Frank Weeks, Digital Cinema South

Frank Weeks is used to being out ahead of the pack.

"My first editing job was for Broadside Television in 1977," says Weeks, "so I got my start in video production the year that Elvis died. In fact, a rep walked in to our office to show us a cutting-edge technology called 3/4" inch tape, and said 'did you hear The King died?'"

Weeks first editing project an hour-long video of the Bill Monroe-Ralph Stanley Bluegrass Festival, which Broadside was hired to produce, and since then he's not looked back, working Who's Who of regional players in the communications arena, and: from his early work at WJHL as assistant sport director to his more recent work launching High School Football Weekly and So You Think You Know Sports for Charter, Weeks has seen it all. 

"When Broadside moved to Nashville, I decided to stay in Tri Cities," says Weeks, "and I took something closer to my marketing degree from ETSU: I went to work as a manager at K-Mart, in charge of the Ladies Apparel section. It was their biggest section at the time, but after a year, I really wanted to get back into video."

Weeks' friends told him about a new set of equipment that was being delivered to WCYB-TV but no one knew how to run it. So Weeks approached Bob Smith, News director of the station, who told Weeks he'd have to take a pay cut to come to work at the station.

"I wanted that job," says Weeks, "since it let me get into shooting and editing nightly news stories with first rate equipment."

Within another year, Weeks found his spiritual home at WJHL-TV in Johnson City. He became a sports anchor and assistant sports director at the station, working with Sports Director Tony Treadway, Anchorman Claude Wood (Co-founder of Masters Entertainment), and Dr. Carrie Swanay, who is now a professor of Communications at Milligan College, training many students who go on to work at WJHL.

"I remember Carrie Beth's first day on the job," says Weeks, laughing at the thought that the group of them have gone on to pioneer public relations and marketing throughout the region. "Besides the local television work at WJHL, though, I also enjoyed the freelance work we did for ESPN, CNN and CBS Sports, back when they would accept local submissions to fill airtime slots. John Madden even did a promo for Tony [Treadway] and I that aired locally."

Weeks stayed with WJHL until 1984 when he left broadcast television to to start World Class Productions, the Tri-Cities first independent production company.  

"When we started WCP, we were housed in a studio in downtown Johnson City," says Weeks. "During the nearly 25 years since we started WCP, we produced marketing and sales videos for many of the regions most progressive companies as well as  television programs for local and regional broadcast."

Weeks has maintained World Class Productions, in its varying forms, since those early days, where the company set a number of firsts for the region: first independent production company  with component (3-chip) equipment, in-house film production, computer animation and digital non-linear editing.

"My hat's off to those who grew the computer animation base in the region," says Weeks, who returned to graduate school in 1997 at the ETSU Advanced Visualization Lab. "I saw the value of computer graphics and animation, within the video and film field and was fortunate to have some first rate instructors and training at ETSU. The things I learned there a decade ago, are of dally use to me today. I remember having to work on Silicon Graphics machines to obtain my Level 2 Certification in Alias/Wavefront (creators of Maya). Things sure have come a long way."

Weeks continues to learn - and to mentor. Besides pursuing training in graphics, computer animation, desktop publishing and digital imaging while at ETSU - under the teaching of Dr. Keith Johnson, Jeff Morris and Neil Owen - he's also trained several shooters (as video and film camera operators are called) in the region, including the likes of Sean Harris and others.

Weeks has also spent several months studying his new equipment, a 4K digital cinema camera and 2K digital cinema editing package.

"We have the region's first RED camera," says Weeks, referring to a new camera manufactured by RED that shoots in 4K - 4.5 megapixel - images, at about eight times the quality of HD. "The waiting list for RED was over a year long,  and I've had it now for several months. Like anything that's very specialized, though, I believe in spending time working through all the options before I use it at a customer job."

Weeks has won over 20 awards for excellence in marketing and advertising, including Addys and a region-wide Charter award for the Kingsport Chamber's ChamberZone 100th episode. But he says his best work is ahead of him.

"This camera is the closest thing to film production that we've had in the Tri-Cities market," says Weeks, who has changed WCP's name to Digital Cinema South, adding "we can now produce motion picture quality content at a fraction of the price. I look forward to introducing the new digital cinema technology to clients, as well as training a few others in the region on how to take advantage of a technology that has now been embraced by Academy award winning directors like Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and Steven Soderbergh (Traffic).  It's an exciting time."

