Noctober Productions

Life is crazy, life is good

2010-09-01T06:14:00.001-07:00

After a ridiculously travel-intensive summer, we've returned to the normal hectic pace of the school year. At times, stress levels at Noctober Productions can be a bit high, but I keep thinking of the Trace Atkins song, "You're Gonna Miss This" and am pretty sure he is right.

Shout-down politics

2010-06-28T05:11:00.001-07:00

This weekend's inane interview of AFL-CIO economist and pundit Ron Blackwell by Fox News' Neil Cavuto was remarkable only for the crude language that managed to sneak onto the air during the host's bullying diatribe. I don't watch the show and this reinforces that decision. My reason? If I want to see party hackery in action I can just look up talking points on the Internet.

Will we ever return to an era where real, earnest debate is again an acceptable format? Does logic and a well-reasoned argument that stands its own ground without the support of statistical doublespeak have any place in our society today? Somehow it seems that the Jerry Springer audience now is THE audience catered to by all.

What a shame.

2010-05-06T06:19:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I hate being right all the time.

Nearly 13 years ago, I described an inevitable shift in advertising model pricing on the web (see earlier post on advertising equilibrium). In this scenario, ad prices would be determined as a function of risk & timing to the two parties involved. Performance based ads would be the most expensive (from an advertisers perspective) because of low risk and slow payment terms, while impression based deals (and fixed sponsorships) would be the cheapest for the opposite reason. I also wrote and talked about how a shrewd advertiser could exploit disequilibrium because it was commonplace for the actual price curve to be inverted, with performance-based deals being super cheap and CPM grossly overpriced.

Google's shift from CPM ads to CPC in 2003 was the first big indicator that equilibrium was on its way. Facebook's policy shift this week is another major step. In his blog article, Chris Trayhorn writes about the recent recommendation from Facebook to its advertisers that "if you want Facebook traffic, you’d better be buying CPC".

There will always be pockets of disequilibrium, and of course situations where a buyer or seller of ads will add more weight to things like payment timing than the market might ascribe for reasons of their own. However, the general availability of buyer surplus that has enabled really good web marketers to look like heroes to their employers will soon be drawing to a close. Bummer.

The bright side is that with each new medium that comes on scene and survives the evolutionary cycle (more on this another day), the possibility that a new disequilibrium may emerge to be exploited. Interestingly enough, I think the next exploitable curve is likely to come in the "traditional" media channels of print, broadcast, and out of home. We've still got some work to do to assess the true value of these media to marketers (e.g., "what is awareness worth?"), but it is coming fast. So take heart, smart marketers - and you online gurus? Well, your next frontier may be to go back to the old frontier, break out your jackhammers, and peel up some pavement for the untapped gold mines long ago overlooked but still out there.

Crazy Kickball 101

2010-05-03T18:40:00.000-07:00

2010-03-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

Thinking about a post regarding Twitter's value add in the realm of customer care. It isn't what most people think, but as of 11AM ET today, I now believe there may be a there there. More soon.

2010-03-05T09:17:00.001-08:00

Does the world really need another online video contest?

Sometimes I wonder if they are doing it on purpose. Agencies, I mean. Every single agency seems to have the exact same set of proposals (and media plans - that's for another day) and ideas that they pitch to every client they meet. Or is it just my company?

Yesterday, I saw, for what seems like the 100th time in the past 5 years, a recommendation that we pursue an online video contest for an upcoming campaign. Keep in mind, we are not a video company. We don't entertain people - we want to reach them and influence them and get them to choose us when it comes down to decision time. I'm just not sure how video contests are supposed to help with this.

Anyway, a quick glance at http://www.youtube.com/contests_main yields a lot of good info:

1) There are a ton of contests going on all the time.

2) There have been a ton of them that are now over.

3) Most of the submissions really suck.

4) In general, a good contest generates about 100,000-200,000 video views - hardly any exposure at all when you think about it as an advertiser.

I also think that many of the submissions come from the same people who really like submitting videos to contests. Most of these seem to have been shot with the built-in webcam and involve screen-lit faces rambling about nothing while looking at the screen just under the camera. Not a lot of them are good-looking people either. Are these really the people we want to market to? Or have marketing us? Seems maybe no.

Here's a thought - instead of trying to advertise on TV by developing a network, fan base, original programming, and slots in the program to insert advertising into maybe we could just buy ads on popular shows? Or product placements? Just sayin'.

If you have to do a contest, probably the best approach is to get people who are actually good at online video - Nalts, for example (www.willvideoforfood.com) and who have an audience to be the contestants. That way you get lots of exposure, better quality video, and way less cost.

Another idea is to do something really, really cool (like the new State Farm "This Too Shall Pass" ad - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qybUFnY7Y8w) and promote it so that it takes on a life of its own. Very costly but the results can be amazing.

What do you think?

2010-02-27T19:40:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. Maybe time to dust off the old brain...

Sex, Pranks and Reality - Forbes.com

2007-07-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

Sex, Pranks and Reality - Forbes.com

This is a good article, but I think the author misses the point somewhat. In fact, I am pretty sure she inadvertently plagiarized a bunch of articles that were written in 1994-1995 about the then-newborn World Wide Web. Is "being is Second Life" worthwhile for companies per se? No, not any more than using electricity within ones business is a competitive differentiator. As with the Web (or any other medium/business platform), the platform itself is not the point - it is what you do with it. VirtualAloft got shuttered because it had nothing to offer. Nissan Island, on the other hand, provides a place to drive your virtual car (which is actually somewhat worthwhile if you like that sort of thing.) IBM provides product seminars and demonstrations. Numerous universities have virtual classrooms. These are real business endeavors, not merely cool billboards.

