Yesterday I sat in on George Wright's session at the Ragan Communications "New Social Media" conference I'm at in Chicago. George is the brain-daddy behind the wildly viral Will It Blend? video marketing campaign that launched about a year ago. He told the wonderful story of how, as the new (and first) BlendTec "marketing guy," he wandered through the manufacturing plant one day and noticed a sizeable pile of sawdust on the floor. He asked, "What's that about?" and was told casually that was how they tested their blenders... with 2 x 2s! A great idea, borrowed handy-cam, one chunk of lumber, a six-pack of coke, a handful of marbles, four golf balls, and an iPod later... voila! An new twist on an ancient form of marketing was born: intentional online viral marketing. The videos are now snagged from their own little podunk website in Utah as quickly as they're put up, slapped on to youtube and immediately hit the #1 favorite list time after time. It's the power of that little red "share" button on youtube.
Of course, viral marketing itself isn't new. It's been happening for at least as long as women have been buying shoes. The online version of it is simply when you see something that makes you pay attention--something interesting, unusual, funny, bizarre, intriguing, etc.--you pass it along to your friends. I had actually seen one of the "will it blend?" videos before yesterday as a result of viral sharing, so it was really interesting to hear the whole story and meet the man behind it. George is a delightfully self-effacing "marketing hick from the backwoods with a blender and a rake" who, with a $50 budget and a blender, got six million hits on his marketing experiment in the first week. Of course, the fact that he ended his talk by blending a rake was pretty impressive too.
BTW: The latest "Will It Blend?" video of Chuck Norris versus the bad guys mixing it up (sorry:) is a hoot and shows that even with an idea this powerful, you still need to introduce the element of the interesting or unexpected to keep up the momentum.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
I'M GETTING MY GREEN CARD!!! I think...
About a week ago, I got an email from our immigration firm with a letter attached from the USCIS (United States Customs and Immigration Services). I thought I'd include it here for the interest of those dear souls who have travelled the past seven years with us in our immigration adventures. It is a document that brings our family great news, I think. I hope. But I'm not entirely sure.
I share it here to primarily let you know that something is happening. Also, I hope it will explain why in the past when I have started trying to explain the latest episode or movement in our immigration process over these years, my listener's eyes begin to glaze over and all of a sudden they remember an important errand they must tend to immediately. All the communications between the US government and our family have shared the same level of transparency of meaning, tone, and timing. (It's been three weeks since the letter is dated and so far, not another syllable has been issued regarding my status.)
In case the font is a bit small in the image I've posted of the letter itself, I've re-typed the pertinent section below so you can celebrate the moment with us. That is, when and if you can figure out what exactly the news is. And when you do, will you please let me know?
"This notice refers to your Application for Employment Authorization (Form I-765) filed on May 29, 2007, in which you are requesting employment based upon your filing of a pending application for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident under Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations, (8CFR) 274a.129(C)(9). Upon consideration, it is ordered that the request be denied for the following reasons:
Title 8, Code of Federal Regulations, (8CFR) 274a.129(C)(9) states, in pertinent part:
'Any alien who has filed an application for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident pursuant to Part 345 of this chapter may apply for employment authorization during the period that application is pending.'
A review of your record indicates that the Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status (I-485) you filed with this Service has been approved. The Form I-485 is therefore no longer pending with this Service and you are ineligible for employment authorization under 274a.12(c)(9).
There is no appeal to this decision. Please note that aliens who are lawful permanent residents of the United States are authorized to engage in employment. Please refer any question to your local INS office."
Monday, September 24, 2007
Someone Should Really Fix This Mess
Every once in a while, my News-Pater sends me a scan of some piece of note from their local fish-wrapper on Vancouver Island. The latest installment was a delightful piece on the demise/need for preservation of the English language by Iain Hunter. I was caught up short by this line:
"It's easier, I find, to maintain that anything in danger from vanishing from this planet should be preserved, and leave it to others to find ways to stop the planet itself from vanishing."
