Category Archives: Business

What I said to the Five Points Rotary

I forgot to post my comments to the Five Points Rotary on Friday. As you know, I hate to write anything (for public consumption, that is) without posting it here. And since it elaborates on a discussion we’ve had on a couple of recent posts (about the sorry state of the newspaper industry), I might as well go ahead.

Some of you will note that I’ve used the little self-mocking anecdote at the beginning before. Hey, it got me a laugh the first time, so why not stick with it? Only one person in the crowd had heard it before — a fellow member of the Columbia Rotary who was attending the Five Points club as a pre-emptive “make-up” in order to skip listening to Gov. Mark Sanford at our club on Monday (name withheld to protect the guilty). Anyway, here’s my speech:

Current and Future Challenges in the Newspaper Industry

Rotary Club of Five Points

10/9/09

Here’s a story that went over well during Health & Happiness at my own Rotary Club:

One Saturday several months ago, I was walking through Columbiana mall when I was accosted by a pretty young woman with an exotic accent who grabbed my hand and started buffing my left thumbnail with some device in her hand while extolling the virtues of a line of cosmetics from the Dead Sea in Israel. I was helpless in her grasp – how do you pull away from a pretty young woman who’s holding your hand insistently and standing so close that you smell the sweet fragrance of her chewing gum as she breathes into your face?

But, being unemployed and having no disposable income, I did manage to resist buying anything. Moments later, I posted something about the encounter on Twitter. By the time I left the mall, several acquaintances had Twittered back to say that they had encountered the same young woman, and had been less successful at resisting the sales pitch. My friend Mike Fitts wrote, “Yes, they’re ex-Mossad agents (you know, the Israeli secret service) who’ve gone into the Mary Kay business, I’m pretty sure. Three minutes in, I told them where the explosives were hidden.”

Bottom line, and the moral of the story:

If The State newspaper had these ladies selling advertising, I’d still have a job!

As you may know, I’m the former vice president and editorial page editor of The State, where I worked as an editor for 22 years. I was the best known of the 38 people who were laid off in March. The reason I don’t have a job now is that the newspaper couldn’t bring in enough revenue to pay my salary. I suppose I’d feel picked on and persecuted if not for the fact that, as a vice president of the company, I had sat in on senior staff meetings in which, for the last few years, each week’s revenue figures were worse than the week before – sometimes dramatically worse.

There was no way that the newspaper could continue paying all the people it once paid to write and edit the paper. People had been laid off before me, and people have been laid off since then, and while I’m no longer privy to those dismal weekly reports, I have no particular reason to believe the industry has hit bottom yet.

Note that I say, “The Industry.” This is not a problem peculiar to The State. In fact, sad to say, but The State is probably somewhat better off than the average. Other newspapers have closed, while still others – most notably The Chicago Tribune, have gone into bankruptcy.

Nor is it a problem confined to newspapers, or to papers in this country. I was interviewed by a journalist from France’s largest weekly newsmagazine earlier this week, and he spoke of how his publication is suffering. Nor is the problem limited to print: Conventional television stations, once gold mines for their owners, are suffering as well. But the problem is most acute in print.

What is the problem? Well, it’s not a lack of interest in news. The demand for news – indeed, for news conveyed by the written word – is a great as always. And it’s not competition from the Internet – not in the simple sense. But the Internet does play a huge role, just probably not in the way you think.

The fact is, no one is better positioned to bring you news on the Web than newspapers. They still have far more reporting resources and expertise than any other medium in local and state markets. And it’s the easiest thing in the world for newspapers to publish their content online – far easier, and far, FAR cheaper, than publishing and delivering the news to you on paper. Eliminate the need to print and distribute the paper version, and you eliminate half of a newspaper’s cost (most of the rest being personnel).

There are a couple of problems with that, though: While newspaper circulation is down everywhere, there is still enough of a demand for the paper version that newspaper companies can’t simply abandon the traditional medium. If they did, someone else – most likely a bare-bones startup without the traditional paper’s fixed costs – would step in to take that money off the table.

The second problem is that without the revenue from print ads, as reduced as such revenue is, newspapers would have even more difficulty paying their reduced staffs.

And that points to the main way in which the Internet is killing newspapers: While it’s easier and even cheaper to publish content online, and newspapers can provide more such content than anyone, newspapers can’t maintain the staff levels it takes to do that with Web advertising.

The problem is that on the Web, the market won’t bear prices comparable to the prices newspapers have been able to charge for print ads. Sell just as many Web ads as you did print ones in the past, and you lose huge amounts of revenue.

Basically, that’s the problem facing The State and every other newspaper in the country. There’s no problem in the relationship between journalist and reader; that’s as strong as ever (and the people who mutter about newspaper’s dying because they’re “too liberal” or “too conservative” – and believe me, I’ve heard both of those many, many times – simply don’t know what they’re talking about). The demand for news, particularly U.S. political news, has never been greater.

The problem is between the newspaper and a third party – the advertiser. That’s what has always supported newspapers in this country. If you think you’re paying for it through your subscription you’re wrong – that pays for maybe an eighth of the cost of producing the newspaper. The problem is that the advertising is going away.

The business model that has made newspapers so prosperous in the past – not long ago, owning a newspaper was like having a license to print money – is simply melting away.

And no one that I know of has figured out what the new business model will look like.

I firmly believe the answer is out there somewhere – the demand for news will eventually lead to a profitable way to pay for gathering and presenting it – but no one has found it yet.