Additional notes from CTIA 2011 keynote by Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski

These notes augment a published article on the topic, which can be found at http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/Editorial/Featured-Articles/CTIA-NAB-and-the-FCC-Battle-Over-Wireless-Spectrum-Reallocation-74523.aspx

Quotes from Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski's keynote the CTIA 2011 trade event, held at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida.

"We've made progress on a few points on the FCC's broadband plan, including open internet and transparency in roaming, specifically data roaming."

Open internet. Progress has been made, although we recognize the difference between mobile and fixed-wired broadband.

Data roaming. "We also understand the need for a competitive marketplace so we are pushing forward with, and continue to address, broadband roaming charges. Consumers should be able to roam anywhere in the country without roaming fees. We understand that many providers need roaming fees to remain competitive but we need to move forward with a roaming-free broadband details."

Spectrum re-allocation. "We see an estimated $30 billion in revenues for the government. We also see estimates that say broad consumer benefits may be ten-fold. While the number is not perfect, that could yield benefits up to $300 billion."


"While our appetite for innovation and mobile are insatiable, available spectrum is not. With three-fold spectrum inventory in place now, some analysts project a 35x increase in five years, meaning we will run out of spectrum within the next two years." [Other analysts contradict this statement, saying better spectrum management would resolve the issue.]

Wired, interconnected world. "When I visited CES, virtually every product on the CES floor was connected, primarily through wireless access.  It shows that broadband is no longer a luxury, it is a necessity. As demand increases, unleashing spectrum is important to American competitiveness and opportunity. [Gave iPad example of moving beyond befuddling to highly coveted]

Demographic and geographic disparities. Adoption rate for broadband is 67% overall, compared to Singapore's 90% adoption rate [fails to address compact size of Singapore vs USA]. Adoption is much lower for low-income and minority and rural areas [service providers don't make it available in many rural areas].

Innovation and Leadership. "Broadband is not only what you get when you plug into the wall, but also increasingly what you get on a mobile device. We see economic growth and global competitiveness through wireless broadband growth. Other than Japan, we have more subscribers for 3G mobile broadband, and we are the leader in 4G.

Yet by 2014 there will be more 4G devices in Europe than in US. We need to be innovating here and exporting to the rest of the world."

Legacy conundrum. "Broadband is a disruptive innovation that creates an innovator's dilemma in the US market, as the market leader. We have no choice but to develop a 21st century solution that accommodates 20th century legacy technologies, while other countries have an easier task as they have limited legacy technologies to integrate."

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs. "There is an enormous costs of delay. 205,000 jobs could be created over the next five years, if spectrum is available. For instance, deploying towers will create 53,000 jobs, meeting the President's goal of bringing 4G to 90% of the US market. Making new applications will also generate jobs."

Socially Acceptable? A Call To Action Unheeded

Panel tackles role of social media In pushing premium content online—and off. 


The audience sat enraptured by the panelists, who discussed a blockbuster film set for its DVD debut just two weeks before Easter.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader is set for DVD release on April 8, 2011 in the United States," said Simon Swart, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment executive vice president, "a perfect time for this audience to embrace the DVD as it did the theatrical release."

The audience Swart referred to included many attendees at the National Religious Broadcasters' event, held at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee in early March. 

The session, titled  “Connecting with Audiences in an Age of Distraction,” covered a number of faith-based films and online video projects that Sony, Fox and other premium content creation and distribution firms are gearing toward the NRB's core audience.

As part of the Super Session, Swart and fellow panelists explored the power of grassroots advocacy and—to a lesser extent—social media as a way to market premium content.

Michael Flaherty, an executive producer at Walden Media, the company that has seen its three Chronicles of Narnia films pull in over $1.5 billion in theatrical dollars, emphasized the importance of grassroots efforts to support a film.

"When we prepared to launch The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with Disney," Flaherty said, referencing the distributor of the first to Narnia films, prior to Fox taking the lead on Dawn Treader, "we brought the trailer to show to your audience, just as we did with the second film, Prince Caspian."

