It’s that time of year again where I hit you up for money.
Every June, or at least every June I am in Toronto, I do the Becel Ride for Heart
This year it is June 7th. Please sponsor me! Or better yet, join me!
Here are some photos from past rides:
Archive for March, 2009
Becel Ride for Heart – Please join me!
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Random Images
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009
A response to Danny Brown
Friday, March 27th, 2009Hi Danny,
Let me say I am thrilled with your efforts. I love seeing people get active in what they believe. Keep it up! I will add a link to my blogroll to help promote your efforts.
However, I’m afraid your math is wrong. It is not a lot of cars. Let’s do the math based on their own publicity:
If the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney CBD during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year.
24 hours a day x 365 days = 8760 total hours/year
48,616 cars/8730 hours = 5.6 cars/hour
Now some cities will have a better energy consumption rate than Sydney and some worse, so for the sake of argument lets go with this. If there are 1200 cities participating each taking the equivalent of 5.6 cars it equals a total of 6,660 cars.Rather than pat ourselves on the back lets look at the energy wasted producing all the advertising materials. I work at the CBC downtown and I bet there are 100 posters in the building advertising this.
Now I think CBC is a sponsor, but these signs are everywhere AND I imagine they’re everywhere in 1200 cities. All those trees cut down to make paper, all that ink (hope it’s eco-friendly), shipping those materials, etc. When you do the math, what exactly are we saving? The planet or our guilty consciences?
If we are serious about this we will have “park your car” day. And on that day alone if just 2.4 million people world-wide park their cars we will have the same results. It’s not that many people, just three or four major cities. We will need to invest in other areas. Toronto will have to do better than just the pathetic 1% of roads that have bike lanes. Transit systems will need to get more efficient, cheaper, better. People will need to start living closer to where they work:
Personally, I would rather spend that hour fixing my bike so I can ride to work, than have another self-congratulating circle jerk in the dark.
What would you do?
Thursday, March 26th, 2009Someone suggested at the CBC that they would be willing to give up a days paid leave to help save jobs.
What would you be willing to give up, or do to save a co-workers job?
When I originally posted this question it was because of something someone had said at the presenation at the CBC today. Luckily someone captured it and here it is:
Q. from John, Digital Archives: Out of crisis can come ingenuity, and I think we’re about to cross the Rubicon. I kind of felt for you and the management team in yesterday’s broadcast. I understand and appreciate the trouble you went through. But we need your help, and we’re in this together, and this is a time for solidarity as much as it is for divisiveness and anger. (Applause.) The question becomes: What are we all prepared to do? I’m going to give up one day a month of unpaid leave for a year if we can work it out. Many I’ve talked to are willing to do the same. Save jobs, save money, maintain the quality of show we’re accustomed to such as Marketplace and Fifth Estate. Take this information to the prime minister, the minister of finance, and the minister of heritage.
Maybe the question I should be asking is, What would you do to save the CBC?
The New Math
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
It’s always prime time
Tuesday, March 24th, 2009A co-worker Mark and I were discussing the changes going on in the various media industries of late. First the recording industry is taking a thrashing with groups like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails releasing albums online and giving the record labels pinks slips. They, the recording industry, are now attempting to force new artists to sign 360 degree contracts which would give them a cut of all profits. This is eerily similar to what the UFC has done to fighters forcing them to sign away exclusive rights to their own likenesses.
Now the newspaper industry is collapsing upon itself. There is even a wonderful little website newspaperdeathwatch.com. Now I don’t know if blogging is to blame or the internet or what. But what I do know is that the only consistent thing in life is change. I am sure there was a time when they thought that they were indestructable just like the Big 3 and the banks.
There is another change coming, and there are already whiffs of it in the wind. The Canadian government is ready to help struggling broadcasters. However, they have not stopped to consider why they are struggling. Media broadcasting is dying out. Not only are the advertisers disappearing in this declining market, but new and more effective forms of advertising are popping up. Also in this day and age I can stream every television show I want to watch, and skip every commercial!
Everything changes. The questions become by how much and what is the impact?
We need to change the way we do business. We need a MEGA-change in how we think about information, how we consume it, how we distribute it how, how we maintain ownership of it. No more geo-fencing, no more limiting who can see what where and when. Everyone can create content now. You don’t need expensive camera or big studios.
While television might not be ready to go the way of the dodo just yet anyone who thinks broadcasting signals is the way to go had better think again.
The advertising opportunities with streaming media is mind-boggling. No longer would you need to consider the lead-in shows or the bridge shows. Advertisers will be able to target their video commercials with laser precision. Find the show with your exact demographics and BAM! For example I like Family Guy, it appeals to me and other 20-40 something white males. If that is your demographic you tie your ads to the show then the info (and your ad) is deliverable to me 24 hours a day. No more wasted commercials during prime time because you know what?
It’s always prime time on the internet!
Some random images
Monday, March 23rd, 2009Here is some image awesomeness I grabbed from former co-worker Nick Heise.
Don’t you just want to be in the middle of this hug?
Wondering where the highlander trilogy is?
Just a thought
Saturday, March 21st, 2009Earth Hour is coming up again. As I mentioned before it is a complete waste of time. Not to mention the money, energy and waste produced in making all that fucking advertising.
This earth hour, why don’t you try to do something that might actually make a difference. Park your car. Take public transit to work. Ride your bike. Walk.
Change you can believe in
Friday, March 20th, 2009
Screw page views? Not quite yet
Monday, March 16th, 2009Chris Berry went on a tear about page views and how they are the “Hits” of the 1990′s and for the most part I would concur. Page Views are not the most useful metric. And he asks, “What is the value of the metric?” mentioning the rise of JQUERY and Flash it is possible to spend an hour on a site and never leave the first page.
He brings up some valid questions such as “what counts as a successful visit?” and that engagement is much more than mere page views. However, what Chris is forgetting that he is a member of an elite. He is an elite analyst who works with an elite group of programmers. They keep abreast of cutting technologies and are driven either by interest or necessity to push the web development edge.
But are vastly more plain-Jane HTML sites, than JQUERY sites. There are more web pages than there are video streams, and Flash use… let’s just say it’s tiny compared to HTML.
Also “page views” is an easily understandable metric. It’s the training wheels on your analytics bike. It provides stability. For example, I’ve seen streams reporting 200% more plays than there are page views. This says something is not recording correctly. Page views can also be used to indicate where attention needs to be paid.
It also provides context. When someone announces their advertising stream was a roaring success because it got 10,000 plays, I would point out that it also recieved 10 million page views and perhaps is not quite the success they thought it was. That perhaps they should have been shooting for a 1% play rate instead of 0.1%. While Chris is willing to sacrifice understandability for richer, deeper more actionable insights he assumes that everyone in the organization understands the basic building blocks of analytics which simply isn’t true.
Page views is also the easiest metric to implement. Copya piece of JS code. Paste it on the page. Watch the numbers roll in. Implementing and testing in AJAX or Flash can be very time consuming and cumbersome.
While I welcome the day that we can declare the page view a “has-been” metric, the best we can do is gently but firmly guide our clients to understand that there may be more value in other measurements.
Besides, What we really need to deal with is Chris’ hogging of the maple syrup! (inside joke)