QUESTIONS?

By the way, the topic was suggested by the Rotarian who invited me to speak. I try to deliver what is requested when I can.

I left a generous amount of time for questions, and was not disappointed. That’s always my favorite part of a speaking engagement. I’m never completely at ease during the actual speech part, because I can’t tell whether I’m reaching my audience or not. That’s one reason I speak from notes, or even write it out as I did here, if I have time. Otherwise, I can get flustered and lost as I stand there wondering, Is anybody even interested in this?

So to keep that suffering to a minimum, I keep the formal speech part short, and as soon as I start interacting with the audience, I’m completely comfortable, whatever questions come up.

In this case, the questions were mostly directly related to my topic (which is slightly unusual; generally the topics are across the board), although I did get one or two about Mark Sanford and Joe Wilson.

A good time was had by me, and I hope by all.

What’s with this ubiquitous pseudo-Beatlemania?

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Once again, I am puzzled by Beatlemania.

The first time, I was living in Guayaquil, Ecuador in early 1964. Communicating with the States — or Britain, for that matter — was a cumbersome affair, hardly speedier than in the Napoleonic era that I enjoy reading about in those books I’m always on about (just finished reading The Fortune of War for the fourth time). The only television we had was one local station that was only on the air from about 4 in the afternoon until 10 at night, and ran mostly American cartoons and TV shows dubbed into Spanish. Imagine being an Ecuadorean and trying to grok “The Beverly Hillbillies” with Granny and Jethro speaking Spanish out of sync with their lips, and you will begin to see the roots of whatever appreciation for the absurd that I today possess. For our part, we didn’t bother — we left our TV set gathering dust down in the bodega with the shelves of canned goods ordered from the Navy Exchange in Panama, for the entire two-and-a-half years we were there.

But we did occasionally see The Miami Herald, although generally a couple of weeks late. And it was on the front page of one of these old papers that I saw the shouting banner headline, “Beatles Hit Miami,” or something like that. I thought it referred to an insect infestation of Biblical proportions, given the huge play.

Eventually, I figured it out, and was entranced. My Beatles fanhood in those early days was probably intensified by the difficulty of keeping up with the Fab Four at a distance. I occasionally found a 45 for sale in a local tienda (I think my first was “Love Me Do”), and I still treasure the first album I ever owned, an Odeon release titled, “La Banda Original de la Pelicula ‘A Hard Days Night.”

Anyway, to bring you to the present day — I fear that I am fated to remain confused by the most recent manifestation of Beatlemania. Or perhaps I should say “alienated” rather than “confused,” because I sort of understand it, but am put off by it. This one is different.

This one doesn’t arise spontaneously, up from below. It’s not a cry of love from the fans. It seems a calculated effort to impose enthusiasm upon a new generation, imposed from above by the masters of the marketing universe.

Note the display I photographed moments ago in the Barnes & Noble from which I am blogging. Not that I’m criticizing Barnes & Noble; I love Barnes & Noble as Winston loved Big Brother. Drinking wonderful Starbucks coffee, listening to “Instant Karma” via Pandora, sitting near a foreign chap wearing a T-shirt that proclaims “FREEDOM AND EQUALITY FOR PALESTINE” who looked furtively about him as he sat, seemingly expecting someone to challenge or argue with him or something, and in another direction a cute schoolgirl bent low doing her homework with an ipod in her ears, who kindly watched my laptop while I ran to the head… WHOA! The caffeine seems to have taken hold… where was I?

Oh, yes… nothing against Barnes & Noble. And certainly nothing against Starbucks; my slavish affection for Starbucks is well-documented. But both are very much apart of this vast commercial conspiracy to market the Beatles like mad, all of a sudden.

Is it really all prompted by the release of a video game? That’s the way it appears. I know it’s not a plot by Michael Jackson, who sneakily snapped up the rights to the Beatles’ songs years ago, because I seem to have heard that he is no longer among the living. It got quite a bit of play, as I recall.

So what’s it all about, Alfie? And how should a true Beatles fan react?

Of COURSE the health care status quo hurts small businesses

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Sometimes the things said in connection with the health care “debate” are so painfully obvious that they make me want to shout. And while I’m shouting, I wonder, Is it possible anyone doesn’t already know this?

The latest thing to get to me in this way is this bit from a series on health care reform:

Thompson’s challenge is common among small-business owners in South Carolina. Many are too busy to keep up with the complex health care reform policy proposals that Congress is debating. But they know one thing: The current cost of health insurance for very small groups is stifling their growth and hurting their competitiveness.

At this point I would scream “Duh!,” if screaming “Duh!” were not so last-decade.

Of course our current health care “system” is stifling small businesses’ growth and hurting their competitiveness! It’s helping drive some of them out of business. And it’s keeping plenty of others from coming into being in the first place. I know it’s kept me from at least one good job opportunity in the last few months. And it’s the consideration that keeps me from simply hanging out a shingle and earning a living as a “consultant” in communications. Sure, I might be able to pay the light bill and buy groceries and such that way, but I have to have medical coverage — the same sort of coverage that is simply not a consideration in other advanced countries when individuals make career decisions.

Right now, I’m pursuing a number of job opportunities. But most of the opportunities I’m seeing either don’t pay enough to pay my mortgage but have good benefits, or they pay well but the bennies are quite iffy. But one thing I CAN’T consider going forward is going into business for myself. Sure, I can pay a few bills here and there with free-lance work while I’m on COBRA. But my COBRA premiums more than double starting in December.