Lion itself had over $750 million in box office receipts, in no small part thanks to its grassroots word-of-mouth marketing.

"You were instrumental in marketing all three films by word of mouth," Flaherty added to his appreciative audience, "from requesting that local theaters play Lion, to attending showings in record number."

During the Super Session, Flaherty and Swart confirmed that Walden and Fox were in discussion about adapting the next Narnia book, probably The Magician's Nephew, one of the four remaining books in the series written by Clive Staples Lewis in the 1950s.

When asked by panel moderator, Phil Cooke, about the importance of Facebook and other social media, one panelist discussed the difference between grassroots and social media.

"We've yet to see a direct connection between high social media interest and actual box office results," the panelist said, adding that one recent film he tracked had hundreds of thousands of likes on its Facebook page, yet the film didn't bring in business at the box office.

"It's possible that the sections of the film that were released on Facebook gave the potential audience enough of the film that they didn't feel a need to attend the actual movie," he said.

Still, this hasn't stopped social media from playing a role in driving online video, which the panel acknowledged. This may have implications on the 28-day release window if Netflix and others can convince the studios that its direct-to-DVD releases should also be released as online content on day-and-date. 

"We see several new models emerging," said Fox's Swart, who showed a number of DVD-only release "sneak peeks" to the audience.

John Schneider, of Dukes of Hazzard fame, also spoke about the impact of grassroots efforts on a film's marketing impact.

"I can't tell you how many TV commercials I've watched since I got TiVO in my house years ago," said Schneider, whose appearance at the event was intended to drive interest in Doonby, a movie Schneider will star in later this year. "If it were up to me, I'd spent a lot less on TV commercials to entice moviegoers and alot more on social media and grassroots efforts like this session."

Walden's Flaherty agreed that social media is important, but said that word-of-mouth's impact on consumer action is even more important.

"Even if you 'like' a film on Facebook," added Flaherty, "be sure you support the film at the box office, since that's the yardstick for which most premium content is still judged, and it will have a direct impact on being able to fund future films that you like."

Panel host Phil Cooke also talked about the importance of online grassroots efforts, including a fan base that might be a little "crazy" as he put it. Cooke talked about a previous event he attended, at which the Dawn Treader trailer was shown for the first time.

"At least the audience of religious broadcasters didn't film the trailer and post it online," Cooke said, which elicited a laugh from the radio and TV producers in the room, "but within twenty minutes of the trailer being shown, I saw a Google Alert in my phone's email inbox telling me that two sites already had detailed reports about the trailer."

Korn/Ferry International Doesn't Get It

Allen Delattre, Global Managing Director of Korn/Ferry International's Technology Practice, gave a brief presentation at GigaOm's Net:Work 2010 on the human factor in the future of work.

"Technology has progressed, but have we?" asked Delattre. "Pick your timeframe—5 or 10 years—and you'll see how rapidly technology has changed. Yet we as humans haven't evolved organically."

I thought I was at a tech conference, not a Matrix meet-up.

"You thought the telegraph to telephone was a bit leap," said Delattre, "but we've done more in the last fifteen years than in the past 3000 years."

I'm now beginning to wonder if there's a disconnect with reality, or just a marketing pitch coming, since there's not much that we've done recently that wasn't done in the 1800s (see the
Victorian Internet as a proof point: have we really pushed beyond the place shifting?)

"We live in world where we live locally but have to work globally," he continued. D'oh!

One good piece of news, however, in the presentation is the fact that democracy is growing across the world, at least based around the concept of the democratization of IT. Delattre wisely calls this "constructive anarchy" because workers are brining new mobile devices—such as the iPad—to the workplace.

"They are, in essence, dragging along the IT departments to the point of better tools to get work done," he said.

Yet there's one more disconnect.

"The past is no longer an indicator of the future," he said. "Tomorrow's leaders need to adapt and execute."

Yet he calls out that those who "took a turn through marketing and finance and operations" might not be the candidates to push up the chain, since they don't have the "new media" or "social media" chops.

But wait! Where will they get the experience to adapt, if we're overlooking those people who have taking a turn through finance, marketing and operations? What are they adapting from?

Plantronics shows off personal speakerphone

Renee Niemi, SVP, Communication Solutions with Plantronics presented a few new (or soon-to-be available) products.

