Tim Wilson
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Amazon – what does that have to do with books…or lawnmowers? (Yes, I bought a lawnmower on Amazon)
I guess these are the kinds of things I’m thinking of – real words in inappropriate contexts (Apple, Adobe, Brother, Amazon), for companies that became such big successes that they became synonymous with their fields….rather than entirely made up names…although Google as a made-up name is kinda hard to leave off the list.
Actually, Hulu is a good made-up name too. I waited waaaay too long to visit that place because the name didn’t make sense….but now I’m there a couple of times a week….
COW? Why that makes PERFECT sense.
🙂
Keep ’em coming….
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[Hunter Hempen] “seems pretty successful to me. Just sayin’.”
Exactly my point.
You and I both know that everybody who ever gave Steve advice BEGGED him not to name the company Apple. Anybody “serious” about computers would choose a company with a “serious” name.
In fact, Apple is definitely NOT a serious name. They wanted to do something different, and they did.
So did Adobe.
So did Yahoo.
So did Google.
So did Brother.
THAT’s my point. Somebody told those guys that they were idiots to choose names like that…and they did anyway…and they succeeded, “despite” their “ridiculous” names.
So back to the question – who else’s name belongs on the list?
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I LOVE Modern Family! One of the best new shows in years.
This was actually part of a roll-out of some juicy new ABC/Disney/Apple goodness. One of the laments of lack o’ Flash on the iWhatever is that you can’t take advantage of streaming video services like Hulu. ABC just rolled out an app that allows this very thing — free streaming of 20 of their shows, supported by very light advertising.
I’m also a huge fan of Hulu, streaming from a channel’s own website, etc. I never thought I’d enjoy TV on a computer, and in fact love it. Talk about unobtrusive, too – sometimes advertising takes up as little as a minute or two TOTAL in a streaming show, and several shows now offer an option of integrated, shorter ads, or watching, say, a movie trailer in exchange for commercial-free streaming.
And as you’d hope from a cleverly designed app, you can also go to iTunes to buy an episode or season pass in one click.
Check here for a great iPad clip from Modern Family.
Another great product placement from Comedy Central below, which includes a joke about product placements. “The big story tonight is…*I* have an iPad.” My favorite quote: “Just like the iPhone, you can’t make calls with it.”
The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Stephen Gets a Free iPad Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Reform Tim Wilson
Creative Cow Magazine!My Blog: “Is this thing on? Oh it’s on!”
Don’t forget to rate your favorite posts!
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[Walter Soyka] “I didn’t mean to come across as overly optimistic; I think that Ron’s response is really accurate. I really did intend my comment as a step 6 after the rest to try to change the relationship and preserve part of the billing, versus allowing the relationship to end entirely at the end of the training.”
That’s exactly where you need to be looking, Carol.
To take another tack on Ron and Walter’s very complementary points — the world is changing. The notion of what it means to be a video production expert is also changing. Try to keep doing the same thing you have been doing, and you guarantee your own irrelevance.
It is most definitely NOT enough to assume that your expertise is worth a thing to anybody. The whole “it’s not the tools, it’s the craft” thing is quite obviously going away fast.
You’re actually incredibly lucky. The client doesn’t need you to do the thing that you were originally hired for, but they have already asked to pay you for what they DO need from you. Now it’s time to embrace and extend. Are you ready to train people who are starting from zero?
Once you are, start looking for other *training* opportunities, not just production opportunities. I know a guy who, without a ton of experience of his own, found himself in a position to train high-level broadcast technicians and journalists in video production – they were experts in their own fields, but utter noobs in the basics of cameras and editing.
None of this jobs like this last more than a few days. But he has a lot of ’em.
This may not be a direction that you pursue. Maybe you’re not interested, or maybe there are too few opportunities where you live.
The point is that you have been given a gift – a new opportunity, with a check attached. The question that you need to answer is, is this a one-off, or does it offer additional opportunities?
Even if it’s a one-off for now, be on the lookout for what comes after. The only guarantee in this business is that you will become obsolete. You’re way, way ahead of the game if you can use this to your advantage, by getting paid to replace yourself (sez Ron), and turning that into a new business model for yourself (sez Walter).
As somebody who has spent much of the past 20+ years teaching, I’ll end with the trick that most teachers will die before telling you: always remember that somebody in the room will know more than you about something. Just stay about 45 minutes ahead of most of the class, and you’ll be golden. Bonus points if you can do that while learning from the kids in the class who know more than you do.