This strongly discourages entrepreneurship. It seems increasingly to me that the only way a person can go into business for himself is if he and his family and his employees and their families never have to go to the doctor and never will have to go to the doctor. In other words, the only way you start a business in this country is by hypnotizing yourself into believing a lie.

I’d probably be a lot happier if I were able to delude myself that way.

Anyway, yeah, the current health care situation stifles small businesses. Duh.

Why is she so much more popular than I am?

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Just in case I didn’t have enough reasons to feel inadequate… I found out today about this site that lists everybody in South Carolina on Twitter. And when I called it up, it had the list ordered according to most “followers.” And I discovered, for instance, that Gerri L. Elder of the “Absolutely True” Web site (of which I had never heard before) has 31,359 followers on Twitter.

As I type this, I have … let me go check… 310 followers on Twitter.

Now, I can comfort myself in various ways. I can say I haven’t been on Twitter long. I can note that I still have almost twice as many “followers” as people I myself follow, whereas Gerri Elder is following more than 31,000.

But given the chasm between her numbers and mine, that comfort is cold, indeed. I mean, I’m in the initial stages of looking into making this a paying proposition, with ads and all, but how can I compete in a world where somebody I never heard of before today has more than 100 times the number of followers I do?

And why does she have so many? I mean, I looked at her latest post (which is unfair; God help us all if we are judged at a given moment by our latest post), which consisted mainly of a bunch of really sickly looking pictures of bacon. Not nice, crisp bacon, but massive amounts of undercooked, floppy bacon, in phone photos that exaggerate their queasy color. It made me think about the bacon I ate this morning in a way that was NOT appetizing…

I mean, I got pictures of THIS, and she’s got pictures of THAT, but she has way more followers than I do? Where is the justice in this? The marketplace is a cruel mistress indeed.

What doomed Lehman? Richard Fuld’s ugly mug

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With this week’s anniversary, all sorts of analysts will be telling us why they think Lehman Bros. went under. Why should I be left out?

My theory is simple: It was Richard Fuld‘s face. Fuld himself is said to harbor deep resentment (and he’s got a face built for it) that the gummint bailed out all the other kids on the block, but not him. I think it’s because the various officials involved in such a decision knew they’d have to draw the line somewhere, and Fuld’s perpetually glowering, arrogant, self-important visage was the deciding factor. Lehman Brothers

For the year or so leading up to last year’s collapse, I saw the image at right in The Wall Street Journal a lot, and in my mind, this one face had come to symbolize the very worst of the Wall Street “Master of the Universe” mentality. I suggest that I was not alone in this. If the bailout gravy train had to be stopped somewhere, there was no way this guy was going to get a helping hand to be the last one aboard. (There’s something a bit off about that metaphor, but I’m going to stick with it, because that’s what I think Richard Fuld would do, even if it meant running his entire thesis into the ground.)

Yeah, I know, people who understand a lot more about this situation than I do (such as people who, for instance, have a clue what in the heck people who worked at Lehman Bros. did for a living) can probably explain in detail why I’m wrong, citing all sorts of facts and figures and graphics with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was, demonstrating conclusively that there were all sorts of objective reasons why Lehman was allowed to fail while others were not. I acknowledge that. But I’m pretty sure that one could also find a bunch of other knowledgeable analysts who could prove that the opposite was true.

What I’m saying is that, given all the highly complex variables involved, there was a point at which intangibles came into play. And I think the people making the final call were sick of this guy looking down his nose at them and the rest of the world — or they understood at least that if you had to pick a fall guy, Central Casting couldn’t have come up with one less likely to excite widespread public sympathy than this guy.

That made the decision a lot simpler than it would have been otherwise.

This is not a new theory for me; I’ve just refined it over the past year, and this seemed a good time to trot it out so you could admire it. Here’s what I said about the best-known image of Fuld’s face last year:

It was the sort of picture that no sane company publicist would ever have distributed, unless it wanted its CEO to be hated. And you knew this was a CEO; the picture just radiated, “I’m the kind of guy who thinks he’s really hot stuff because I’m so absurdly overcompensated.” And you know, I seldom think that when I look at people. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt (something that drives some of y’all crazy, because you’re always wanting me to join you in despising somebody, and I just don’t feel like it — not necessarily because I’m a nice guy; I just don’t feel like it). But this picture INSISTED that you not like the guy. If a psychologist included this photo in a Thematic Apperception Test, I suspect there would be a surprising uniformity in the stories the subjects would tell.

Trying to think like a businessman

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I already posted this once this morning and it disappeared; let’s see if I can recreate it…

This morning I ran into Dwight Drake, who was breaking his fast with some newspaper folk, including my former publisher and Bill Rogers of the state press association.

I asked Dwight whether he was wooing the press, but he said it was the other way around: They were trying to sell him some ads.

Well, good luck to them, said I as I moved back toward my table — newspapers certainly need the revenue, and maybe if Dwight broke with the conventional wisdom and invested significantly in print, some of his competitors would, too.

Only later did I realize I should have told Dwight that I’m planning on taking ads on my blog, once I work out the technical issues, and so if he wants to spend money, he could do so with me. But I always forget stuff like that. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a Mad Man after all (please don’t tell Joan Holloway) …

I chatted with Dwight a bit more after his meeting broke up, and he told me that before he would approve the “500 Days of Sanford” video spoof, he had to go see the movie. Wanting to seem hip, I didn’t ask “What movie?,” although that’s what I was thinking. Oh, now I see. Dwight says it was OK, but no “Gone With The Wind.” I can believe that. At any rate, I found the video amusing without getting the allusion.

