Wednesday, February 27, 2008

The Story, the Story, the Story!

Yup, those reality and contest shows seem to keep coming one after the other. They're relatively inexpensive to produce (compared to a drama series for instance), and capture the viewer's interest.

In my opinion, it is "Story" that makes this an interesting genre. The unexpected hero or the rise of the oppressed can move people's emotions. When you touch this sensitive spot with even a hint of genuine feeling, you have something.

The rapid increase in the number of these shows may have diluted (some say polluted) the idea somewhat, but occasionally some quite nice stories are told. It's not really ever about the competition, it (sorry to use this expression) is all about "the story". Yes indeed.

This clip from the Britain's Got Talent show delivers a good example. The audience is amazed, thrilled and touched by the story.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Widdle Tiny Cars


Small cars are popular. They get better fuel economy, they're cute (sometimes), and many claim to be safer than large cars. Really?

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Heads, I win - Tails I win

You are in a match-play event. You and your opponent have putts from the same side of the hole, about 20 feet away, and they appear to be the same distance from the whole. Crazy huh?

You can’t decide which ball is away. You would love to see your opponent’s putt and he would love to see yours. You measure with paces - and it is indistinguishable. You feel like you're holding up play.

Your opponent says, "heads or tails?” obviously saying that it's too close and a coin flip would be fair. You say, "heads". Your opponent flips the coin and it comes up heads. He says, "heads it is - knock it in", and he backs away wishing you good luck as you are putting first. You putt and he gets the read.

Two things...

First ~ Since your opponent didn't declare who won what with the coin flip; had the flip come up tails, he would have said, "Tails, it is - knock it in." He had the advantage the instant you agreed to flip without a declaration of consequences.

Second ~ If two balls are determined to be an exact equal distance from the hole. The player who played first on the previous shot plays first. I believe that's the rule.

I'm not sure if the coin flip offer violates any rules, but it might. I'll check. In any event, it's a cool idea. I just thought you needed to know this important item.

D'oh Ideafest


Take some time with others to brainstorm new business ideas and ways to make money. You'll come with some great stuff. You'll be jazzed. Then - upon closer inspection and research - you'll learn that almost all the really hot ideas you come up with have already been done.

Well that sucks.

Yup.

Then what?

You keep going... or you stop.

Right. I get it. I think.

You could investigate brainstorming as its own thing. That way you can get nicely tangled in the fundamentals of the techique, make your sessions last a long time. In textbook brainstorming technique, you're not allowed to be negative (rules - see: Applied Imagination by Alex F. Osborn ~ from a half century ago - might not be much fun), and things take forever to find their way to the waste basket.

Well gee thanks, that was helpful.

Ya, it's a problem. There are lots of things to get in the way. If there weren't, everyone would be doing it.

It seems like everyone already has.

Go to your room and don't move.

Can I move now?

Not yet.

How about now?

Okay.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Slight mishap

The caption read: Dear loving husband, I had a slight mishap with the truck this morning. Don't worry, I'm not injured. Here's a picture. P.S. Your girlfriend called.

VisorOrganizer

Use your head and stay organized! The Visorganizer is a revolutionary carrying case for everything you need to make it through your busy day whether you're a pro golfer, a retired ship builder, a club DJ, or a busy mom on the go. And it clips on the front of your favorite hat. Pack it with up to 7 lbs. If it has a visor, it needs a Visorganizer!


Actual product not available, but the box can be purchased for $7.99 plus a hefty (almost prohibitive) shipping charge.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Aid to Andorra - Onion causes tears


Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

Dog Warden

The fact that this really happened makes it funny for me.

Sylvania, Ohio USA

The truck was officially labeled and so was the Dog Warden's uniform. The uniform included a wide brimmed hat, a safari-like shirt and trousers, both with too many pockets to count without asking the man to stand still. Clearly, this fellow was the Dog Warden.

He self served a coffee - believed to be 20 ounces - then moved toward the island display that contained the grilled tubular meat heating device with rollers (you know the one). The grill had several items slowly tumbling between its rollers. There were; sausages - some more wrinkly than others, several tubular egg roll / burrito sort of things, and then there were two types of hotdogs - the large horse penis type and the smaller (more conventional) ballpark type. The ballpark versions represented the majority of the items in the mix. Each item slowly tumbling in place as the rollers turned.

The smartly dressed public official, with bun in one hand and tongs in the other - reach for a plain old ballpark offering. He slid his dog gently into his bun.

Recognizing what had just taken place, an observer said to the Warden, "Going after the easy ones, huh?"

Sunday, February 17, 2008

The leaders are coming up 18...


Let's go to Ian Baker Finch right now. He has a special guest. Ian.

Thanks Jim. I'm, here with [insert company representative first and last name]. He's the [insert title] of [insert sponsor company name]. [insert company representative first name], on behalf of CBS and the PGA tour, we want to say that we sure do appreciate what [insert company name] has done for the tour and the fine charities that this event benefits. What a week we've had here at the [insert tournament name].