...And You Press This Button To Fly

Steve McGookin has a much different take on the commercial possibilities of virtual worlds. He seems to imply that things like winged avatars and idealized body types will eventually go the way of cute signature lines, effusive smileys, and "kewl" email addresses (when is the last time you got a business card that had "cutie507@aol.com" printed on it?)

Real Men Love The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

2007-06-20T05:08:00.000-07:00

Real Men Love The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Perhaps the greatest movie of all time - and you probably have not seen it. This review, discovered recently, says it all. If you have not yet seen this cult classic (and your head has not exploded as a result), run, don't walk to half.com or netflix and get it.

Disclaimer - the acting is weak, the story line is ridiculous, special effects were cheap even for the time period, and the sound track is campy at best. BUT if you keep all of this in mind when you see it, you will love this movie more than you love... some other things that you love a little.

Corps: New doubts about N.O. pumps - Yahoo! News

2007-06-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

Corps: New doubts about N.O. pumps - Yahoo! News

It has been forever since I last posted, but the good news (note the sarcasm dripping from your screen) is that nothing has changed. The exodus from New Orleans continues, city still isn't fixed, pumps don't work, and nothing looks to be improving.

I simply don't understand.

We Are Sinking

2007-01-03T08:17:00.000-08:00


Funny video and good viral spread. Does this confirm that good viral marketing must equal humorous?

2006-12-18T05:49:00.000-08:00

Why I'm rooting for the Saints this year

Take a look at this article - New Orleans Brain Drain

We've talked about it, and now the media is waking up to it. There are clearly more than a few ways for a city to die - losing its doctors, educators, and administrators is a particularly painful one. The late Milton Friedman would probably argue that any deficit created by the departure of the young and talented will be filled by the market, but the market may well adjust for this through attenuated demand. In other words, other folks will leave, too.

I wish I had the solution - maybe all of the construction firms and land speculators should start thinking about this.

2006-12-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

Second Life: Your World. Your Imagination.

I bought an island yesterday. It is about 16 acres in size, sort of rhombus-shaped, with a lagoon in the middle. I'm not exactly sure where it is, but that's OK since I can move it later on if I need to.

If you don't know what I am talking about, visit SecondLife.com and download their application. This thing is the latest online fad and is growing like a weed (from about 200k members this past Spring to over 2 million today), and like a weed it may well die once the seasons change. Somehow, however, I think this might just have legs.

The way this virtual world has been created is much more true to the "parallel digital universe" (my own term) described in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash from 1993. It has an economy, the design and function of objects and places are controlled by the users, and there actually seems to be stuff going on there that does not involve cybersex and porn. (gasp!)

Perhaps this is the next manifestation of a mainstream web? The way this works is that you can just visit SecondLife's world (insiders just call it "SL" not to be confused with "RL" in which we are all actually breathing air right now), you can build up your own little piece of it on somebody else's "island," or you can actually have an island of your own built just for you on which you can pretty much do as you please. This sounds very geeky and gamey - but replace the words "visit," "little piece of it," and "island" with "surf," "website," and "web server" and you start to understand that what this really is just a 3D version of the mainstream Internet! It is worth noting that at its outset, a huge amount of the bandwidth consumed by the Web was also driven by sex and porn-related activity.

So I bought an island. It is for my company, and we're planning at least one interesting experiment with it, but I am being very cautious about whether or not it really will mean anything in the future.

Those of you who read this (Alex) can really load up on your social currency in advance of holiday parties to come by getting this set up now and dropping mention of it in discrete circles. Sure, they'll think you are a big geek, but at our ages (and since we're all pretty much married now), let's face facts - we are big geeks.

See you in Second Life!

- Chime Bellman

2006-07-10T11:17:00.000-07:00

1st Katrina insurance lawsuit opens today - Yahoo! News

All eyes on this case, most certainly. I wonder how many people have not filed a flood insurance claim because they don't want to invalidate their homeowner's claim? What about people outside the flood area - have they experienced problems getting their claims paid out?

Obviously money - flowing to the actual homeowners with a personal vested interest in their property - is critical to the rebirth of the city. Will it come?

2006-06-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

Muddy "Katrina cars" take final ride - Yahoo! News

When Alex took me and some work colleagues around New Orleans, a repeated theme was the sheer intimidation presented by the number of things that needed to be done. In response to a question about the danger of black mold, Alex showed us a typical flooded home in which mold of every shade, color, and variety had taken over where the residents had left off, creating their own unique (and foul) culture. "Black mold is probably the least of our problems now," he said.

Same went for the marina, where 6- and 7-figure yachts and cruisers were tossed around the parking lot and in the water like old soda cans in a dump and decades-old restaurants had been literally ripped from their foundations and dragged out to sea. Same went for the city's gardens in many areas.

I remember, shuddering, each time Jamie and I had to pack to move to a new home. The mass of possessions, taking on the temporary mental label of "crap," overwhelmed us at the outset of each move. Just getting started took a concentration of willpower that far surpassed what one might expect. To me, the recovery of New Orleans is like that same challenge multiplied by 20 million raised to the power of the number of elements of the task that could potentially kill you.

It will be nice to get rid of the cars stacked under the highways. Unfortunately this will only reveal something equally ugly, annoying, or dangerous that was sitting underneath them for the past 10 months.

2006-06-08T05:28:00.000-07:00

Hotel offers BlackBerry detox - Yahoo! News

If my company starts to explore this in our hotels, I may have to quit. The very thought of not having my Blackberry buzzing happily at my waist gives me the DTs.

Yes, this is very sad.

2006-06-05T06:29:00.000-07:00

Duck X-ray reveals 'alien head' - Yahoo! News

Sorry for the slow-post season. This news story is a bit off-topic, even for this eclectic blog, but if you are looking for a conversation starter background image for your PC, consider this lovely photo. Does anyone have Agent Mulder's latest contact info, by the way?