Then, after I left, I realized I’d missed yet another selling opportunity, because I could have told Dwight I can run video on my blog. Of course, I already did run his video, for free.

I’ve really got to get a handle on this thinking like a businessman thing…

Am I cut out to be a Mad Man?

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When Kathryn corrected me on the title of the TV show “Mad Men” (and she was right; it was two words), I went to the official site to check — and ran into a thing where you can build your own Mad Men avatar.

So, being unemployed, I did. Well, there’s more to it than that. Being unemployed, and having recently taken a couple of mild forays into consulting in the advertising field (in fact, I’m sitting in the offices of an ad agency as I type this), I thought I’d see how I looked in that milieu.

Not so great, as it turned out. But I did manage to get myself into a scene with Joan Holloway, if only in caricature…

My message to the U.K. (and Ireland)

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Someone explained to me how to send Darcy Willson-Rymer, managing director of Starbucks in the U.K. & Ireland, a direct message on Twitter. So I will, in response to his kind note. But my pitch to him takes more than140 characters, so I’m going to post my message here, and use the Twitter message to bring him here.

A lot of trouble, but potentially worth it. It’s a cosa de bizaneese, as Sollozzo would say. Here’s the message:

Thanks for the kind word on my blog post!

But seriously, would you pass on my idea to someone in your marketing area? I truly think my blog (and possibly other blogs, but mine first) could be part of a great symbiotic relationship with Starbucks. Starbucks stores are full of people with laptops. Advertising on blogs seems a natural fit. And if those bloggers are blogging FROM Starbucks stores, you’ve got a great promotional information loop going.

I think it could work. And in case you’ve lost the link to my idea, here it is: https://bradwarthen.com/?p=1325

Hey, I’d even be glad to go blog from some of your stores in the UK (if my fare were paid). Ireland, too.

Here’s hoping someone at your end sees the potential I see,

-Brad Warthen

How was that? I’m rather new to making business pitches…

Progress in my bid to woo Starbucks?

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My effort the other day to prostrate myself in an appealing manner before Starbucks sort of bore fruit, in that I got this message via Twitter:

Loved the blog and thanks for the mention

That was from one Darcy Willson-Rymer, who is managing director of Starbucks in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Unfortunately, he didn’t opt to follow me on Twitter, so I couldn’t figure out how to message him back (if you know a way, tell me). I found what seemed to be a way to e-mail him indirectly (had to sign up for a service called “Spoke“), but so far no response.

Among other things, I told him in my message that if we could just get that sponsorship thing going, I’d love to hop across the pond and blog at some of his stores in London and Dublin. Hey, I’d even go to Slough if he’s got one there. As long as Starbucks is paying, of course.

You know, they’d go for my deal if only they knew how much I love Starbucks. I love Starbucks the way Winston Smith loved Big Brother. OK, that may not have come across the way I meant it, but I meant it in a good way. You see, I too love Big Brother, as many of y’all know…

Shop Tart may have the answer

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No, not the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Anyway, we know the answer to that … it’s 42.

But the Shop Tart may have the answer to my dry cleaning question. I’ll have to look into it, although I take stuff to the cleaners more often than once a month, so it might not work for me, based on her math. We’ll see.

Also, I’m not sure I want to look be “fabulous,” or even look that way. I’ll settle for clean and neat. My needs are simple.

Take me, Starbucks — I’m yours

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First, a confession: I really like Starbucks’ new ad campaign. When you Google it, you find a lot of people sneering at it. They find it pompous, overbearing, supercilious, and so forth. Everything that people who don’t like Starbucks don’t like about Starbucks comes into play.

But me, I love Starbucks. So when those ads — which I first saw in The New Yorker recently — say things like “If your coffee isn’t perfect, we’ll make it over. If it’s still not perfect, you must not be in a Starbucks,” I just think, that’s absolutely true. Other people think it’s obnoxious.

But as I said, I love Starbucks. There was a time when I was prepared not to. Back when I was not a coffee drinker, back when I avoided caffeine (and fell asleep a lot in meetings), I bought into the anti-Starbucks propaganda. When Starbucks replaced the Joyful Alternative in Five Points, I sneered along with all the others at the supreme irony of that venerable head shop (which, let’s face it, had since its early-70s heyday morphed into more of a boutique) with the perfectly symbolic name being displaced by this ultimate, soul-less cookie-cutter corporation that was trying to take over the world, yadda-yadda.

Of course, at the time, I had never been in a Starbucks, much less tried the coffee.

My conversion began in New York City in 2004. I was there to write about the Republican National Convention. National political conventions will wear you out if you’re a delegate, with delegation meetings, the plenary sessions, the parties, the sightseeing, the shopping, and more parties. No one ever gets a full night’s sleep at a convention. For journalists, it’s worse. You’re imbedded with a delegation, and you try to be there for everything they experience. Then, when they’re grabbing a nap, you write. You also branch out and check out newsworthy things that the delegates don’t do. Two-four hours sleep at night is about par.

There was a Starbucks near my hotel (of course; there’s one on practically every block in Manhattan), so I fell into the habit of grabbing a tall House Blend before I’d sit down to the laptop in my room. A House Blend with several Sugars in the Raw, because my palate had not yet adjusted to enjoying coffee in its own right.

