Budget death spiral
We're entering into the budget dance for 2009. You know the steps:
We're entering into the budget dance for 2009. You know the steps:
We've been doing some research at Footwasher Media (that includes VC Comm, VitalCom and New Tech Press) to find what industries are doing well in their communications efforts and where the real technology interest is. We've discovered the wonder and surprise of Google Trends.
Picked up the SFExaminer in my driveway to check on some local news and read that the Daily News, another local throwaway, is making cuts.
I'm reading Chris Edwards post on the feud between Shel Israel (who I know) and Loren Feldman (who I don't know. I start searching around for Loren and Shel through Google and other search engines and really don't find anything about the feud, but then I run across this piece by Israel a little over a year ago on why static websites are still valuable. I think I passed an entire tuna sandwich through my nose on point 5.
1. Environmental purposes. The web site replaces the tripfold, full-bleed corporate broachure that no one ever read. Entire forests have been saved by the move to websites. Now no one can read what companies have written in a much more eco friendly way,
2. Historic Value. Now you can take a trip down memory lane and see the state of last decade's internet technology from the comfort of your home without visiting the Computer History Museum.
3. To see opportunities you missed. Most enterprise site seem to list job opportunities that were filled in time to face the Y2K crisis. But there they remain, frozen in time, sort of like Hemingway's leopard on the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
4. To lower unemployment. We writers already know we are a low-cost commodity because the supply exceeds the demand. The use of the least talented of us to write websites at least keeps the price above one dime per dozen, which is what most CMOs think writers are worth.
5. To eliminate differentiation. It almost as much fun as reading a train schedule to examine the websites of competing companies. They use the same color and cliches, art from the same stock supplier, design to look like the other guys. Then each site tells you that they are the leaders.
Like I said. It's a funny place.
A little over a year ago I interviewed Brian Fuller, then editor in chief of EE Times on the state of the media. It was the kickoff of my podcast program and one of the most downloaded podcasts of State of the Media - both parts.
Brian threw us all a curve a few weeks later by resigning from EE Times and resurfacing a couple months later as the vice president of media strategies at Blanc and Otus in SF, a few blocks from the Times building he used to work in.
I decided it would be a good idea to catch up with him and see if his views of media have changed... they have.
I've had my head down for the past few days with green power clients, VCs and media moguls and missed some pretty big news. In case you missed it too, Brian Fuller broke the news that Junko Yoshida has stepped down from the Editor-in-Chief position at EE Times to go back to covering international news, with a special focus on China. This is good news for her. Yoshida is a GREAT reporter and now she has the freedom to do what she does best. Not sure what it means for EE Times, however. The still have Rich Nass and Patrick Mannion heading up Embedded.com and Techonline, and they are more than capable of sharing the top spot for the Times, but finding an eventual replacement for the slot will be tough, even though there are a lot of good news people out on the street now.
Found this while looking for something else. Seth Godin gives me hope.
New Tech Press Biz Dev home boy, Ozzie Wallace has started a Facebook Group called "Marketing like it is1999" and we're opening it to everyone. If you haven't tried Facebook, or signed up and can't figure out what the big deal is, this might give you a reason.
David Meerman Scott has discovered a very good reason for not embracing effective web marketing strategies. I have to say, he has a real point. I never thought I'd find a way to link camel sales with the semiconductor and EDA industries, but they apparently have a lot in common.
Was watching a video on Jeremiah Owyang's site, and it ended with a statement that we "need to rethink copyright, authorship, identity...ethics..." That's pretty much what I've been doing for several years now and have only, in the past 12 months, started to put into practice.
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