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As Ron mentioned in a later post earlier in the thread,
[Ron Lindeboom] “Thank you for realizing we were only trying to help you and not to pick on you, Mary. With your attitude, you will go far.”
I really like the subject of your original post, Mary. It said to me that you knew you were asking something outside your reach, but asking in good humor.
I’m reminded of something my friend Cammy’s grandmother used to say: “They say ‘gone off the deep end’ like it’s a BAD thing. Honey, if you jump in the shallow end, you’ll break your neck.”
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[Terry Mikkelsen] “Buy the floor models. Nobody wants to have to pack up and lug any more stuff than they need to and you get a great deal. (Obviously, not going to work for the lastest and greatest new gadget.)”
Or for anybody reading the rules. 🙂
I happen to be on the exhibitor site as we speak, as I wait on hold, and here’s what I see:
DIRECT SELLING: NAB strictly prohibits over-the-counter sales (i.e.: cash, check or credit card). Only bona fide business orders for future delivery are permitted. NAB reserves the right to close down booths in violation of this regulation.(Emphasis added by me.)
I have the impression that this was not always the case, but maybe I’m thinking of other shows that definitely DO have OTC sales.
Of course, folks may be more amenable to getting kicked out Thursday at 3 PM…but I wouldn’t count on it these days.
Never hurts to try, though!
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re: the “worth it”-ness of the sessions: yes. ESPECIALLY given the breadth of your interests.
re: the “afraid to miss out”-ness of your quest. You will. 🙂 We’re building in some features that we hope will make it easier for you, but the fact is that you’re trying to cover an awful lot of ground.
Advice that hasn’t come up yet: use Monday to see what you want to come back to. No need to bother with trying to get very deep into the information itself. Certainly no need to stand in line to talk to a rep, or listen over other people’s shoulders, unless that’s what you really want to do.
This is also the day to clear your head. Like all of Las Vegas, it is intentionally designed to keep you disoriented. Move slowly. Drink a lot of water. Treat Monday as your opportunity to refine the strategy that you planned before you got to town.
Tuesday is the day to stop by booths that you are your LOWER priorities. Hang around for any big demos that you missed Monday, but again, only dig deeper opportunistically, as you match the hassle of wading through crowds vs. seeing other stuff.
The fact is that the majority of people will be checking out that night. You’ll be shocked at how quiet the show is by Wednesday. That’s when to start getting up close with the products and people that you want to spend major coin on.
Thursday, except for the big camera booths, you’ll have the joint to yourself. Take allll the time you want.
While some smaller booths start breaking down after lunch, none of the big ones do. Those can take a month to set up (no kidding), and take weeks to break down (also no kidding), so they’re not going to hustle you out a few minutes early. Many of them even try to squeeze in a little MORE time Thursday, because the Broadcast Education Association conference starts with a reception Wednesday night, but a lot of those folks get to the floor for the first time on Thursday. But hey, they’re teachers. You can definitely muscle them around.
(Educators: I’m KIDDING.)
Even with all of this, you’ll still miss something. 🙂 The nature of the beast. But you maximize your chances by not trying to do everything at once.
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It is certainly worth noting that not every Google autocomplete is bizarre or apparently arbitrary:
Not to give away more than we’re ready to, but one of the several impetuses (it turns out that “impeti” is NOT the proper plural in English) that led us to reorient our thinking is in fact our very high rank at Google for virtually any search related to our industry. We have also very often seen high-ranking Google results pointing directly to specific posts, as well as threads where somebody posting actually says, “I found this thread on Google.”
So, since people are often looking for specific things, what can do to provide additional results that are also helpful? We’ve already started by including the “Related Threads” on post pages, tag clouds on the news pages, etc. But as Ron notes, we’re going much further than individual search results, to using this information to completely reconfigure the site for each visitor, as needed, on the fly.
Purty slick.
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There are entire websites devoted to bizarre Google autocomplete results (look up “autocomplete fails” – and note that many of these are truly, truly NSFW.
I showed this to a couple of minister friends, as well as to my father the missionary, and they all laughed, so take it in the spirit that it’s given – but this is a real live Google autocomplete result that you can test for yourself:
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I was so flabbergasted that there was nothing on the NAB site that I kept poking. I eventually found this, but man, it should NOT have been so hard to find.
In order for it to be really useful, you also need to follow the links in the left nav to the individual conferences…where you’ll see that there’s a ton of paid content that’s quite compelling. And of course plenty of free stuff in the general session that’s also quite compelling — starting with Stan Lee and Douglas Trumbull.
tw