Much in my life these days echoes this sentiment... that all I can really handle right now is to maintain a small position on matters, and leave the BIG questions to those either smarter than me, or at least to those who get more sleep. The world and all its confusions and complexities and desperate need that someone know something for certain and act on it to fix things is quite beyond me these days. All I really know is who I care about and how much I love them and how incredibly vulnerable the whole shiteroo is to misunderstanding and miscommunication and messiness. We are in desperate need of a Savior.
"It's easier, I find, to maintain that anything in danger from vanishing from this planet should be preserved, and leave it to others to find ways to stop the planet itself from vanishing."
Much in my life these days echoes this sentiment... that all I can really handle right now is to maintain a small position on matters, and leave the BIG questions to those either smarter than me, or at least to those who get more sleep. The world and all its confusions and complexities and desperate need that someone know something for certain and act on it to fix things is quite beyond me these days. All I really know is who I care about and how much I love them and how incredibly vulnerable the whole shiteroo is to misunderstanding and miscommunication and messiness. We are in desperate need of a Savior.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
On The Fun of Shooting Video with A Still Camera
Two weeks ago, I shot a bit of video footage for a recent corporate "summer concert" event at work. The goal was to capture some folks with kids, wine glasses and mothers-in-law in tow having fun to post on our internal website. However, back then we were a low-budget/"this is just an experiment stage" kinda outfit. (Hey! this is Silicon Valley baby! We travel on internet-speed: Starbucks fueled, Wall St. observed and "if you don't work 14 hour days how committed are you?" time here! Two weeks is, like, so two weeks ago!) So back then, I didn't have a nifty hand-held company-sponsored video camera. (Do now.) So I volunteered my personal Christmas gift of last year: my Canon G7. It's a digital still camera with video capabilities.
And here's the fun part. When you approach people with a small black hand-held device that looks like a still camera, they think they are gonna have their picture took. Here's the trick: it's set on video. This means you get to capture people adjusting themselves. They unconsciously leak their perceptions of what makes them more attractive, or what they perceive as their "weaker bits." They believe they have a few seconds before you hit the "capture!" button. In those precious few seconds, they will hurriedly futz with what they think needs to be cloaked, hiked forward, smoothed down, covered with bangs, fluffed up, stuffed back, hid sorta sideways behind other people's body parts, centered, tucked in, or dug out of their teeth.
I'm too kind to ever eventually display those embarrassingly human and altogether predictable moves in a video. But I'm apparently not too kind to indulge in pushing the human play/drama just a bit further. In a spirit of clinical observation, ("... and this IS for posterity, so please be honest....") I have allowed people the time they think they need to become "acceptable" before the eye of the camera. Then, I let them wait there just a few more seconds longer than they think it should take for me to hit the darned "gotcha" button with their best wide open smile/spinach-checked-and-probably-artificially-whitened-teeth on display. And then their teeth start to dry out, and their upper lip gets stuck on them as their face slowly un-composes. And then they get cranky. And then I start to chuckle. Because their lips are now surely permanently stuck on their their upper teeth and they are miffed that the camera didn't work when they were so.... perfect!
You know, you'd think you'd get nicer as you get older. But on the trajectory I'm riding, by the time I'm 90, I'll be pulling the chairs out from behind the other old geezers in the cafeteria just before they sit down. Then I'll put the Depends to the test as I lay my head back and laugh until I almost choke on my dentures. And there will be no one to pat me on the back to dislodge them because I've been such a nasty old bird.
And here's the fun part. When you approach people with a small black hand-held device that looks like a still camera, they think they are gonna have their picture took. Here's the trick: it's set on video. This means you get to capture people adjusting themselves. They unconsciously leak their perceptions of what makes them more attractive, or what they perceive as their "weaker bits." They believe they have a few seconds before you hit the "capture!" button. In those precious few seconds, they will hurriedly futz with what they think needs to be cloaked, hiked forward, smoothed down, covered with bangs, fluffed up, stuffed back, hid sorta sideways behind other people's body parts, centered, tucked in, or dug out of their teeth.