As time wore on, I got more and more into it. Starbucks coffee is inextricably tied up with the early days of my first blog. One of my favorite early blog posts, headlined “The Caffeine Also Rises,” was — while not technically written in a Starbucks, but in a Barnes & Noble, was nevertheless written on Starbucks coffee, which B&N proudly serves — written on a coffee high. An excerpt:

This is blogging. This is the true blogging, el blogando verdadero, con afición, the kind a man wants if he is a man. The kind that Jake and Lady Brett might have done, if they’d had wi-fi hotspots in the Montparnasse.

What brings this on is that I am writing standing up, Hemingway-style, at the counter in a cafe. But there is nothing romantic about this, which the old man would appreciate. Sort of. This isn’t his kind of cafe. It’s not a cafe he could ever have dreamed of. It’s a Starbucks in the middle of a Barnes and Noble (sorry, Rhett, but I’m out of town today, and there’s no Happy Bookseller here). About the one good and true thing that can be said in favor of being in this place at this time is that there is basically no chance of running into Gertrude Stein here. Or Alice, either.

I’m standing because there are no electrical outlets near the tables, just here at the counter. And trying to sit on one of these high stools and type kills my shoulders. No, it’s not my wound from the Great War, just middle age….

In those early days, blogging and Starbucks coffee sort of went together like Kerouac’s continuous rolls of butcher paper and benzedrine. But in a good way…

Over time, I quit taking the sugar, because it got in the way of the wonderful taste of the coffee. House Blend. Komodo Dragon. Sidami. Gold Coast. Verona (my favorite). Even the ubiquitous Pike Place. They’re all wonderful.

But beyond that, there’s the Starbucks experience. Yeah, it’s all based in a conscious marketing strategy, but it’s a strategy based on good stuff that works. For me, anyway. First, there’s the smell, which immediately makes you glad you’re there, and makes everything else about the place more pleasant. Each Starbucks is both warm and cool, in all the positive senses of those words. The music is pleasant, and chosen with enough thought and originality to rise miles above the stuff you hear in most stores. Everything is nicer in a Starbucks. Women are more beautiful, for instance. No, I don’t think they are objectively more beautiful; they just seem that way. It probably all arises from the smell, but the rush after you get started on that first cup probably plays a role, too.

The whole thing just works. It works to an extent that if I were ever to endorse a product for money, the one I could endorse more wholeheartedly than almost any other would be Starbucks.

Hint, hint.

For a couple of years, I’ve had this idea, which I would pitch to someone at Starbucks if I knew how to get in touch with the right person. Basically, it would be to have Starbucks sponsor my blog. And in return for lots of free, gratuitous mentions of how wonderful Starbucks is, I would get a nice chunk of change and all the coffee I want.

I would spend a couple of hours a couple of times a week blogging live from different Starbucks stores, with my Webcam on. I could do impromptu interviews with the people who come and go (and at the Gervais St. store, there’s almost always someone newsworthy to chat with), and otherwise share the experience while blending blog and product. This I could do with no ethical qualms at all, because my love of the product would be completely unfeigned.

There are a couple of problems with this idea, I’ll admit. First, I’ve seen no sign that anything like this fits into the Starbucks marketing plan. Second, I have no idea how to find the right person to pitch it to.

So I’ll just post it here, and refer to it from Twitter. Starbucks is one of my followers on Twitter, so there is an extremely thin chance that it will get to the right person, and an even thinner one that said person will like it. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Why am I passively pitching this now? Because I’m about to try to start selling advertising on my blog. I don’t know how or whether that will work, or whether it will be worth the bother, but I thought I might as well give it a try. And Starbucks would sort of be my dream client.

Dude, you’re not getting a Dell, are you?

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As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been hanging out at an ad agency recently, which means I’ve been dwelling in the world of Mac. That’s all they’ve got around here. I’m writing this on one.

So as I got ready to get a laptop — I had decided it was a necessity, with the freelance work I’m doing and all — I had a number of people around me telling me I must convert to Apple, for all the usual reasons and more. You’ve heard them: More solid, more reliable, better designed, better software, far better for graphics, cooler, etc. In particular, they said, a Mac would be better for video production, something I’ve wanted to do more of for the blog.

So, of course, I went out and got a Dell. First, it’s about a fourth of the price (my daughter the graphic designer is buying a Mac laptop, and it retails at $2,600 with the software she needs). Second… to paraphrase Billy Jack, I’ve tried; I’ve really tried. When Jean and the kids at the school tell me to practice nonviolence and use a Mac, I really try. But when I’m doing something that would normally call for a right-button mouse click, and my fingers fumble with that one massive button on a Mac… I just go berserk!

Bottom line, I’ve been using PCs too long. The ways of navigating through Windows are built into my body’s muscle memory, and it’s too much work to change.

So I got a Dell. Specifically, this model Dell Studio. Last week, when they were on sale for $80 less than the price on that link. An Intel Core 2 Duo processor T6500, 4GB RAM, 320 Gig hard drive, plus the usual bells and whistles that have become standard — DVD burner, multi-format card reader, Webcam and so forth.

It not only had what I needed on it, but I liked the look and feel of it. It looked and felt solid and well-built. Compared to the Inspiron, it was like a Volvo versus a Trabi. The Inspiron seemed chintzy by comparison. It had little features that don’t mean much, I guess, but which I liked — for instance, it had a slot for CDs and DVDs instead of that flimsy tray that pops out, and which always makes me afraid I’m going to break it pressing the disc in. That seemed clean and smart, better design.