2006-05-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

Daniel, Sarah, Caroline, Jamie and I went to Turner Field last night to see the Braves take on the Marlins. It was Daniel's first baseball game (the girls' second). We arrived about an hour before the first pitch - time enough to enjoy the fun of the ballpark. The big hit (so to speak) was Tooner Field, the Cartoon Network-themed play area for kids. There, something wonderful, and hysterical, happened.

Take a look at this(Click here)

(It is big, but worth it.)

I'm a proud Daddy whose sides still hurt from laughing!

2006-05-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

HealthDay
Read this article. Juan Gershanik is the last guy on earth to blow his own horn, but clearly he and his colleagues are among the many unsung heroes of Katrina. Take a look at this photo: - could be a Pulitzer winner if you knew the back story.

Wow.

2006-04-28T10:44:00.000-07:00

NOLA.com: Times-Picayune Updates - Click to read about the huge potential problem with the pump system.

Ugh. The levee breaks were the news and the root cause of the flooding, but it is important to understand that the system was designed for flooding. For this purpose, the city of New Orleans is surrounded by massive pumping stations which are there to get rid of floodwater.

It is critical to have stronger levees, but if the pumps are not (1) working properly and (2) shielded from water damage they will not be able to handle even simple things like heavy rainfall, something that is not only predictable but happens almost every day in the next couple of months.

Come on.

2006-04-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

This house actually floated off its foundation and landed on the owner's car. Remember, all of this happened 8 months ago - in a major US city (and it still is in this condition!)
Lower Ninth Ward pics - these were homes, mostly privately owned. All gone now.

2006-04-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

TechCrunch � AllOfMP3 Launches allTunes

My favorite legal MP3 store - I'm pretty sure it is legal, anyway. If you can buy a pair of Levis in Atlanta for $35 but can get the same pair in Moscow for $3.50 after the exchange rate, is it ethical to do so? What if your travel costs were free? That's pretty much the premise of this Russian-based music store. The prices they charge (about $0.10 per song, depending upon the compression you choose) are based upon the prices in Russia, where they operate as a music reseller. They've been challenged in Russian court by the RIAA and "won" by virtue of the case being thrown out by the courts.

Anyway, the new tool, alltunes.com, is most likely an attempt to address the pitfalls of the browser-based allofmp3.com storefront, namely the kludginess of downloading the songs you purchase. Their previously launched AllofMP3.com Explorer works pretty well, but it does not bring them into iTunes' league in re: customer experience.

If you have yet to join the age of digital music, know that when you do you'll have a very good way to fill up your iPod without draining your bank account.

One final tip - your credit card bank will likely deny your initial attempt to pay this retailer. They assume it is fraud until you clear it in advance with them.

2006-04-10T05:21:00.000-07:00

New Orleans R&B star begins posthumous mayoral bid - Yahoo! News

The cynics are moving into New Orleans. Well, they've probably been there are for a while.

I returned to New Orleans for a brief visit two weeks ago. The company conference I attended was downtown and mostly contained within the hotel or the nearby sections of the French Quarter. From there, you could almost think the city was fine.

Alex showed us the face behind the Mardi Gras masque, however. He took me and two work colleagues for a 2 1/2 hour tour of the city which left us all speechless after about 15 minutes. Less than 5 blocks from the French Quarter we took pictures next to a house that had floated off its foundation and settled on the owner's car. The house is still full of furniture and clothing, all befouled by the floodwaters. This was the less-damaged part of town.

A short drive later and we were in the most damaged part of town - the lower Ninth Ward. Somehow even the name of this section of New Orleans evokes images of tenements and squatter shacks to those of us outside the city. The reality is far more depressing. This was a low-income neighborhood of single-family homes, most of which were owned by their residents. This was the working poor - not those on public assistance. Not the destitute that we all like to pretend does not exist in this country. These were the folks who were getting by pretty well. (A shopkeeper in the French Market had earlier described how a person could get by pretty well in New Orleans on a couple of thousand dollars a month in income - unlike most major cities).

This neighborhood is gone. Not damaged, not empty. Gone. There are piles of rubble everywhere, much of which looks a little like houses. Close to the levee break there is little but the foundations upon which houses once sat. Think of a war-ravaged city that was then hit by a tactical nuclear weapon and you'll start to get the picture.

From this happy place, we went through into St. Bernard Parish where we saw miles & miles of ugly brown lines across the sides of empty houses (the high water mark). We peered inside of some of these homes, admiring the patterns of mold covering walls and ceilings. In most cases, couches and chairs seem arranged in the least appealing and functional manner possible - but then you realize that the layout was done by tidal effects within the home itself over a period of weeks.

The tour took us back into Orleans via Lake Terrace, Lake Vista (not that bad) and near Lakeview.

The good news is that work is being done, some people are back (there were FEMA trailers everywhere), and the overall attitude could have been much, much worse.

We took a bunch of pictures, so when I get copies, I will post them for posterity. Thanks again, Alex, for the tour and for opening our eyes.

2006-03-20T09:53:00.000-08:00

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP - United States - Trademarks on the Internet � Fair Play or Fair Game? (16/03/2006) from Mondaq

Here's a change of pace for you. This article presents a pretty good summary of the challenges of trademark law in the Internet age. Weigh in with your opinion.

2006-03-20T09:50:00.000-08:00

Grim find shows normalcy still eludes New Orleans - Yahoo! News

(Click on title above to see full article).