I'm too kind to ever eventually display those embarrassingly human and altogether predictable moves in a video. But I'm apparently not too kind to indulge in pushing the human play/drama just a bit further. In a spirit of clinical observation, ("... and this IS for posterity, so please be honest....") I have allowed people the time they think they need to become "acceptable" before the eye of the camera. Then, I let them wait there just a few more seconds longer than they think it should take for me to hit the darned "gotcha" button with their best wide open smile/spinach-checked-and-probably-artificially-whitened-teeth on display. And then their teeth start to dry out, and their upper lip gets stuck on them as their face slowly un-composes. And then they get cranky. And then I start to chuckle. Because their lips are now surely permanently stuck on their their upper teeth and they are miffed that the camera didn't work when they were so.... perfect!
You know, you'd think you'd get nicer as you get older. But on the trajectory I'm riding, by the time I'm 90, I'll be pulling the chairs out from behind the other old geezers in the cafeteria just before they sit down. Then I'll put the Depends to the test as I lay my head back and laugh until I almost choke on my dentures. And there will be no one to pat me on the back to dislodge them because I've been such a nasty old bird.
Saturday, September 8, 2007
A Gadget Just Crying Out To Be Invented
So, I spent 11 stupifyingly irritating minutes just now looking for the darned tape-measure, and it hit me: the idea for a new household gadget for aging boomers that will generate Spousal Unit (SPU) and me untold TENS of retirement dollars!
Take those infuriating little RF ID tags I keep finding in books I have bought. And BTW, why the hell do they care where I take the book? Surely once it hits a cash register somewhere, their interest in tracking the artifact from production through purchase is DONE! But no! Months later, I'll be sitting in American Airlines SFO-to-JFK, seat 34D, trying to ignore the "sharers of intimate details" that I seem to attract like cat hair to my favorite black dress, and hello!... I turn to page 226 and on to my lap drops a little 1"x1" white bar-coded package that has evidently been emitting tracking bleeps or chirps or whatever it does from every lunch break room/bathroom/night table/travel briefcase it's been in since I bought the book. And who the hell is "they," anyway?!! Nonetheless, it's cool technology that will help me not eat cat food when I'm 80 so I'm moving on....
Anyway, we have RFID tags so let's slap 'em willy-nilly on things like tape measures and keys and the single jug of Windex we seem to be able to afford at one go in this household.
We also have remote control devices. I know this because I fight them on two fronts almost nightly. First, if I am Contender #2 in the media room, I lose. I don't lose graciously about anything, so I remember these incidents with frightening clarity. And secondly, if I'm Contender #1, I lose anyway. I can't figure out how to use the damn thing without it "freezing." (And HELLO! the "Honey, not tonight, I'm too cold" gig died out with the Stepford clan.) Nonetheless, I know remote control devices exist and some people have figured out how to 1) be Commander, and 2) make them submit. And these remote control devices come with scary names like "universal" and seem to be able to control almost anything in Bluetooth range, except of course a) the Remote Commander himself, and b) its own ability to function. Never mind... you take what you can get in these cool gadget fantasies.
Okay, so we have doomahickeys that can track stuff, and Bluetooth devices that can control doomahickeys.
We also have (and here is the BRILLIANT bit) aging folk (me) who cannot, under penalty of death, order poster frames on line because they can't remember what size the poster is AND can't find the tape measure, even though they are SURE they saw it yesterday in their own office. Dear SPU is napping (because he has worked really hard this week) on the couch we meant to throw out but forgot. And now I can't bring myself to wake him up to ask if he knows where the tape measure is. So we have a market need of a doomahickey device that can find stuff.
Here's how it would work.
The remote itself would be a type of clapper device ("Universal Clapper App"?) since, of course, if you couldn't find the friggin' remote, you'd be back just looking for the tape measure. So clap once, and a claxton, the decibels of which would rival the take-off revs of a Boeing 747, begins and you find the black box under couch cushion #4. Once in hand, the remote displays a simple menu of options, based on previously personally assigned and applied RFID tags:
1. Find keys to SPU's car.
2. Find keys to PFIFB's car.
3. Find sunglasses (all)
4. Find marbles
5. Find tape measure
Make your selection, track the beep and voila! Don't you think there is a TON of pennies to be made here?
BTW, SPU woke up, found the tape measure, and brought it to me with great relief and delight, presenting it with a "ta-DA!!" kinda joy.