Well Ian, it's been a fantastic week. The weather has been great and everyone associated with the tournament has done such a terrific job. Of course [insert company name] is all about [insert implied benefit] and we are thrilled to be able to [insert implied benefit application] for the tournament and the community. We've seen some amazing golf coming down the stretch. [insert company name] couldn't be more pleased with our involvement and we look forward to doing it again next year.

Thank you [insert company representative first name]... Jim, back to you.

The sports team from my area


We can argue about whether the sports team from my area is superior to the sports team from your area. There are many factors to consider. Undoubtedly, there will be issues on which we will be compelled to produce data. Oh, the joy of it all.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

The Start a New Religion Committee's Fabulous Retreat

During this past week's fabulous retreat, the "Let's start a new Religion" committee took on the notion of "commandments". Since this format has worked in the past, the committee felt obligated to consider adoption or adaptation of the concept. Here is how the committee left the subject at the close of the last session.


* We reference the meat and potatoes / bare bones / easiest to translate word choice version of the commandments. Thou shalt not, is assumed to be synonymous with Do not etc etc.


1. Do not worship any other gods


This is a reasonable required administrative rule. Competition is fierce out there. We appreciate the original intent, but most agreed that we would need to tweak the language just a bit. In an attempt to frame the idea in a positive way (so many of these start with "do not"), it was suggested that "Worship only what we say to worship", might work better. This also gives us some flexibility down the road. We thought that perhaps we would post the worship list on the web.


2. Do not make idols


We find that it is way too easy to make idols these days. As such, the committee decided that we would consider going with a complete reversal on this. This would no doubt be a controversial move, but heck - we ultimately plan to be judges on most matters, so we can handle it. The proposal was to go with, "Make idols".


3. Do not misuse the name of God


We have accepted for some time that "God" is not a phrase / name / trademark that we can secure for ourselves. We've been working on several alternatives, and we expect that whatever we call our Chief (it won't be Chief), it will be protected by Patent and Trademark laws. We'll probably just go with “Do not misuse the name of [insert]"; followed eventually by the R with the circle around it indicating a registered trademark - and we will sue. For now we use TM suggesting we own it even though it's not official.


4. Keep the Sabbath holy


Our Sabbath will be Friday. Since we don't do creationism (it didn't do well in focus groups), the whole tuckered out on the seventh day thing - is not working for us. Once we decided that trying to change the number of days in a week was too big of a battle (eight days would have worked swell, but we won't get into that now), we selected the afternoon on Friday as our religious excuse day. For practical reasons we have also made "opt-out" synonymous with "keep holy". At high noon on Friday, you can opt-out of anything you need out of - for the rest of the day. So the new commandment is recommended to be, "Friday Afternoons are Optional".



5. Honour your mother and father


The committee concluded that this commandment wasn't at all bad. All that is needed here is a freshening. We could have simply spelled honour as honor and left it at that. We also had a proposal to make it, "Be covered by your parent’s health and liability insurance until you are at least 18". In the end, we decided to go with, "Parent well and prosper".

6. Do not murder

a.k.a. Do not kill (Catholic translation)... Tough to argue with this one. Some states would lobby for exceptions for capital or particularly heinous crimes. And then there is the whole issue of a woman's right to choose. We also have interference from P.E.T.A. Hey - who decides on eligibility of species? Rather than print all the exceptions in the commandment directly, we thought perhaps we could use a cover commandment of "No Killing People", and then refer everyone to the website for details. This seemed like we were avoiding the question, and the committee found itself going off on tangents, so our facilitator called for a stand-n-stretch, which was immediately kicked up to a pee-n-smoke. When we came back, we agreed to create a sub-committee to look into number six specifically, and make some recommendations. So - for now, we'll stick with, "Do not murder". If you do murder something before a new commandment is published, you do so at your own risk.

7. Do not commit adultery

Once again, we felt the need to clean up some gray areas. An effort was made to review subjects such as web-porn, strippers, masturbation and sniffing the air as pretty girls walk past you in the mall. The committee did extensive research in this area and concluded that the definition of Adultery is a personal matter. The language will become, "Do not show the world your nasty ways". We don't encourage or condone cheating on your partner -no no no. You can covet / drool over your neighbor’s wife, but bang her at your own risk and keep in mind divorce is expensive. We just want to be more open. We realize this is a bit of a departure from the original version, but in a world where Viagra, Cialis and the whole "wood" industry is on fire, we'll include the "spice" benefit in our marketing package hoping to attract more followers. Nuff said?