"Katrina Fatigue" may be widespread, but the bottom line is that there are 400 people still missing more than 7 months after the tragedy. This is America still, right? Home of CSI and Murder, She Wrote and Bones? We can figure out what the driver of a stolen taxi was eating for breakfast on the basis of a dislodged pebble from his tire tread, but we can't find bodies in a demolished city area? Here's a hint: look under the rubble of the places where the people LIVED.

I'm coming across as a bit bitter today. Not sure why.

Maureen told me the other day that mail service to their home is "every couple of days," restaurants are open only occasionally with very limited hours, grocery stores are crowded (since many are still not open) - in short most of what we take for granted in this country is simply not happening in New Orleans. Again, is this still America?

2006-03-20T08:17:00.000-08:00

NOLA.com: Times-Picayune Updates:
Insurance costs for Louisiana residents and farmers will increase by 50% but will cover substantially less (things that actually cause damage and the need for insurance, for example). Hurricane damage? Not covered. Hail? Nope.

I like to look on the bright side of things. Here's my attempt for this one - since the local economies have been devastated by the aftereffects of Rita and Katrina, people probably could not have afforded the rates at the original levels, so they aren't actually any worse off.

My favorite quote:

"'The only way we survived those events was reinsurance,' VanDreumel said. 'The only reason we're doing this is the cost of reinsurance.' "

In other words - we had to pay out a ton of money for last year's claims. Now we have to get it back from these horrible people to whom we paid it.

Argh.

2006-03-15T06:06:00.000-08:00

AOL video service to debut with Intel, Kraft ads - Yahoo! News

Former Nexchangers continue to be ahead of the curve in all things Internet. Joe Michaels was recently promoted to Director, Business Development for MSN. He does all of the MSN entertainment deals including video and other streaming content. Now AOL wants to catch up a bit. Joe, your market value is skyrocketing by the minute! Way to go, bro! "You're da best!"

2006-02-21T04:55:00.000-08:00

NPR : Resistance Grows to Arab Firm's Control of Ports

This article (and voice piece) also describes how one of these ports is in New Orleans.

Tough question - money is money, and the city needs it. But is money money?

Somehow this post turned out kind of trite, but I do think there is a point to ponder here.

2006-02-15T10:06:00.000-08:00

NPR : U.S. Gold Medalist Donates Award to Darfur Refugees

This was very cool. I'm pretty jaded about the activism of celebrities (for example, the pet rescue squads led by celebs in New Orleans). This usually smacks of self-righteousness and public relations and flies in the face of multi-million dollar divorce settlements, sex-party yachting, and mansion-swapping that will often precede or follow such actions.

This guy managed to be incredibly genuine. In part, perhaps, because he is not a celebrity. In part because of his frank assessment of the relative importance of "people sliding around in a circle on ice wearing tights" vs. world hunger. Perhaps more than that because prior to his winning the gold, he was not even close to being a celebrity. And because he really could have used the money.

I look forward to seeing what happens to this guy. Does he become a celebrity himself, appearing on Wheaties boxes, guest roles on Real World-Road Rules Challenge IV, and endorsements? Nothing wrong with that but what kind of person will he become?

Something to Ponder.

2006-02-13T06:50:00.000-08:00

In Small Town, 'Grease' Ignites a Culture War - New York Times

Who gets to decide what is appropriate? People just don't seem to be able to think ahead, ever. We agree to the suspension of civil liberties and to censorship with the idea that it's the other guy's speech that will be limited or that we will be the censors.

We think "why would the government want to tap my phone? I'm not a terrorist?" and allow them to move forward.

But we live in an evolving society in which there is heterogeny of viewpoints, moral philosophies, political leanings, or ethnicity. What happens when the censors/speech restrictors/wiretappers don't share our viewpoint? Would the conservatives in our country be so comfortable with wiretapping (sans warrant) if Al Gore was the executive running the program?

I can just see a small town in the midwest having a population shift towards naturalized middle easterners and choosing to ban a play about King Arthur because of the way the crusaders ravaged the cities of the Ottomans that they went through.

2006-02-13T05:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the Best of New Orleans! Cover Story 10 20 03

This article (click the title above) is worth reading again now that the storm waters have receded. How many of the folks on this list have left the city? How many of those since Katrina? I know that Scott Dawson is gone. He was the General Manager of the InterContinental New Orleans. Scott was a good GM, but I heard through the grapevine that managing a hotel full of FEMA-paid guests was markedly different than managing a hotel full of upper-upscale clientele. It took its toll on the staff and, apparently, on Mr. Dawson as well.

Of course the "multi-talented" leader profiled in this article who has decidedly NOT left is our very good friend, the President of the Power Courses. Thanks for staying around, Alex.

2006-02-06T06:22:00.000-08:00

Technology stability - An Unattainable Goal?

Have you ever had to reboot your toaster? In the world of old-school electronics and gadgetry, the world is a binary equation - the thing either works or it doesn't. If it doesn't, if it is expensive you consider fixing it. If it is relatively cheap, you throw it away.

Today, Yahoo appears to be experiencing a service outage for its My Yahoo! customers. Yahoo is the most established online media outlet in the world. They serve more than 70% of Americas Internet users and a sizable chunk of the rest of the world's as well. Their entire business is their websites.

And they are broken this morning.

What does this say about technology? Its future? How it should be used?

The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that you can measure either the velocity of an object as it travels through space or its position, but never both at the same time. Is there a corollary for technology today? My thinking is this: stability requires static technology (no enhancements/changes); progress requires change. Therefore to remain competitive, compelling, and useful over time, you must adapt and change your technology. But this change creates instability (and is, by definition, instability) and with instability inevitably comes unreliability.