And then I couldn't remember why I wanted it in the first place. Now THERE is an increasing problem just CRYING for a gadget!
Take those infuriating little RF ID tags I keep finding in books I have bought. And BTW, why the hell do they care where I take the book? Surely once it hits a cash register somewhere, their interest in tracking the artifact from production through purchase is DONE! But no! Months later, I'll be sitting in American Airlines SFO-to-JFK, seat 34D, trying to ignore the "sharers of intimate details" that I seem to attract like cat hair to my favorite black dress, and hello!... I turn to page 226 and on to my lap drops a little 1"x1" white bar-coded package that has evidently been emitting tracking bleeps or chirps or whatever it does from every lunch break room/bathroom/night table/travel briefcase it's been in since I bought the book. And who the hell is "they," anyway?!! Nonetheless, it's cool technology that will help me not eat cat food when I'm 80 so I'm moving on....
Anyway, we have RFID tags so let's slap 'em willy-nilly on things like tape measures and keys and the single jug of Windex we seem to be able to afford at one go in this household.
We also have remote control devices. I know this because I fight them on two fronts almost nightly. First, if I am Contender #2 in the media room, I lose. I don't lose graciously about anything, so I remember these incidents with frightening clarity. And secondly, if I'm Contender #1, I lose anyway. I can't figure out how to use the damn thing without it "freezing." (And HELLO! the "Honey, not tonight, I'm too cold" gig died out with the Stepford clan.) Nonetheless, I know remote control devices exist and some people have figured out how to 1) be Commander, and 2) make them submit. And these remote control devices come with scary names like "universal" and seem to be able to control almost anything in Bluetooth range, except of course a) the Remote Commander himself, and b) its own ability to function. Never mind... you take what you can get in these cool gadget fantasies.
Okay, so we have doomahickeys that can track stuff, and Bluetooth devices that can control doomahickeys.
We also have (and here is the BRILLIANT bit) aging folk (me) who cannot, under penalty of death, order poster frames on line because they can't remember what size the poster is AND can't find the tape measure, even though they are SURE they saw it yesterday in their own office. Dear SPU is napping (because he has worked really hard this week) on the couch we meant to throw out but forgot. And now I can't bring myself to wake him up to ask if he knows where the tape measure is. So we have a market need of a doomahickey device that can find stuff.
Here's how it would work.
The remote itself would be a type of clapper device ("Universal Clapper App"?) since, of course, if you couldn't find the friggin' remote, you'd be back just looking for the tape measure. So clap once, and a claxton, the decibels of which would rival the take-off revs of a Boeing 747, begins and you find the black box under couch cushion #4. Once in hand, the remote displays a simple menu of options, based on previously personally assigned and applied RFID tags:
1. Find keys to SPU's car.
2. Find keys to PFIFB's car.
3. Find sunglasses (all)
4. Find marbles
5. Find tape measure
Make your selection, track the beep and voila! Don't you think there is a TON of pennies to be made here?
BTW, SPU woke up, found the tape measure, and brought it to me with great relief and delight, presenting it with a "ta-DA!!" kinda joy.
And then I couldn't remember why I wanted it in the first place. Now THERE is an increasing problem just CRYING for a gadget!
To My Son-In-Grace
Dear Tim,
I've been thinking about the term "son-in-law" this week. What does it really mean?
I suppose the answer depends on who is asking the question, just as the "real meaning" of an apple will depend on whether you ask an orchard owner, a nutritionist, or a theologian. Likewise, if your daughter's man-picker is defective and you end up with less than optimum specimen living in your basement suite for four years while he "explores his options," then the term "son-in-law" is going to have a specific and very real meaning for you.
But the more I thought about you and the wonderful gift you have been not only to Pookie1 but to our entire family, the less appropriate the term became. "Son?" Absolutely, although I'm sure from your end there have been many times when you've watched our family together and wondered if it was really such a good idea to risk wading into this particular end of the gene pool. But from our end, it feels like you have brought in a piece that had been missing all along and we just hadn't known it until you showed up. As a clan, we are just better--happier, more optimistic, calmer, and most miraculously, more gracious with one another--with you here.