To set the stage, she mentioned that there's a disconnect (no pun) between the message, tone of voice and body language between face-to-face meetings and voice-only calls.

Face-to-Face / Video, she says, breaks down this way: 7% message, 38% tone of voice and 55% body language, while voice-only / phone call communication is 13% message and 87% tone of voice.

Niemi then showed off Calysto 825, a new personal speakerphone that connects the mobile phone and PC phone (Skype) with a unified user interface.

"Because it works with both the PC phone and your mobile phone, it lets you focus on the conversation, not the tool," said Niemi. "It also has a wireless microphone, which allows you clip the microphone on and still remain part of the conference if you need to step away from the speakerphone."

The latter feature assumes you stay within distance of the speaker, of course, and will hopefully have a mute button for those times you need to stay connected but muted.

Another tool is a software app that Plantronics is launching called Instant Meeting, an Android and Blackberry app that allows one-touch connection to conference calls.

It searches through the Outlook calendar [and hopefully other CalDav calendars such as Google Calendar or iCal] and then prompts to join the meeting at the appropriate time.

When confirmed, it will dial the number, enter the passcode and directly put you in to the conference call with a single touch. Diemi didn't really describe what happens in those systems in which you have to say your name and push the # on the keypad before joining the conference, but perhaps there's magic happening there, too, which we'll find out when the app is released.

Finally, she showed off the Voyager Pro UC, a new headset that allows synchronized presence between the PC phone and the mobile phone. In addition, it has sensor capability, or the ability to know whether a headset is being worn or not.

This sensor capability eliminates the issue of having a phone call go to your Bluetooth connected headset that may have slipped down between the seat or is in your coat pocket. If you find it and then put it on, the call will switch over to the headset. Another outstanding questions on this technology, though: what if you take it off again?

The Death of Place?

MOBILOCRACY: Spreading the Wealth of Mobile Connectivity

Evan Kaplan, President and CEO, iPass, predicts we're about to see a"destruction of place."

Subtitled THE INALIENABLE RIGHTS OF THE MOBILE WORKFORCE, Kaplan's presentation at GigaOm's Net:Work 2010, maps out a world where mobility or mobile work is the rule, rather than the exception that it was just a decade ago.

"Today's average mobile employee is 46 years old and lives outside of Silicon Valley," said Kaplan, whose research is based on the Mobile Workforce Report, a quarterly survey of about 2,000 of the 2.5 million iPass users.  "Main Streeters are catching up with the technological elite, many have multiple devices, and their embrace of smartphones and tablets are creating the largest workplace disruption since the PC."

Trends from the iPass Mobile Workforce Report include:

1. Security and cost / productivity imbalance
2. Hyper-connected workers are becoming a norm: only 6% of workers totally disconnect on vacation
3. Post PC - the device stack that lets me work across multiple devices [simultaneously]
4. Multi-generational and global dissemination of the mobile workforce continues.
5. Multiple devices: 50% have three devices

"A highly mobile lifestyle come certain habits," says Kaplan, "which is both highly beneficial and also potentially risky to the enterprise."

"For instance, devices are cheap, but the networks are expensive," said Kaplan. "Just look at the recent LTE high-speed mobile data announcement by Verizon, where a 5GB subscription at $50 per month, can be drained in less than two hours of video viewing."

According to Kaplan, whose company works with mobile enterprise customers, enterprises need to strike the fine balance between data security protection and mobile employee productivity.

"The dirty secret is that the most of these mobile devices are more secure than the PCs or laptops we provision," said Kaplan.

Finally, Kaplan discussed what he calls the Mobility Bill of Rights:

I have the right to stay connected, to access the best networks and services, choose what device I want to use," said Kaplan, "and I want to personalize it (make it my own)."

"I want to be free of security threats and not be deprived of IT support," he continued. "I am one person, so I want one account for all my devices, not one per device."

Through it all, Kaplan talks about the "death of location" as a norm, but says that location is even more important than it was before.

"We see the cropping up of co-working, including the local CitizenSpace [here in San Francisco]," said Kaplan. "We see Starbucks and other coffee shops positioning themselves as 'third space' locations, since the need to meet with a group—and even to be around others while you work on your own thing—is still a key factor."