And the first few days went great. I was particularly pleased with my first effort with the Webcam.

Then yesterday, it crashed. Yeah, I know, you Mac folk are sneering now that that’s what PCs do; they crash. And yes, they do. It’s something PC users deal with. Rebooting makes for a nice bathroom break, gets us away from work for a moment. Part of life.

But this crash was atypical. I was running Firefox in two or three windows, with maybe two other low-intensity applications up, when everything froze up. I went to Task Manager, and saw that my CPU usage was at 100 percent, which was impossible. I bailed out using the power button, booted back up, and tried running Firefox alone — and it was showing more than 50 percent CPU usage. One of the cores of the duo core was running at capacity, the other hardly running at all.

So I took the Dell back to Best Buy, where an interesting thing happened. The Geek Squad guy, after pronouncing that I had an incurable hardware problem, leveled with me, saying that he wouldn’t buy a Dell. Yes, once they were reliable, but he had seen too many Studios come back. I should get an Asus or an HP instead.

Funny thing was, the sales guy last week had tried, gently to steer me toward an Asus. But I had never heard of Asus. I had used Dells for years, so that’s what I got. Now, I went back to that same sales guy, and he nodded and said yeah, he liked the Asus better but I had been obviously set on a Dell…

So we went to look at the comparable Asus — same processor, same memory, same hard drive size. The battery was longer-lasting. The screen was smaller (although perhaps slightly sharper). It had the flimsy pop-out tray instead of the slot I liked. It cost $30 more than I had paid for the Dell.

And it looked cheap and flimsy compared to the Dell. Sorry, but aesthetically it was not pleasing, and even though these tech guys were all but beating me over the head with the inside knowledge that it was very solid and reliable, it didn’t LOOK solid. Finally, I was unable to call up the Webcam to try it out, because of some quirk of how they had the machine set up in the store.

So, sheepishly, I said I wanted to try another Dell Studio, hoping that this one wouldn’t be a lemon. The sales guy said he understood, that it was like buying a car; you either liked the look and feel or you didn’t. But I could hardly look him in the eye, because I knew he thought I was an idiot, a guy who just doesn’t learn.

And when we got up to the customer service desk — where I was to leave it to get it “optimized” (cleaning off all the marketing junk such as trial software, and installing service packs), which is why I don’t have it yet — and I realized the Geek Squad guy who had warned me was standing right there and had to have noticed what I was doing… I almost went over and apologized to him.

But I figure I’ve got two weeks to try this one out (and longer, if it has a hardware failure), and if it isn’t everything it should be, I can go back and get the Asus, no questions asked. So I can’t lose, right?

By the way, I really hope I’m not getting these guys in trouble telling about how open and honest they were. Frankly, I think they should both get a raise, because they were going out of their way to help a customer. And they were both obviously good at their jobs, very knowledgeable about the product. Bright young men, a credit to their organization. I felt much better about Best Buy for having dealt with them.

It’s just that in this case, the customer was too stupid and stubborn to listen to them. Proof yet again that in the marketplace, consumers do not make rational choices, notwithstanding all the propaganda. At least, this one doesn’t. Neither do most people; I’m just logical enough to understand how fallible I am.

Why did The Beatles break up? I can’t tell…

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Well, Rolling Stone certainly got my attention when I saw this cover headline in the checkout line at Earth Fare yesterday:

Why

The

Beatles

Broke Up

THE INSIDE STORY

So I immediately resolved to look up the piece and read it when I got to my laptop.

But I couldn’t, because they didn’t post the actual article. Oh, they posted all sorts of teasers and promotional material, such as the 29722154-29722159-slarge1 “story behind the story,” and gallery after gallery of fab pics of the lads back in the day.

But not the actual story.

We can debate from now until the last newspaper closes the relative wisdom of posting one’s precious content online for free. Maybe Rolling Stone’s got it going on teasing us to distraction this way. But I wonder: Which approach sells more magazines — this, or the Vogue approach? No, I didn’t go out and buy a copy of the Vogue with the Jenny Sanford piece; I was satisfied with what I found online. But I’ll bet the fact that bloggers were able to read, and then tout, the contents did lead to at least some people who are more in Vogue‘s demographic to go out and buy the slick dead-tree version.

I don’t know. But I know I’m not shelling out $4.99 to read the piece about the fall of The Beatles. Hey, I lived through the time, and I know why The Beatles broke up — because the ’60s ended. Duh.

Now there was a time when I would have shelled out the money. But not anymore. I guess that shows how old I am. And that the ’60s really are over…

Today’s job fair: Sweatin’ at the museum

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Today's job fair at the S.C. State Museum. (Don't know whether all these folks are job-seekers; some may just be visiting museum.)

Well, the job fair at the State Museum today was a great success, if you measure it by turnout. The place was packed during the noon hour. I had meant to go earlier (it started at 11), but I wanted to swing by the Bauer thing at the State House, so I think I was probably there at the peak.

By the time I got in from the jammed parking lot I was already pretty sweaty, even though I didn’t put on my coat until I was inside. Looks like I’ve got another candidate for the cleaners (sorry, bud, but I don’t know any way to job hunt except in a coat and tie). And for all the sweat, it wasn’t as productive for me. I think the employers at the Fort Jackson one I went to probably came closer to having openings that I might be suited to. Better yet, that one was less crowded, and it was easier to have a normal conversation with the folks at the tables.