And that's where I stumbled this week on the "in law" part. Maybe that part was true for the moment you were signing the register in the Chapel in The Woods three years ago. But you are now our son-in-grace, by Grace, and we thank Him for you with great gratitude.
Love, The Mother-In-Law
NOTE: For email subscribers, please go to www.pinkfluffyicing.blogspot.com and view the streaming video directly from the website. Otherwise, if you click on the link below within your email program, it will need to download to your computer before you view it. This will take approximately until his next birthday, and you'll miss this year's Christmas video!
I've been thinking about the term "son-in-law" this week. What does it really mean?
I suppose the answer depends on who is asking the question, just as the "real meaning" of an apple will depend on whether you ask an orchard owner, a nutritionist, or a theologian. Likewise, if your daughter's man-picker is defective and you end up with less than optimum specimen living in your basement suite for four years while he "explores his options," then the term "son-in-law" is going to have a specific and very real meaning for you.
But the more I thought about you and the wonderful gift you have been not only to Pookie1 but to our entire family, the less appropriate the term became. "Son?" Absolutely, although I'm sure from your end there have been many times when you've watched our family together and wondered if it was really such a good idea to risk wading into this particular end of the gene pool. But from our end, it feels like you have brought in a piece that had been missing all along and we just hadn't known it until you showed up. As a clan, we are just better--happier, more optimistic, calmer, and most miraculously, more gracious with one another--with you here.
And that's where I stumbled this week on the "in law" part. Maybe that part was true for the moment you were signing the register in the Chapel in The Woods three years ago. But you are now our son-in-grace, by Grace, and we thank Him for you with great gratitude.
Love, The Mother-In-Law
NOTE: For email subscribers, please go to www.pinkfluffyicing.blogspot.com and view the streaming video directly from the website. Otherwise, if you click on the link below within your email program, it will need to download to your computer before you view it. This will take approximately until his next birthday, and you'll miss this year's Christmas video!
Monday, September 3, 2007
On the Miracle of Glass
I love glass.
I don't have normal Canadian flotsam/jetsam in my house. This is entirely fitting, since I am probably not a normal Canadian girl. Or a normal anything, for that matter, except history proves I can be normal when it counts.
I am a dust-prone, trinket-averse housekeeper. HA! First quadruple compound adjective in the English language! If this is not true or even grammatically correct, keep it to yourself. I'm recovering from a terror-riddled (but altogether successful) surgery and I've put in a full day at work and am rather fragile.
As I was saying, I am not a collector of stuff, even stuff that one probably/possibly should/could collect. I travel a lot. I have ample opportunities to bring home stuffage. What I bring home instead is images and the memory of the people I met along the way. Both will be easily displayed/dispersed/dismissed/ when I shake off these mortal coils. (Note to future biographers: the world heard it here first. "Walk softly and carry a small camera." I'm paraphrasing an old movie line, but if you aren't from that generation, it won't mean anything to you anyway. In fact, by now, you'll already have buggered off to see what's the latest video response on YouTube to Miss South Carolina's on-air debacle, God bless her poor numbed parents....)
Where was I?
Ah yes... glass. And why glass, today? Because my dear husband spent a painful portion of this aptly named Labour Day week-end putting in a line of glass blocks in my house for my aesthetic appreciation. Yes, the spelling of "labour" is Canadian. Look it up in your own well-thumbed version of the Canadian Oxford English Dictionary.
Why this fondness for glass? I don't know... Because I've always loved glass? Because it's a medium designed to transfer light? For the last 25 years or so, I resonate with that. To greater and WAY lesser degrees of success, I have discovered to my astonishment that I myself am a vessel designed to transmit light. The technical explanation goes on to say that ".... we [BTW, that's me, in between the "w" and the "e"] shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the Word of light in a dark and exceedingly sad and panicky generation...." I'm paraphrasing the Bible here, but hey! I know a few Greek words too, ya know.
Glass also appreciates the crushing pressure involved in transformation. What is glass, really, except the end result of silicon finally understanding that, under duress, stress, and a great deal of sweat on one's upper lip, that under intense pressure, one has been "sanctified" (set apart) to become something greater than oneself? And then becomes beautiful, and practical, and life changing? Think greenhouses, the miracle of microscopes, the pyramid in the Louvre...