Is Nimble Cool Again?

"Entrepreneurs used to brag about the size of their funding round; now they boast about how little money they need."

http://www.sanfranmag.com/story/on-the-wings-of-angels


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Playing Favorites

Ted Turner, who has five children, is now publicly stating that the US should impose a one-child policy. 

Which of Turner's five children would he have chosen to spare? And how to the other four feel?

Given Turner's older sister's work as a missionary, does Ted Turner think she should have been the one to live, or would he have chosen to make an exception for the younger child (himself)?

Sometimes the idiots really do rise to the top.

Switching to guns

Another Tennessee ride, complete with guns and missiles.


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Oddest moments in local news storytelling

I'm not sure what the author of the story was trying to convey - or whether it was just this bizarre - but how does one get from being a 66-year-old offended by turtle skinning to having a police officer draw a weapon on you? If you're Polly Foster of Kingsport, TN, it's just a small step from heroine to felon.

Make Consumers Say What You Want Them To Say

This one is too good to pass up:

Under the headline "How to get power users answering questions the way you want" a pro-smart-grid daily trade rag, Smart Grid Today, dispenses advice on how to get consumers to answer the way you want them to answer.

Pepco finds word choice makes all the difference:

" 'Utilities should use caution in phrasing questions to consumers about the smart grid since the choice of words strongly influences the answers,' Rick Morgan, a regulator with the Washington, DC, PSC, told us Wednesday," Smart Grid Today states in its August 27, 2010 issue.

The approach is of particular importance if you're trying to get government funding, as many smart grid firms are attempting as part of the greentech initiatives popular in Washington.

Maybe the headline on Smart Grid Today would better be stated:

"Leading questions? Of course we recommend using them! Listening to the consumer answer an open-ended question? No way!"

Idiots Among Us

I'm a conservative, but I often find that other conservatives confuse passion with a lack of critical reasoning, giving conservatives a bad name when it comes to engaging in the debate of ideas.

In that vein, there's a conservative movie reviewer whose reviews, for all intents and purposes, read like those of an uneducated idiot.

Dr. Ted Baehr, whose title might imply the habits of an educated mind, appears to be one who likes to cast aspersions at "motes" without considering the "beam" in his own eye. Specifically, Dr. Baehr's review of the movie Avatar from James Cameron reaches a new low, apparently written in haste by a someone who can't quite put coherent thoughts together.

Ignoring, for the moment, the intent of Dr. Baehr's review and whether he understands the difference between environmentalism and colonialism (hint: the latter has to do with taking something that's not yours, from someone who owned it before you, via some form of "divine right" justification), let's look at the basic mistakes he makes in putting forth his argument.

Dr. Baehr's review is full of grammatical, logical and theological errors. Here are just three examples:

1.  "If only someone had edited this movie, it may have been more interesting" 

Ironically this sentence follows shortly after Dr. Baehr declares that "when you put spectacle first, you turn a great little movie like King King into King Bore."  In other words, Dr. Baehr forgot to edit his own snipe at Cameron's editing. Both visual and textual editing require review, and Dr. Baehr fails the grammar check on this point.

2. Dr. Baehr's paraphrase of Aristotle's sequencing of "entertainment" (according to Dr. Baehr) or "tragedy" (according to Aristotle) is wrong.

"Great entertainment puts plot first, character second, dialogue third, idea forth, music fifth and spectacle last, as Aristotle noted."


Dr. Baehr, in bastardizing the tragedy list for his own entertainment purposes, missed a few of Aristotle's points. The proper order is: plot, character, thought, diction, song, melody. At least Dr. Baehr could appear to be a "learned man" by getting the sequencing right.

3. Dr. Baehr makes a disturbing theological leap of faith when he suggests that all the aliens in Avatar needed was Jesus Christ. Seriously . . .

"What the . . .  aliens in the movie need to deliver them from their severe group think is the loving salvation available only through the true God, Jesus Christ."


Does Dr. Baehr really believe that aliens can be saved? If so, is he suggesting Christ went to die on multiple planets, and not just Earth?

I've sent an email to Dr. Baehr asking him to expound on those two questions.

His answers will tell us exactly what his theology consists of, which could be more dangerous than the flaws he attempts to explain in Cameron's fictional Avatar movie.