Given the competitive pressures of the world, I cannot foresee a static Yahoo. It would be marginalized in about a week. But who can trust a mission-critical function to something which may not be reliable? Would you fly a plane if every 10,000 seconds the engines cut off without warning? (that's 99.99% uptime) Would you use an oven if the voltage regulator managing the current flowing to the oven let massive bursts of energy flood your house every so often? Before you say no, consider the alternative - would you be happy cooking with the appliances used by your grandmother's grandmother? The pace of technological change (that has upped the ante for what is required in order to live) is such that this 4-generation gap occurs in about 1/10th the time now, so sticking with what you have right now will leave you obsolete within about 15 years.

This is a pretty rambly post, but my inability to access my My page today made me think of this.

2006-02-03T07:29:00.000-08:00

Slashdot Last NTP Patent Tentatively Thrown Out

Ahhh, E-Commerce patents - the great debate. As a patent holder, I believe that they are, in principle, valid. There are some bad patents undoubtedly - the OpenMarket shopping cart patent perhaps. But there are some good ones.

My perspective - this is like what happened after the commercial viability of electricity became mainstream. Suddenly people were "electrifying" everything that had been manual before. Water pumps - add an electric motor. Toast-makers? Make 'em electric. Cars? Make them electric (and kind of slow, with a short battery life and no trunk space).

Water pumps were certainly not novel, but isn't the whole idea of patent law to incent the inventor to improve upon the original? E-Commerce certainly has its advantages over its analog predecessors, and even Luddites out there (who can't possibly be reading this) would agree that SOME people find the Internet useful for commerce purposes. Does it not make sense that patents will be written to cover inventions in this arena?

2006-01-30T19:46:00.000-08:00

The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing

Bill Nussey is the CEO of Silverpop, an email marketing services firm based in Atlanta. Very good guy, smart, with excellent dot-com and professional services management experience. If you are interested in learning about email marketing, there are worse places to turn to.

Not sure why I am blogging these seeming non sequiturs, but I saw the title of my blog and thought it was somehow appropriate.

Alex, if you read this, note that you can append comments to my posts. Do so. It will be a good way to ease into making your own blog.

2006-01-30T19:41:00.000-08:00

The Straight Dope Front Page

For no particular reason, I thought of my old friend, Cecil Adams. I've never actually met Cecil, but he contributed a significant portion of my personal compendium of eclectic facts. Especially the ones that are true.

Worth a read, especially if you can bring your laptop to the bathroom.

2006-01-23T07:39:00.000-08:00

One of the unintended consequences of the evacuee housing benefit offered by FEMA is the impact to hotel tax revenues for the city of New Orleans. Municipalities cannot impose taxes on hotel stays of longer than 30 days. As you can imagine, this is an important revenue source for New Orleans, so they were already taking a big hit. Now that FEMA has again extended the funding of hotel stays, this tax hit is going to be exacerbated. Mardi Gras is a season of very high hotel rates and occupancy, so good tax revenues. Nagin is working hard to assure the world that Mardi Gras is still on for 2006. But where will they stay?

Here is my company's notice on the issue:

ATLANTA – January 23, 2006 – Some of InterContinental Hotels Group brand hotels in the New Orleans area continue to house a large number of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who have lost their homes. As a result of the FEMA evacuee housing extension to March 1, 2006, some of our New Orleans hotels may be overbooked during the Mardi Gras season and unable to accommodate incoming guests with confirmed reservations. Guests traveling to New Orleans for Mardi Gras with reservations at IHG brand hotels are strongly urged to contact IHG’s dedicated travel advisory line at 1-800-334-3598, or call the hotel directly, to ensure that rooms are still available prior to travel. It is our intent to put evacuees as our top priority, and we have encouraged IHG hotels to give evacuees precedence in fulfilling room requests. It is our hope that guests who have previously booked rooms with those IHG hotels will understand our commitment to provide shelter to those evacuees with nowhere else to go. We will work with guests affected by this situation to help them find alternative accommodations.

BTW, most hotel franchisees are not paying royalties on the housing revenues they receive from FEMA. This means that the franchisors, already facing depleted inventory in their properties, have less incentive to promote the destinations in their own marketing initiatives. Another unintended consequence.

2006-01-19T07:39:00.000-08:00

STI: ERsys - New Orleans, LA (Ethnicity)

This site has an interesting chart related to my last post. It does not view the ethnic makeup of the city the way the locals do, but it is interesting.

Most distinctly worth noting is the overall heavy concentration of 50-75 year olds in most parts of the city. This is clearly a town that has lost its appeal to my generation (no big surprise). Isn't that a big problem?

I'm proud of a friend of mine for recently (pre-Katrina) being named as one of the most influential New Orleaners under 40 - he would have been on the list in almost any city - but the honor is cheapened by the fact that there are so few in that population segment to choose from!

How can this cultural gem of the US turn this around? San Francisco shares the cultural appeal of New Orleans but is perceived as a virtual Mecca for my generation. What would it take to make this happen for New Orleans?

At this point, I would not be surprised to see the under-40 population of Savannah surpass that of New Orleans, especially among the middle class, before 2020. Ridiculous.

2006-01-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

New Orleans mayor sorry for 'chocolate' remark - Yahoo! News

Nagin needs a better handler. He is a compelling speaker but has done as much damage to the city's efforts to rebuild with comments like these as he has done good in raising awareness of the real scope and impact of the problems.

New Orleans was and will always be a "creole" city in the literal, not ethnic sense. A little of this and a little of that, mixed together with concentrations here or there but overall a nice mix.

From a wealth standpoint, caucasians will still dominate. From a population standpoint, black and Creole will maintain pluralities (or close to it), but assuredly Hispanic is on the rise and will be a major influence on city activities.

Do we need to quote Rodney King here? I'm not one to pretend that race and ethnicity is not a real issue and can be ignored, but to we have to fan the flames of polarization?

