truth is you are only one of close to 5 billion people who, at one time or another during the event, tuned in and viewed the games and all the resultant hoopla.

How about this – if you live in the UK you were part of the 90% of the country who watched the games and its bookended ceremonies – a way higher percentage than watched the Queen’s Jubilee or the recent royal wedding. The biggest TV event ever.

And if you live in the US and were an Olympic fan, you participated in the most watched television event in history. And, although globally the numbers by country were not as high as the biggest ever, some 220 countries broadcast the games and audience viewership was strong.

Semantics….

I have used the words “watch” and “television” on purpose. Because that is what our intimate group of 5 billion fellow Olympic fans did – and by the way, the two biggest sources were those old-fashioned networks (dare I say platforms?) BBC in the UK and NBC in the US.

However, as my loyal readers know – there is no contradiction here – digital is everything – but not everything is digital. Ergo – of course the broadcasts were digital and of course they were “streamed” across more digital channels and outlets than you could imagine – but at the end of the pipe – wherever it was, there was a viewer or more likely multiple viewers who were engaging (listen to the word…) with what? THE CONTENT – THE EMOTION – THE EXCITEMENT –and frankly paid not one second’s worth of thought as to whether or not they were supposed to be digitally interactive with it…get the point?

Now – having said that – here is what makes it even more exciting…

Four years ago – Beijing Olympics – Facebook…100 million followers – London? Close to a billion – in only four years, the number of Olympic posts and comments are too numerous to even count.

I’d be ready to bet (those who wonder about the ad power of Facebook take note) that shared excitement drove viewership – in fact, of course it did – what the hell drives anything more than sharing between people – Facebook gets it.

“Sports events are inherently social…we’re never fans alone. We root together, celebrate together and sometimes commiserate together,” says Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s director of platform partnerships and operations.

The joke is that analysts and others with their own agenda still don’t get this and dismiss the inherent power of the events themselves.

Twitter had a great run – with over 150 million tweets (some really bad…) and the highlight being some 80,000 tweets a minute after Bolt won gold in the 200.

However, to me the most exciting news from the digital domain was in the US where one in five viewers used some sort of a device…computer, tablet, smartphone…to share/interact (social – LOL) with the content they were watching on bigger HD screens – often in groups – and live streaming of the Olympics led many Americans to try things they never had before – 3/4 of people who streamed the Olympics on their tablets never played videos on those devices before. 83% never did it on smartphones.

And, by the way – when you stream online, not only don’t you erode the so-called TV audience – it actually grows.

“What ESPN and other networks have found is that, when you broadcast things live online, it doesn’t erode the broadcast at all…In fact, it draws a lot of people to want to see it on their hi-def TVs in their living rooms,” says John Ourand, Sports Business Daily media reporter. Bottom line?

TV isn’t dead – not nearly. Social is what we do and Facebook makes our Primal Urge that much more efficient and powerful, and content is what drives the emotion that triggers the desire/need to share. And even when we know the outcome – we still watch because the drama is what sucks us in and involves/engages us…not someone’s digital engagement strategy.

“When you go to a production of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ you know they’re going to be dead at the end. But you go because you want to watch the process. The storylines draw you in,” states Robert J. Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.

So here is the thing…listen:

“Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.” Oscar Wilde

Seems to me that the one thing that holds us back; that limits our development; that slows down our ability to really make use of the great technologies that we have at hand is that we pontificate about them and what we think they should do…let life be – and by the way – Facebook’s stock will rise…

What do you think?

Posted by David on 08/20 at 06:29 PM
  • So true... the greater the content the greater the talk-ability it generates which is fuel for social net works. The two are not mutually exclusive then, a social network thus needs good content to drive it. I liken it to a dynamo that draws its energy from the previous action. Pity how many expect a social network to drive their ...
    Read more >
    Posted by Kabelo Binns on 2012-08-21 12:08:06
Monday, August 13th, 2012

Are You Into Retro?

Are you into retro?

Retro anything…

Fashion, food tastes, furnishings – you name it.

Retro seems always to be in style – in fact, it’s often haute couture – the highest.

Yet some retro is viewed as merely old, tired and worn out, and we slavishly pursue the new in denial of what was. In fact some retro isn’t even retro….

Technology has clearly gone that route as analysts pretend that Amazon isn’t a store and that Facebook has created a new human trait called “sharing.”

Point being, it’s not retro thinking to understand what is and what isn’t actually worn out and old – it’s just plain old smart.

Steve Jobs always understood that better than anyone – while others sold “High Tech” and its inherent complications, he launched the revolution by addressing the human consumer in all of us and then sold colors and design.  When others obsessed over the technical features of what would be called smartphones and made them complicated small clones of computers, he launched that revolution by simply saying Hello…and as others layered tools upon tools – stylus to pad for one – Jobs said, “So let’s not use a stylus. We’re going to use the best pointing device in the world. We’re going to use a pointing device that we’re all born with – born with ten of them. We’re going to use our fingers.”

I was reminded of this as I read about the resurgence of propeller planes in commercial travel. Turboprops to be exact.

More – orders for turboprop commercial planes are helping hurting manufacturers, creating jobs and otherwise helping the economy.

And even more – it will give new opportunity for local and regional travel – bringing with it all the added economic benefits that come along with travelers.

Read some of the analysis here:

TIME Magazine

Environmental Graffiti

The critical story, of course, is that jet travel proved to be untenable. Expensive, uncomfortable for what it was, inefficient – you get the picture. The beauty is that instead of being locked into one version of a story and hence, one solution, the smart planners looked elsewhere, improved on the old without trashing it, and there you have it.

Kind of reminds me of Amazon and Google looking at brick and mortar retail outlets and the proliferation of food carts and live concerts.

The smartest folks look back, look forward, and look up and down.

They don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater or automatically assume that all that preceded them was old, used up and bad.

Reminds me of what one of my favorite sources once wrote:

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” Mark Twain

It’s amazing how much we all learn in seven years. As much as things change and as much new as there is – somehow there is always room to learn from what was – and it seems to me that the smartest money always does.

So the next time you wear “retro” clothing or “retro” glasses, eat “retro” food or carry a “retro” bag – take a moment….

What do you think?

Posted by David on 08/13 at 04:52 PM