Maybe he would've been better off sticking with a single-sentence review in "movie speak" that translates just as effectively for conservative viewers as it does for liberal ones: Avatar is Pocahontas (Terrence Malick's The New World) meets Apocalypse Now.

An Impressive Choice

In a recent survey, Americans were asked to choose what they would like to do most, based on a series of options.

"Half of Americans chose laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier as a ceremony in which they'd most like to participate. That swamped the other choices: lighting the Olympic torch, tossing the coin to open a Super Bowl, starting the race at the Indianapolis 500, ringing the opening bell at the stock exchange and throwing out the first pitch at the World Series."

The result was surprising on one hand, but having had the honor of laying a wreath when I was 18, I understand the awe it inspires (and still remember, to this day, the gloves of the honor guard, sopping with sweat as they execute very precise maneuvers).

Metadata: Certainly Not Boring

Especially in this interview that Peter Cervieri recorded at last week's Streaming Media West 2009 show.

Peter's interviews for his ScribeMedia.org often focuses on topics that are both timely and somewhat controversial, but metadata often doesn't fit in the latter category, unless you count Peter's triple-X rated title for the interview.

While my slightly-pseudo-Southern accent always reminds me that I talk a bit slower now than I did when I lived in my native New York, Peter did a good job of steering the conversation to cover many of the points from my recent metadata article: Metadata: What You Need to Know (And Why You Need to Know It)

Running time for the interview is 12:29

Embarrassment in Entrepreneurship?

A great quote from the founder of LinkedIn:

"If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late."

http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/technology/article/the-iterate-fast-and-release-often-philosophy-of-entrepreneurship-ben-parr




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Opportunity: Green Power, Packet Origination

Next week, I'll have the opportunity - through a green-power startup that I'm assisting - to meet with David Boggs in Palo Alto. The startup is in stealth mode, but I hope to spend the time discussing a few marketing options and the operational implications of data-center power retrofitting

For those of you who know your Ethernet packets, David's name may not be quite as familiar as that of his boss, Robert (Bob) Metcalfe. Yet both of them are listed on the Microsoft academic search for a few interesting papers, including this one in 1975:

R. M. Metcalfe, D. R. Boggs : 

Ethernet: distributed packet switching for local computer networks

 

, 1975

 

(Citations: 8)

In both 1975 and 1976, Ethernet was being presented by and at the Berkeley Workshop on Distributed Data Management and Computer Networks.

Boggs, Metcalfe and colleagues went on to deal with issues facing early Ethernet implementations, including:

Robert M. Metcalfe, David R. Boggs, Charles P. Thacker, Butler W. Lampson : 

Multipoint data communication system with collision detection

 

, 1977

(Citations: 3)

I asked a friend, who recently went to hear SRI's Doug Engelbart speak during the 40th anniversary of his famous "mother of all demos" on Augmentation, why we seemed to be getting the opportunity to meet these pioneers when they live so close to many of Silicon Valley's newest, hottest upstarts.

"It's because we care," she said.

Cutting the Cord

In a post at www.workflowed.com, I posited about the armies amassing on the borders of streaming media for the next land grab.

I dubbed this The Third Wave as part of a series of articles I've been writing on satellite providers, traditional broadcasters and cable MSOs.

Speaking of the latter, there's an interesting article about "cord cutting" by cable subscribers.

Cable operators have been concerned about the concept of cord cutting where subscriber cancel their cable subscription and opt to watch online video.  While analysts downplay it, I can attest that it seems as prevalent as the cord-cutting phenomenon of local telephone service, where consumers opt for just a mobile phone and a cable-internet combination if they can't get "naked DSL" from the local telco provider.

Yet some of the MSOs seem to think that changing consumer behavior is the way to get consumer to "respect" subscription revenues.

He said the current OnDemand Online trial - offering viewers access to cable channel shows in exchange for identifying themselves as subscribers - was not an effort to "change the advertising model or get a minute back from content providers," rather it is a way to "

"We need to get in front of the biggest social movement I've ever seen," said Comcast's COO, Steve Burke. "Online video consumption is off the charts, and if we don't figure out how to change that behavior so it respects copyright and subscription revenue on the part of distributors, we're going to wake up and see an entire generation cord cutting."