This one was a madhouse. I guess some civilians hesitate to go to something on the Fort, but they definitely didn’t hesitate to show for this one.

Not much else to say, except to share my Tweets from while I was there:

This job fair has some of same names as Ft. Jax one: Aflac, Richco sheriff, others. Much bigger turnout…

I’m ruining another jacket milling about sweatily at job fair. A dry cleaner’s dream…about 4 hours ago from web

Toys not as good at this job fair as the last one. All I have so far is an unexciting keyring from Carmax.about 4 hours ago from web

Mary Kay and Avon going head-to-head at the job fair…about 4 hours ago from web

Maybe I’ll come back to job fair later. Can’t have tete-a-tete w/ prospective employer in this madhouse…about 4 hours ago from web

Back-to-school beer

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I saw something interesting for the first time at that reception Wednesday night — Bud Light in dark red, or perhaps I should say garnet, cans. That was a new one on me and the ad folks I spoke to that night. I asked the guy working the bar what was up with the cans, and he didn’t know; it was the first time he’d seen them, too.

Someone speculated that it was a school-colors thing. That someone was right, as the WSJ reported Friday morning:

Dozens of colleges are up in arms over a new Anheuser-Busch marketing campaign that features Bud Light beer cans emblazoned with local schools’ team colors.

Many college administrators contend that the promotions near college campuses will contribute to underage and binge drinking and give the impression that the colleges are endorsing the brew. Though some schools aren’t interfering with the promotion, others are demanding that the sales be stopped. With students returning to campuses and the fall football season approaching, the “Fan Cans” are also renewing the debate over the role of beer makers in encouraging college drinking.

Anheuser-Busch responds that the campaign is aimed only at fans who can drink legally and that it has long supported efforts to fight alcohol abuse. It notes that the cans don’t bear any school’s name or logo. And it says it will drop the campaign near any college that makes a formal complaint…

Then WIS did a story on them last night.

Actually, I thought the cans I saw — which were technically muted red and cream, not garnet and black — looked pretty good, aesthetically speaking (way, WAY better than those tacky LSU cans). Picture it away from the blue carton, which kind of takes away from the effect (I shot this pics on my phone at Food Lion).

But then, I didn’t see them and think “Gamecocks.” If I had, I would have been less enchanted. As y’all know, I take a dim view of anything that encourages kids to drink — something I know that not all of y’all agree with me on.

Maybe this suggests a new standard for legal drinking: How about if we pass a law that if you’re impressionable enough to buy a beer because it has your school colors on it, you should be banned from drinking forever?

Anyway, what do y’all think?

Becoming a Madman

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As I may have mentioned, I’ve done some freelance work recently for folks in the advertising/public relations world, and most recently some friends at a local agency have been letting me use an empty office at their digs, which is really nice.

Even nicer, they invited me to be their guest at a reception given Wednesday (at least I think it was Wednesday; my days are swimming by so) by the Midlands chapter of the American Advertising Federation at Gallery 701. I saw lots of folks I hadn’t seen in awhile, such as a former editor at The State who was laid off with me and is now doing PR work, and newer acquaintances I’ve been getting to know in my new, still largely unformed incarnation.

Fortunately, there were name tags (all of life should have name tags; I’m terrible with names). And these being creative ad folk, there was a participatory theme to the tags. As you can see, they were imprinted with the words “Join. Belong.,” followed by a blank. I was told to fill in the blank with a verb.

Some chose upbeat messages such as “Enjoy” or “Celebrate.” One went existential with “Be.” I was all business. I have one clear goal and aim that I want everyone to associate with me, so I went with that. Maybe a real Madman would have been more subtle, but not me.

Anyway, as they used to say in my former profession, a good time was had by all, and I appreciate being invited.

Checking my look, checking my attitude

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Y’all remember Christina Binkley. She’s the super-savvy Wall Street Journal columnist who quoted me awhile back regarding key economic indicators (in this case, Ben Bernanke’s beard — don’t ask me to explain; follow the link).

Anyway, today she’s giving advice on how to be unemployed with style, so of course I paid close attention:

Laid Off? Check Your Look … and Your Attitude

Newly Jobless Update Wardrobes, Rein In Resentment and Embrace Punctuation

… In the aftermath of a layoff, style is critical. And it’s about more than the decision to polish a wardrobe. The way people comport themselves after losing a job can make all the difference in what comes next. From how they convey the news to colleagues, to the type of clothes they wear and how they punctuate their emails, the newly jobless must use careful footwork to navigate the job hunt.

When in doubt, it’s a safe bet to retreat to conservative styles. After Michael Bragg was downsized from his New York-based job at a high-end European fashion brand, he went out and bought a new pair of shoes—lace-up, American-made Aldens. Play it straight with email, too. Sure, sometimes it’s perfectly acceptable to shoot off a short, all lowercase missive to a colleague. But punctuation is a risk-free option. The same goes for social-networking. Now is not the time to post pics from a beer-sodden barbecue and share them with everyone in your network….

Good advice, that last bit. Hang on a sec while I go pull a couple of things off of YouTube…

…OK, I’m back. (While I was there, I updated my channel so it no longer says I’m “the VP/Editorial Page Editor of The State, the largest newspaper in South Carolina.” Along with style and attitude, I’m assuming accuracy is also important.)