2006-01-19T05:20:00.000-08:00

Brown Accepts More Blame on Katrina - Yahoo! News

Ya think?

Look, scapegoats are useful. They present a solid target at whom we can vent frustration, anger, grief, or any other negative emotion. Brown was the wrong man for the job when he was appointed and did a lousy job when this first huge-scale disaster came along. But his qualifications were no secret BEFORE his appointment. And disasters happen ALL THE TIME.

We need to step up as citizens and take a more active role in the leadership of our country. If we don't like a proposed candidate for a federal appointment, speak up! Write your congressman, senator, favorite lobbyist, in-law's 3rd cousin who used to be a legislative aide on the Hill, whatever.

At some point, we have to recognize that this truly is a government "of the people" - meaning us. My grandfather used to challenge his daughters whenever they would complain about an unflattering photo that had been taken of them. He'd say, "it's you, isn't it?"

Well, we don't like this particular picture of the government, and with very good reason, but this government did not happen to us - we made it.

By the way, I voted for W. Twice. Didn't particularly like him either time but had my own, non-zealous reasons for giving him the nod. Brown, therefore, is partially my fault.

And yours.

2005-12-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

This one is just about perfect:

(by Boysie Bollinger)
There's not a working clock in this entire city. This morning I went on my walk and the big clock by St. Patrick's Church on Camp said it was 2:30; as I walked on, the Whitney clock said it was 11:15, and by the time I hit the French Quarter a clock there told me quite firmly that it was 6:00 o'clock.

I'm not really surprised at this - New Orleans has always had a problem with time. Time is not linear here; this is a city where people live in two hundred year old houses, have wireless Internet and use 600-year-old recipes while singing 60's songs to their newborns. Time is more of a mental game in New Orleans...you can pick the year you liked the best and stay in that year for the rest of your life here and no one says a thing. You can talk about your great great grandparents as if they were still alive and talk about your neighbors as if they were dead, and we all understand.

Time marches to it's own drunk drummer here. This morning as I walked into the Quarter on Chartres, a woman ran out of a cafe to greet me, "Hey dahlin" she yelled as she hugged me, "Where ya been?" I looked at her and realized it was one of the exotic dancers from one of the smaller establishments on Chartres; over the years I'd become friendly with several of the dancers as I would take my morning walk. We'd smile, wave, and exchange pleasantries. This morning I realized that even though I had said hello to this woman three times a week for four years, I didn't know her name. I smiled, hugged her back and told her how badly I felt that I never knew her name and she laughed "Dahlin, you know my name, it's Baby!" Time to laugh out loud.

Twenty minutes later as I walked up Royal from Esplanade on my way out of the Quarter, a dark sedan stopped in the street right by the Cathedral and all four doors opened at once. I was twittering with curiosity when the driver hopped out, ran to the other side and escorted a smiling [former Ambassador[ Lindy Boggs out of the car. Before I could stop myself I'd yelled out, "Hey Lindy, good to see ya!" Mrs. Boggs, accustomed to such raffish behavior smiled and yelled out "Hey yourself" as she waved, laughed and headed to church, surely thinking it's time to pray for better manners for the likes of me.

We're dealing with a lot of time issues these days, time to meet the insurance specialist, time to call FEMA, time to put out the refrigerator, time to get a new refrigerator, time to decide whether to stay in New Orleans or head elsewhere, time to register the kids for school, time to sell the house, time to buy the house, time to find a job, time to leave a job, time to figure out the rest of your life.

Could we maybe, while dealing with all those time issues, take a minute and remember? Remember that there was a time when all of this was different, there was a time when slaves were sold in the Napoleon House, a time when Mid-City was considered the country, a time when people staged sit ins downtown, a time when there was no McDonald's or Wendy's or even Popeye's, a time when the Quarter burned, a time when people spoke French or Spanish, a time when the Opera House was open, a time when this was all uninhabited, a time when your refrigerator worked, your house was whole, your neighborhood wasn't flooded and your city wasn't defined by a Hurricane.

More than any other city in this country, this is a city defined by the quality of the times people have had here. Maybe it's because it's a port city, maybe it's because of the food, maybe it's because of the heat, but this city remembers everyone who has ever lived, loved and laughed here. People visit us because they can feel the difference as soon as they get here, they can feel how time is honored here, in the time to craft our houses and the time to make a roux. They can feel that the city holds all of our memories, our joys, our sorrows and our triumphs. That any time spent in New Orleans is kept in the breath, air, water and sky of New Orleans. What happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, but what happens in New Orleans changes the city and its people, minute-by-minute, day-by-day, year-by-year, so that we can't help but live in the past, present and future.

Time will tell what we will end up looking like, how strong the levees will be, how many houses will be repaired, but we will tell time how strong the people of New Orleans are, how deep our commitments to each other are, and that sometimes the best stories are the ones we write for ourselves.

Once upon a time in a city called New Orleans......

Worth passing along, I think. I received this via email from one of my uncles.

2005-11-30T09:15:00.000-08:00

Good to see that some folks have a sense of humor. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_holiday_display

Not sure if the announcement this week about the opening of Ben Franklin school will be good or bad. It is good if it shows the world (and diaspora of residents) that the city is coming back. Bad if it aggravates Katrina Fatigue that would be bad. I'm a little concerned that some folks might take this as a sign that the crisis has passed. This is FAR from true. Only about 100,000 people have returned to their homes in the city, and among these folks, some long-time residents are deciding to pack it in and move out, according to my old friend Mr. Gershanik.

Thanksgiving has passed, and I, for one, felt I had more to be thankful for than ever.

2005-11-04T14:36:00.000-08:00

These are appalling. The Michael Brown email trail will make you cringe.