8. Do not steal

Another hard to argue with point. So much so, that the committee initially thought it could not be improved upon. Yes, there's that set of circumstances where disputes arise and people argue over who owns what, but we have to remember that we're not government. We're just religious leaders. We reminded ourselves that we decide what's right and wrong, and then we sit back and watch people scramble to take advantage. In this area - much the same as killing - we couldn't go into too much detail. After some debate (we always debate - it's healthy), we elected to go with. "No stealing". Essentially the same thing, but with a fresh face.

9. Do not lie

These things seemed to get trickier and trickier. We observed that the Catholics took a crack at this back in the day. They came up with a rating system for sins that appeared to be geared toward the lie. Society is willing to dismiss some lies as "little white". As long as they don't do too much damage, you can get a pass. The committee found this area to be muddy at best, and we struggled with what to do about it. Rating system? No rating system? Once we were reminded by the facilitator of our real purpose, we were able to come up with, "Do not lie to us - ever, no exceptions".

10. Do not covet

This was a problem for most members. After all, coveting is an important economic driver, and we (especially the men) find coveting to be something we might not do when we're sleeping, but otherwise - we're coveting all the time. If it isn't cars or gadgets, it's women and money. The committee thought perhaps we could just blow anti-coveting out and slip in a wildcard commandment in its place. We had some serious fun with that idea, but eventually decided to go in a different direction and deal directly with coveting. We added a reference link footnote to the Gekko speech, and chose "Do not admit to coveting" as our tenth rule. You can covet all you want, but don't talk about it. By going with this version, we were also playing to the committee members who really thought we needed somewhere to say, "Do not be annoying".


In summary, the committee enjoyed a fabulous weeklong retreat at a charming resort. The golf, tennis and shopping were top shelf. The committee enjoyed the reprieve from the discussion of required hats and other ceremonial garments. We would like to thank the members for all they do - especially the taller females.

To recap the current recommendations regarding commandments:

1. Worship only what we say to worship
2. Make idols
3. Do not misuse the name of [insert TM]
4. Friday Afternoons are Optional
5. Parent well and prosper
6. Do not murder*
7. Do not show the world your nasty ways
8. No stealing
9. Do not lie to us - ever, no exceptions
10. Do not admit to coveting


Thank you.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Cuppla Quick Steven Wrights


I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place.

I have the world's largest collection of seashells. I keep it on all the beaches of the world... perhaps you've seen it.

Friday, February 8, 2008

*Price shown includes $3,000 not shown - Whaaat?

Many auto retailers are employing a disclaimer that says:

"Price shown includes $3,000 cash down or trade equity".
These amounts vary, but $3,000 is a popular tuck. It's enough of a buried factor to distort the numbers and make them appear attractive - especially when compared to ads that don't employ the approach. It's also assumed to be within a range where it might be something that can be overcome at the dealership. Yes indeed, the $9,999 price is actually $12,999. The price shown (large print - wow!) is what is left after you pay $3,000 in cash or trade.

...and once you discover this information, will you think:

a.) Oh... okay, since I don't have $3,000 I'll pay another $100/mo instead and still buy a car.

b.) Oh... not okay. This is a troubling revelation. I've been deceived. Not good - not good at all. I'll go somewhere else.

Apparently, an awful lot of you go with "a.)" Because this technique / tactic / strategy is gaining popularity. It generates traffic (showroom visitors) and dealers have to compete hard just for a chance to see you. They're willing to take the risk that you'll be pissed about the deception. They get a chance to tell a story in person - maybe apologize, or blame "other management". One factor that keeps this method in play is that the "perception" of lower prices is assumed to drive much of the traffic. Customers don't necessarily come in looking for the transaction spelled out in the ad. They come with the assumption that this dealer has a wide variety of choices and the prices are low - and no, they didn't even bother to read the disclaimer.

The trend toward deception rises as the market conditions get tougher. Once it gains a foothold, dealers feel like they have to "go there" just to compete. Plenty would prefer not to stoop to these levels. In private, they admit to feeling some guilt, and they criticize the "big guys" for whoring up the business.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm almost certain that at some point - not sure how soon - most people will reject the retailer who "goes there". The approach that welcomes this trend and develops it will find success. Yup - this will happen.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Sorry to trouble you again so soon, but...

Miss O... Excuse me.

I'd like to request that you immediately go stop the insanity happening in the Sudan. I mean really - let the rest of the world hang in there on its own for a day or two and go fix that. We'll wait here until you get back. It's okay - really, we'll be fine - just go.




Thank you!

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Yo - Great and Powerful Oprah...

Ohhhh great and powerful Oprah... What's with the bad market behavior?

Ohhhh great and powerful Oprah... Please tell us that this has nothing to do with the Super Bowl.

What are you trying to say here - Hmmm?

Tell us Oh Windy City Wonder, is the bottom here or near?
Will you let us dangle at this angle (sorry about the rhyme - it was not planned)?
Can we convince you to - at the very least - give this matter a "Steadman", pay some attention to and make it feel special?

Come on now - let's see some of that good stuff.

Thank you!