Back to Christina’s piece today … I hope bud will take careful note of the advice therein. bud doesn’t seem to think I should be wearing clothing that requires dry-cleaning while unemployed. I disagree. Christina’s with me. Folks, I get up every morning, put on my coat and tie (shirt and pants, too — details are important), and go downtown to have breakfast at the usual place (Doug knows where). Only way I know to stay in the game and maintain contacts. To me, networking seems key. Looking like you’re ready to go to work this minute also seems advisable.

As for attitude — I think I’m OK there, too. I didn’t get upset and cuss anybody out when I got laid off. I mean, y’all can go back and see what I said at the time, here and here and here (I even said nice stuff about Mark Sanford). Maybe there will be a delayed reaction sometime, but I haven’t really worked up a good mad yet (which is actually sort of out of character for me, but there it is). I guess as a vice president of the company I understood the situation too well. Thirty-eight people were getting the ax that day, and they needed some of them to be top management. I got picked (and had the honor of being the one mentioned in the news story). Way of the world. Stiff upper lip and all that. A chap must face facts, and other pseudo-British mumbo-jumbo…

So I’m doing everything right. Of course, it hasn’t produced full-time permanent employment yet, so after a few more dry-cleaning bills maybe I’ll try bud’s approach, but for the moment I still think Christina knows the score.

Is that a promise, Sen. DeMint?

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My attention was drawn to this SCBiz headline:

DeMint says public option would destroy nation’s health care system

… to which I automatically responded, “Is that a promise? Are you sure? You’re not just teasing? All right! When do we get started?”

We’ve heard a lot of silly back-and-forth about health care in recent weeks, but this is the first time I’ve heard anyone suggest the one thing that makes the most sense to me: Blow up what we’ve got entirely and start over.

As my long-time readers will know, even back when I HAD good conventional health care coverage, I was agitating for this. Why? Because as I documented in this column and this one and elsewhere on the old blog, most folks who discuss the health care problem in this country focus on the wrong thing. They focus on the people like me who no longer have private employer-provided health care (although for a limited time I have access to the same care via COBRA thank God, at just under $600 a month — to go up over $1,500 after December, if I’m lucky).

But the real problem is that (note the numbers in my parenthetical above), medical coverage has gotten way too expensive even for the lucky ones who have it — and certainly far too expensive for the businesses that try to provide it.

My problem with Obamacare all along has been that the president is too timid on this subject, and this is not a situation for tiptoeing. This nation desperately needs a do-over on the way it pays for health care, because we are paying too much for results that just aren’t good enough for an advanced nation.

So thank you, Sen. DeMint, for getting the conversation started in a more productive direction. Even if you didn’t mean to…

Something I didn’t need to hear today

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Here’s the way the world works. I’ve been out of work how long now — five months? I’m pressing on all fronts to get a job while doing freelance things when I can. I’m trying all kinds of things — for instance, I’ve started putting out some feelers to people who I hope might help me with getting some ads on my blog.

Also, the last few days I’ve started camping out in an empty office at a local ad agency, which I will not name at this time in order to protect the innocent. The president of the company is a friend who is trying to help out, and who also thinks some synergy might emerge from my hanging here; I might have some ideas that could be helpful to some of his clients. Hasn’t happened yet, but I just started this Monday.

I haven’t actually given the synergy thing much time to work, though, as personal business has called me away from the office in the middle of the day each of these three days so far. Monday and Tuesday it was fun stuff — I was watching the twins back at my house. (So if I write about that, does that make this a “Mommy blog?” Or maybe a “Mr. Mom blog…”)

But today, I’ve got to be back at the house by 2 p.m. because of something that is pretty much the opposite of fun. My wife says the people she called out to find out why the sump pump under the house has been running constantly recently have told her that we have a burst water line under the master bedroom, which has been liberally spraying the underside of our floor and apparently done all sorts of damage. So I’m meeting plumbers, and then I’ll have to meet insurance adjustors, then contractors, then who knows?

When it rains, it pours. Even upside-down, under the house.

You know what? I’m starting to wonder how I ever found time to hold a full-time job in the first place…

Best toys from today’s job fair at Fort Jackson

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Today, at the suggestion of my unemployment caseworker, I went to the job fair out at Fort Jackson. It was mainly for prospective employers to talk to military personnel thinking of entering the civilian workforce, but civilians such as myself were welcomed as well.

This was my first job fair ever, and although I had been warned not to expect much (my private outplacement advisor said the next client of his who got a job from a job fair would be the first), I found it to be enjoyable and rewarding. I talked to a lot of nice folks from a variety of companies and agencies, and may actually have gotten some leads on a job.

In the small world department, I had a nice time talking with Steve Kelly from the State Department (there’s a foreign service exam coming up in our area in October, and I may take it), who worked for The Charlotte Observer long ago, and who knew some folks I know — such as Carl Stepp from Bennettsville, whom I had just e-mailed earlier this morning to see how he was doing (after running into someone who mentioned him at a restaurant last night).

But the most fun part, which I share in the video above, was the gadgets and toys that the prospective employers brought with them.

Seriously, I passed out a few resumes and business cards, and collected cards and brochures from:

OK, on that last one, I just got some info on how to find out when there would be a Tupperware party in my area. But with the others, I plan to follow up and explore the job opportunities on their Web sites.

Next week, I intend to attend a job fair at the state museum. But I doubt it will top this one for cool gadgets.