2005-11-03T14:30:00.000-08:00

This Louisiana blogger asked if I would link to his site. Sure - why not? Check out THE RIVER RING

2005-11-03T14:28:00.000-08:00

Great story on "mainstream" media outlet - NPR's Morning Edition. NPR : Government to Redistribute Katrina Contracts

2005-10-25T12:33:00.000-07:00

Article on Louisiana Unemployment

Here is an example of the problem. This report stats important information but does not link the information with other obvious questions, such as "How much of the federal government's $60 billion will be spent helping people who have been unemployed as a result of the storm find employment?" or even better "Is the government making use of available Louisiana labor a priority in FEMA contractor selection?"

Now this article: New Orleans seeks federal aid for courts, jail starts to scratch the surface a little, but will it get picked up by the major media outlets (it is a Reuters service piece).

In another story (with positive implications), some evidence that the recommended model is being adopted in some cases - U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and MWH Help Put New Orleans Area Utilities and Local Contractors Back to Work

2005-10-25T05:50:00.000-07:00

New Orleans, Katrina, FEMA, and the aftermath

My friend Alex has just returned to his home in uptown New Orleans. They have power and water, but the city is far from returned to normal. Alex is a very intelligent and well-informed citizen and his role as an officer of the local United Way chapter has given him unique access to the situation on the ground. Unfortunately, the news is not good.

The city of New Orleans is nearly bankrupt. The absence of commerce, the exodus of its tax base, and some ironic aspects of even the good stuff that is happening means that the city's revenues have ground to a halt. Few people realize that of the $60 billion approved for relief by the federal government, the city of New Orleans (i.e., government) receives almost none of this. 3,000 city workers (about half of the staff) has been laid off in the past couple of weeks, and the city's ability to pay the remaining workers is seriously threatened. Recently, Congress allocated $750 million of the $60 billion to be shared with affected municipalities across the gulf region, but this is a drop in the bucket compared to what is really needed.

The situation was not helped by the asinine proposal by the state's two senators to grant the state of Louisiana an astronomical $250 billion in federal aid IN ADDITION TO the $60 billion. This proposal would be equal to nearly 10% of the entire federal budget and was ridiculous. The resulting loss of credibility in congress means effectively that the state is unlikely to receive any material aid from the feds.

So where is the money going? FEMA is hiring contract services firms, like Haliburton, to clean up the city. These firms are subcontracting out the work to firms around the country. For example, the removal of stranded, ruined cars from throughout the city is being conducted by a firm based in California. This firm did not use local labor and trucks, but instead drove its own trucks from California and hired migrant labor for some of the more menial tasks. This example highlights a pattern for the city.

The mainstream news media is divided into two camps - those outlets who operate as a political engine (conservative talk radio, Fox News, etc.) are propogating spin - New Orleans is suffering because of a bad mayor and a bad governor but the federal government is doing wonders. The more liberal or independent media outlets are focusing on human interest stories - the tragic circumstances of evacuee families, the plight of an unemployed New Orleans worker, etc. NO ONE is covering the story of how the federal money is being spent and the realities of the city's economic situation.

Is Nagin the best mayor? Probably not. But is the situation his fault? No, not by any reasonable measure. You cannot ask a government to operate effectively with no money and no means to earn revenues.

New Orleans will eventually recover much of the magic that the world has known for centuries. But the process is abominable and appears to be done entirely the wrong way. Any ideas about how to escalate the visibility of this?

Ugh.

2005-10-14T09:46:00.000-07:00

In 1996, I started writing about advertising price equilibrium on the Internet. (Yep, this is a yawner, folks.) 9 years later, I'm still talking about it, but more than that we are leveraging this within IHG E-Commerce. My theory revolves around the premise that advertising costs are a function of risk and timing combined with the value of the advertiser's desired outcome plus any branding value. Here is my first attempt to express this function mathematically:

Price of Advertisement = [(Risk/Uncertainty) X Timing] X Value of desired outcome + Branding value.

Risk describes which party - the advertiser or the publisher - is bearing the risks of the advertisement. If the advertiser is required to pay irrespective of performance metrics, his risk is greater. If the publisher is not paid unless a sale (or equivalent desired outcome) is achieved, she bears the risk. For the advertiser's cost model

Timing refers to when payment is made for the ad. This value ranges from prepayment to payment in arrears, with a lower value for payment terms similar to prepayment and a higher value for payment in arrears (inverted for the publisher's pricing model).

Uncertainty takes into account asymmetry of information between the advertiser and publisher. For the advertiser, this factor is highest in the first instance where a particular ad placement is purchased by an advertiser (so it would have a value between 0.0 and 1.0, with a lower value indicating greater uncertainty). For the publisher, this risk continues as long as they are not able to access income about the success rate in achieving the advertiser's desired outcome and the value placed on that outcome by the advertiser. Publisher's tend to deal with this uncertainty by under-pricing ads, so values here would be greater than 1.0. An absence of uncertainty (perfect information) would yield a value of exactly 1.0.

Value of desired outcome is entirely determined by the advertiser. This needs to be a real, fixed value in order for this theoretical model to actually be useful in pricing. For some firms, it may mean reaching an arbitrary value by consensus until a more mature and robust valuation model can be built.

Branding value, also determined largely by the advertiser, attempts to quantify what an impression is worth irrespective of the specific, trackable outcome that might otherwise be desired. (This one gets tricky not because in some cases the impression is the desirable outcome, but because most advertisers do not have this metric defined and this would vary from publisher to publisher or even placement to placement.)

I have a powerpoint chart which expresses this function graphically, and at some point I'll publish it to this forum in some way.