Wait, I have to respect my MSO enough to pay them money? Talk about an entitlement mentality!

Previously c

Do You Believe In Miracles?

Growing up in the late 1970s near Lake Placid, New York, I vividly remember the burgeoning Olympic presence, with its raccoon mascot, visitors from the City, and Bauer skates. Especially the Bauer skates.

My six-year-old mind was convinced a pair of Bauer skates would not only let me follow the big kids as they shoveled off a make-shift hockey rink on the lake, but that Bauers were key to assisting in any playground hockey victory. Yes, it was before I learned what advertising and branding were all about.

This evening, Lake Placid is the center of attention for a different reason: NY 23's third-party candidate is none other than Lake Placid's Doug Hoffman, who lives close by to where John Brown's body lies a moulderin' in the grave.

Hoffman's the one Sarah Palin went rogue for a few weeks back, endorsing him over the Republican candidate, who has since withdrawn from the race and is now backing her Democratic opponent. Final election results may be delayed until tomorrow, as the area's trying out some new voting machines.

This article on Hoffman uses the "Miracle on Ice" as a framing device that will resonate well with those in and around Lake Placid.

[Update: While this was a personal reminiscence of growing up in the district, perhaps Hoffman should have run a local campaign, rather than just reaching for the stars. The Watertown Daily Times' pet projects often appeal to a small, but vocal, constituency; in this case, however, the editorial board nailed the defining issue in the last paragraph.]

More great benefits . . . Starbucks

Whenever I see an email that starts with words like "improving" and "more great benefits" I know I'm about to lose some of the benefits I already had. Sure enough, Starbucks is now promising me that . . .

Except none of the benefits that Starbucks is offering me are of any benefit at all.

First, the really good stuff, offering "benefits such as free flavored syrups or brewed coffee refills that many of you have asked for". Did I ask for flavored syrups in my solo espresso? Do I want to pour brewed coffee refills into that tiny cup? Neither one of those seem a benefit to me.

And then the kicker, which starts with "while it will not provide the 10% discount" of my current program, it will be FREE. As if Starbucks thinks that we don't realize the bargain we get with the current paid card . . .

Three more reasons to ditch Starbucks for the new Panera next door. Nothing to see here, please move along.

Perspective: SUPERCOMM Panel

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I've been asked to speak on a SUPERCOMM panel this Thursday, October 22, 2009, at 4:15 PM Central Time.

Overview details mention that bloggers, journalists and industry analysts will discuss all things broadband, including:




- The current state of broadband infrastructure and technology
- Key broadband industry developments and trends
- National broadband strategy
- Broadband service delivery
- The future of broadband service and infrastructure

A few other topics I'd like to see discussed include:

- FTTH / FTTx (fiber to the premise) as it corresponds to streaming media and the need for IPv6

- Network neutrality (love it, hate it, or want to marginalize it, net neutrality ties closely to the philosophy of an open network that has gained ground in other parts of the world)

- The consistent digital divide between urban and rural locations (keep an eye on this topic during the deployment of the $7.2 billion in loans and grants in the stimulus plan)

In addition, I'd been asked by the moderator, Patti Reali, to discuss my blogging approach and philosophy. As a heads-up for the audience, I'm the newest blogger in the group: while I'm an
early adopter in many areas, I'm one of those long-time holdouts on blogging for a variety of reasons (tools that limited my ability to blog effectively on multiple platforms, lack of an editor to grammar / reality check my work, etc).

I find that I may post "articles" or "mini articles" that might not have a home in any of the magazines I write for, but are still newsworthy from an analytical standpoint. I'm not really interested in micro-blogging or twitter since I can't see immediate value in 140 characters, unless it's to send a URL to a longer analytical piece.

I am very interested in applying the "on the record / off the record" and basic journalism mindset to the analysis I provide, though, so I also see a move to blogging as a way  to supplement prior articles that were required in a more timely "news" manner.

I'm still learning about blogging processes. For instance, as additional information reveals itself, one philosophical question I have is whether to go back and update the original blog post, or to apply a newspaper-like approach with an additional follow-up story.

Oh, and I think the FTC rule about bloggers revealing compensation for product reviews is a good thing . . .