A status update that included a link to a clip of the movie “Smokey and the Bandit” by my friend and Phi Tau fraternity brother, Sam Ceresi, sparked an idea this morning: create a television channel that does a 24×7 loop of the following movies:
Maybe a play for Netflix or Comcast or DirecTV? I don’t know the technical limitations, but it seems to me they already have quite an inventory of spectacularly useless channels already in their lineup. What’s one or a couple million more? Would it be possible to give everyone their own personal channel — like Google does with email. Hmmm, doesn’t Google already own YouTube? If they could figure out a way to compensate the studios — and either create their own or buy their way into an existing network — this could be an interesting play for them.
Think it would could fly? Would there be enough demand? What would you pay? And, most important, what five movies would you loop on your personal Google TV channel?
It’s interesting what you can see when you look back on what as been close to a 20-year career in public relations. I recently took that trip down memory lane. Here’s some of what I learned:
I’ve worked for some very cool, very prestigious companies and clients.
I’ve learned from and worked alongside some of the best pros in this business.
While I’ve done creative, impactful work on everything from Remington razors to underground storage tank removal, my passion and some of my absolute best work can be found in technology; I like to translate tough, geeky, change-the-world science into language and stories normal people can understand and relate to.
I’m a startup guy in a corporate suit.
Which is why about a month ago I accepted the executive role of Director, Influencer Management at Alcatel-Lucent. It’s an exciting, challenging and wide-ranging role that combines a number of my favorite experiences of the past two decades:
A love of emerging technology. At IBM, I led the global communications strategy for Big Blue’s pervasive computing and wireless initiative. We’re talking sensors and chips in everything from toasters to cars. During my six years at IBM, I also handled PR for one of the smartest technologists I’ve ever had the honor to know, John Patrick. Working closely with John and his Next Generation Internet team, I promoted IBM’s efforts around Internet2 and its early entry into Linux. While on the PR agency side of the business, I lived every computer geek’s dream: working with some really smart guys out of AT&T’s Bell Labs to launch an embedded operating system called Plan 9 (you may remember the team behind this as the same team behind Unix).
A disturbing fascination with infrastructure. Go figure. I’m passionate about the gear that makes all of the really cool things work. I had a blast learning about and promoting AT&T’s IP backbone before the entire world ran on Internet protocols. I geeked out to things like Metropolitan Area Networks leading the PSINet account in the days when 28.8 kbps was a huge pipe. I’ve been deep in the bowels of PAIX.
A need to push beyond the possible. I’ve worked alongside fiery startup CEOs/founders. I helped launch a startup inside one of the world’s largest and most respected technology companies. Both demanded a constant, damn-the-rules, make-it-happen culture.
A desire to work with great leaders who inspire great work. I’ve seen my share of good, terrible and great leaders in the years I’ve been in this industry. The great ones are few and far between…leaders like IBM’s VP of media relations, Ed Barbini, and MindTouch’s founder/CEO, Aaron Fulkerson — people you would walk through fire for.
My new role at Alcatel-Lucent is a mix of each of these and more. I am working with emerging technologies and business models that change how we communicate. I’m working with a clear leader driving the infrastructure that makes communication happen. The work we are doing is being done at the speed and with the style of a startup, yet with the backing and resources of a large, global corporation. We are helping to change a corporate mindset. Lastly, and most importantly, I’m part of a small, tight team being led by someone I’ve not only worked with in the past, but respect immensely.
I’m excited about the challenges and opportunities ahead…for me, for our team and for the industry we impact.
Years ago, my friends and I would hike the trail to the Lunch Rocks at the foot of the bowl of Mount Washington. One year, my friend Andrew and I strapped our skis to our packs and, after spending the night in a makeshift ski pole-and-tarp tent, skied some of the mountain’s best lines. It was a rite of passage on the home of the world’s highest recorded wind gust and worst weather.
No more. Well, no more is Mount Washington home to the world’s highest recorded wind gust:
Here’s a full-blown article from NSF about our Interactive Journalism Institute for Middle Schoolers, for which I’m co-Principal Investigator. Lots of FB folks to shout out -PI Ursula Wolz, co-PI Monisha Pulimood. Amy Gahran and Mitchel Resnick supported our proposal; Shavar Ross, Tony Robinson and Mike Maney helped too. Peter Daou’s continued interest is also much appreciated!
I just read a great post by Ustrategy’s Ravit Lichtenberg on ReadWriteWeb highlighting the 10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010. It’s a great read and worthy of being carried under the ReadWriteWeb banner (I have no shame in being an unabashed fanboy of good tech reporting).
However (isn’t there always a “however”?), here’s where I disagree with Ravit. He posits that “Many ‘Old’ Skills Will Be Needed Again.”
An economic downturn coupled with the surge of social media eliminated many traditional marketing and PR roles. But this year, we’ll see the return of professionals to the field. Enterprises will turn back to marketers who specialize in understanding customer psychology and who are experienced in addressing these both offline and online. Research and development divisions will turn to customer experience professionals to draw on user needs and ideation as part of their product improvement and innovation process, and sales and support will continue to deliver services online. Expect to see job postings for social media managers, social media psychologists and social media executive administrators to help manage the infinite tasks involved with communities and social media campaigns.”