Increasingly, I find myself thinking that there might be a book in this somewhere. My friend Bill Nussey, author of The Quiet Revolution in Email Marketing advises me that this is a minimum 1,000 hour effort even with a professional writer.

2005-10-03T11:00:00.000-07:00

Find out how some of the world’s most successful companies are taking advantage of the international online marketplace and how they are expanding their brands beyond domestic borders to create tremendous global growth for their companies.

The panel is taking place at The Travel Distribution Summit 2005, which is produced by EyeForTravel.com. It will be moderated by Henry Harteveldt, Vice President of Travel Research at Forrester Research. Panelists include:
· Del Ross, Vice President, Global E-Commerce Services,
InterContinental Hotels Group
· Michael Hanke, International E-Commerce Strategist,
United Airlines
· Noreen Henry, Vice President, Hotels, Travelocity

Date: Tuesday, October 4th
Time: 3:30 - 4:30 p.m. Central Time

To Participate: Log onto:
http://events.streamlogics.com/conferenceplus/business/Oct0405/index.asp

Please RSVP as soon as possible to:

2005-05-26T05:47:00.000-07:00

Daniel gets a big kick out of this picture

2005-05-11T06:00:00.000-07:00

Q & Poppa D's grandkids (missing Madeline and Juliana)

2005-05-11T05:59:00.000-07:00

Sarah with friends Abby and Anna Gritters

2005-05-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

Audley kids (Daniel, NIcholas, and Raina)

2005-05-11T05:56:00.002-07:00

Mommy and Dado on a real horse

2005-05-11T05:56:00.001-07:00

Keylime pie pushes her little brother in toy stroller

2005-05-11T05:56:00.000-07:00

Ballerina Sarah

2005-05-11T05:55:00.001-07:00

Dado learns to hug

2005-05-11T05:55:00.000-07:00

Dado and Pie-pie

2004-11-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

Welcome to London!

This is my youngest sister's blog. Fun reading.

2004-11-05T10:22:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! Toolbar

If you haven't checked your computer for spyware, you probably are riddled with it. The anti-Spyware tool in the Yahoo toolbar works very well and is free.

2004-11-04T19:55:00.000-08:00

Professional form - but she's too beautiful to be a bowler!

2004-11-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

More anticipation

2004-11-04T19:53:00.000-08:00

The gorillas had time to relax a bit while waiting for the ball to get to the pins.

2004-11-04T19:52:00.000-08:00

16 pound ball, please!

2004-11-04T19:44:00.000-08:00

Daniel's photos are almost always blurry - the kid does not stop. He's not walking here, but certainly thinking about it!

2004-11-04T19:37:00.000-08:00

Danimal has started to walk! Here are a few pictures (assuming I can manage it) to commemorate the occasion.

Yes, these are from a bowling alley.

2004-09-28T10:30:00.000-07:00

Found a very useful new blog today at Deals on Hotels. It is managed by Michael Menis, an online marketing veteran.

2004-09-22T11:44:00.000-07:00

Chimes
Just created this new Blog for the Chimes.

2004-09-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

Daniel Boy is one year old!

2004-09-22T09:06:00.000-07:00

Daniel turned one year old last Friday. Despite teething pain and a lingering cold, he had a wonderful day leading up to a fantastic, family-filled weekend.

2003-09-03T05:27:00.000-07:00

Within 2 hours of arriving (I think I flew into Vienna), I was told that I'd be teaching at the Vysoka Skola Ekonomicka (University of Economics) and living in their international dormitory in Petrzalka (accents are missing from the words). Petrzalka was a concrete jungle - literally. Mile after mile of identical poured concrete apartment buildings with the occasional shop buried in the ground floor. Very few trees, very depressing. The dorm was a new building adjacent to the construction site of what was to be the new campus for the school. The school's facilities were the only distinctive buildings in the area, but only because they were not identical to the rest (lest you think that "distinctive" = attractive).

I was assigned an apartment with two other Americans, Mike Seewald and another guy. For some reason, the other guy did not last very long. That was fine since he was pretty wierd. Mike was a good guy. He spoke some Slovak, thanks to his family heritage, and he was pretty easygoing with a good sense of humor. He'd been in town for a week or two so knew a bit more about how to get around. Since I had come over through Students for Czechoslovakia, a volunteer teaching organization founded by Georgetown students after a visit to the campus in early 1990 by Vaclav Havel, I had a "home base" of sorts in the organization's tiny office in a square within the old city of Bratislava. I think the square was "Vaclavske Namiesti" - Wenceslas Square, but I may be confusing it with the one in Prague. I was able to introduce Michael to a lot of other Americans and he played the role of country expert/guide and of course, drinking buddy.

Mike graduated in 1990 as well from Skidmore College. He worked at some restaurant he swore was very nice and very popular called "Hattie's Chicken Shack" (http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=hattie%27s+chicken+shack). I also remember that he owned some shares of Oracle which, like my own shares of Syntellect, were in the toilet. We debated dumping our stock but both held - I wish I'd talked him into a swap!

Michael had family living in a small village in the Tatra mountains. Actually, he seemed to have relatives everywhere and on many weekends would take off for a couple of days to return with various kinds of sausage and other foods which he would generously share with me and our other roommates (things had progressed at this point). One day, he announced that we would be going to a wedding in his family's home village. Not only was I invited, but nearly the entire Students for Czechoslovakia gang could come along as well.

It was an amazing time - we were there for 3 days crammed into this ancient but very cozy farmhouse, and we drank more than any of us could have imagined. Amazingly enough, there were plenty of times where we were easily the most sober attendees. I may blog about the wedding in more detail later.

Why am I writing this and pointing to Prof. Brent's page? Justin joined me in Bratislava about 4 months after I arrived. Oh, man, what a time.

Perhaps more later...