Flashback: at nine years old, I stood in the smoke and darkness in a small building on an island off the coast of Venice. I watched men of immense lung capacity swoop globs of glowing molten silicon and breathe, fling and twist them into life. Bowls for grapes and strawberries, exotic fish escaping prey, and ashtrays for what was then still an acceptable form of social interaction, cigarette smoking. Could they have known that a skinny little Canadian kid who had traveled from Tanzania, with no volume control--or even on/off button--would remember this moment in her life? Probably not. And today, what little kid's life did you accidentally impact, forever?
Thanks, Dear Spousal Unit, for literally cementing a small portion of signature glass in to our home this week-end. Every time I look at it, I will understand it as a labour of understanding, and love.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
On the Pros and Cons of Accidental Eavesdropping, Part 2
There are very few pros to what happened next.
I had just barely recovered from the visual trauma of the imprint of the nurse's butt in the curtain, backing up into the limited space already fully occupied by my very narrow gurney, layered on the assault on my inner ear of the high-pitched whine of the Remington 500 applied to the correct knee of my nearest neighbor, Oral Surgeon_Cube 2.
Kathryn, the OR nurse (and BTW, the SECOND Kathryn of that specific spelling I had been introduced that morning, myself not included, which made three in the same building on any given morning, freaky in and of itself) had settled in and started to chat.
Let me just add that at this point, no lovely, clear liquid inducing the "Wwhheeee! Can we roll down the hallway again?" response had been added yet to my escape-preventive IV.
Kathryn Of The Blue OR Cap began apologizing that we were a few minutes late heading in to the operating room.
"We're just waiting for the rep. From the company that makes the machine that will be doing your surgery."
"Oh, wait... Is that her?" she asked of another blue-gowned, blue-capped Queen of the Nether Realms.
Yes, it was the rep. It would just be a few minutes while she "... told the doctor how the new machine worked."
Fabu. I was Patient #1 on the New Machine.
I hadn't known going in how keen I would be to see the anesthesiologist. But at some points in your life, you just have to trust that 1) God is in control, 2) new machines must be better than old machines, 3) medical device reps have a vested interest in doctors understanding REALLY well how the 'chinery is asspossedta work, and that it does, and 4) you will be blissfully unconscious in the unlikely event that variables 2&3 above turn out to be not true.
Anybody ever said the words "God, I trust you" and "Jeronimo!" in the same breath?
I had just barely recovered from the visual trauma of the imprint of the nurse's butt in the curtain, backing up into the limited space already fully occupied by my very narrow gurney, layered on the assault on my inner ear of the high-pitched whine of the Remington 500 applied to the correct knee of my nearest neighbor, Oral Surgeon_Cube 2.
Kathryn, the OR nurse (and BTW, the SECOND Kathryn of that specific spelling I had been introduced that morning, myself not included, which made three in the same building on any given morning, freaky in and of itself) had settled in and started to chat.
Let me just add that at this point, no lovely, clear liquid inducing the "Wwhheeee! Can we roll down the hallway again?" response had been added yet to my escape-preventive IV.
Kathryn Of The Blue OR Cap began apologizing that we were a few minutes late heading in to the operating room.
"We're just waiting for the rep. From the company that makes the machine that will be doing your surgery."
"Oh, wait... Is that her?" she asked of another blue-gowned, blue-capped Queen of the Nether Realms.
Yes, it was the rep. It would just be a few minutes while she "... told the doctor how the new machine worked."
Fabu. I was Patient #1 on the New Machine.
I hadn't known going in how keen I would be to see the anesthesiologist. But at some points in your life, you just have to trust that 1) God is in control, 2) new machines must be better than old machines, 3) medical device reps have a vested interest in doctors understanding REALLY well how the 'chinery is asspossedta work, and that it does, and 4) you will be blissfully unconscious in the unlikely event that variables 2&3 above turn out to be not true.
Anybody ever said the words "God, I trust you" and "Jeronimo!" in the same breath?
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