The reality is that the good shops, the smart companies, never lost sight of the core functions; they didn’t get blinded by the bright shiny lights. No, they saw the lights and worked them into larger, less tactical strategies.
As marketers, the new tools we have at our disposal couldn’t be greater. But they mean nothing/nada/zip/zero if they aren’t tied into a larger/boring/old school/smart/proven strategy.
Know what’s cool? Scrolling through your Twitter feed and seeing a post like this from a reporter you have an amazing amount of respect for:
Know what’s also cool? Seeing your first accepted submission on Slashdot for a great client (if you are a geek, you’ll understand how unbelievably cool this is):
It’s getting to be that time of year when pundits start making predictions about the hot technologies on tap for 2010. My favorite so far is less a prediction and more a reality that is happening right now. Mashable’s Peter Cashmore points out that Foursquare is the next Twitter-like social technology to break out, however I think his definition of the application programming interface (API) and its role in Twitter’s (and, eventually, Foursquare’s) meteoric success is even more insightful:
“This week Foursquare debuted the singular piece that launched Twitter into the stratosphere: an API. This application programming interface allows third-party developers to build anything they desire on top of Foursquare’s location-based social network.
It’s been shown time and again that once these ecosystems gain momentum, potential competitors face an arduous task. From Flickr to Google Maps to Twitter and beyond, it’s clear that early critical mass — having enough users and applications to make a service invaluable — sets the stage for a landslide victory.”
Update: Minor corrections and added a must-watch video.
Update: Rumor has it Chucky III got a throw off on the last day for a distance of 1,000+ feet. Way to go!
“Fire in the hole!”
It’s the first warning you get that a 10 pound pumpkin is about to fly out of an air canon for nearly a mile at speeds close to 600 miles per hour. And it’s the rallying cry for the Punkin Chunkin 2009 World Championship.
The what?
Yup, Punkin Chunkin…or pumpkin chucking for those less informed. It’s a 25 year-old tradition in Delaware where teams compete to see who can launch a pumpkin the farthest distance. Come to find out, it’s also one helluva day of tailgating.
The Punkin Chunkin Anthem
Written in 1989 by William and Dawn Thompson. Part of the opening ceremonies.
It was the end of October, the beginning of November.
The air was cold and clear and I said, Boys listen here,
I think I can make a punkin fly.
John said, Cannot. I said, Can too.
So we put that punkin in a bucket, swung around, away it flew.
John said, No fair. We said, Hell, it’s in the air.
So the challenge was made and the gauntlet was laid
To build a machine to power a punkin through the air.
John said, Springs are the way to go. Bill said, I don’t believe so.
It’s Punkin Chunkin time again.
Come on, all you neighbors and friends.
I’ll show you how to make a punkin fly..rain, snow or blow.
Them punkins are gonna go!
Not knowing exactly what to expect, Jenn and I packed the girls and the mother-in-law into the family truckster and shot down I-95 to my parents’ house in Delaware to experience a Saturday of pumpkin chuckin. Well, we knew a little of what to expect, since Jenn’s childhood friend was part of the 2008 adult torsion record-holding team, Chucky II (which managed to chuck a pumpkin 3091.78 feet in 2008) and my parents TiVo’ed the Discovery/Science Channel’s coverage of the 2008 competition. Even that wasn’t enough to prepare us for the day.
Pulling into the parking lot — er, into this massive farmer’s field — we were greeted by the sound of a jet plane taking off from a carrier deck about 100 meters away. Except it wasn’t a jet. It was a pumpkin launching out of a 50 foot-long cannon sticking out of the top of a converted yellow school bus. Car parked, we set up our chairs and cooler near the fence behind Team Chucky and started the day’s festivities (fueled in part by some nice bottles of wine and Landshark Lager). The tailgating scene is best painted as an unholy trinity of Jimmy Buffett, NASCAR and MIT. The party atmosphere represented the best of a Jimmy Buffett pre-concert parking lot, complete with funny costumes, games of beer pong and camaraderie; the look of a NASCAR race, complete with cowboy hats and couches in the beds of jacked-up pickup trucks; and the brains of MIT, complete with feats of engineering normally reserved for endeavors more suited to national safety than gourd chucking.
The competitors lined up in a semicircle along the outside edges of the field. At the far end, were the children’s launchers, followed by the giant air cannons piercing the sky, the mechanical trebuchets and catapults, and the torsion-powered launchers like Chucky III. All-in-all there were more than 100 contraptions, each manned (and womanned) by teams of 5-20 people, watched by a crowd of 80,000. The contraptions were as varied as the crowd: some made out of pure wood, some scrapped together from junkyard parts, and others looking like they were built by NASA using leftover rocket parts. And the teams were just as eclectic: Chucky III was built by a team that included an IT exec and a botanist.
Alas, Chucky III failed to launch the day we watched, the result of a new design and not enough time to test it (as if having 80,000 people waiting for you to launch a pumpkin 5,000 feet isn’t enough, each team only gets to take one shot a day…three over the entire competition). But that’s ok. Like Team Chucky, we’ll be back next year, stronger and more prepared (although our preparations will be of the tailgating kind). Until then, make sure you catch the 2009 Punkin Chunkin World Championships this Thanksgiving eve, November 26, at 8pm ET on the Science/Discovery Channel and check out my 2009 Punkin Chunkin photostream.
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