Yearly Archives: 2007

Ego Check

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I read this piece in the Wall Street Journal online today about a pregnant woman who Googled all the potential names for her baby to make sure the name she and her husband picked for the kid would be searchable.  From the article:

Before Abigail Garvey got married in 2000, anyone
could easily Google her. Then she swapped her maiden name for her
husband’s last name, Wilson, and dropped out of sight.

In Web-search results for her new name, links to Ms.
Wilson’s epidemiology research papers became lost among all manner of
other Abigail Wilsons, ranging from 1980s newspaper wedding
announcements for various Abigail Wilsons to genealogy records listing
Abigail Wilsons born in the 1600s and 1700s. When Ms. Wilson applied
for a new job, interviewers questioned the publications she listed on
her résumé because they weren’t finding the publications in online
searches, Ms. Wilson says. (See Google results for Abigail Garvey and Abigail Wilson.)

So when Ms. Wilson, now 32, was pregnant with her
first child, she ran every baby name she and her husband, Justin,
considered through Google to make sure her baby wouldn’t be born
unsearchable. Her top choice: Kohler, an old family name that had the
key, rare distinction of being uncommon on the Web when paired with
Wilson. "Justin and I wanted our son’s name to be as special as he is,"
she explains.

And here’s a bonus they don’t mention: the kid can ride the advertising coattails of the Kohler company that makes plumbing fixtures.

This got me to thinking about how searchable my name is.  Turns out that thanks to this blog and the fact that my name is plastered all over some former employers’ websites I’m doing okay. Type in Jon Lowder, even without the quotation marks and my blog comes up first and a bunch of work stuff, my LinkedIn profile and other stuff related to me comes up in the first few pages.  So I decided to see how I do with just Jon.  There I don’t appear until the 9th page of results (54th position) but that’s okay considering that there are some pretty web-loved Jon’s out there: Jon Stewart, Jon Udell, and Jon Lebkowsky.  Wait…who?!  I’m being beaten by a guy named Lebkowsky and who names his blog "Weblogsky"?  At first I thought maybe it was a fan site for The Big Lebowski but I was wrong.  Ends up its just a blog by a guy named Jon Lebkowsky, and from my short reading I’ll have to begrudgingly admit that it’s a good blog.  Okay, it’s a better blog than mine, but that doesn’t help my ego.

So I decide to try just Lowder.  How many Lowders can there be?  More than you’d think, but I still do relatively well by coming in at #3.  A company called LowderNewHomes is number one and a former soap opera star (Days of Our Lives) named Kyle Lowder comes in number two.  Not bad.

Knowing one’s place in the universe is a good thing.  Thanks Google.

For My Friends (and Relative) in the Newspaper Business

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In an interesting opinion piece written for the Wall Street Journal online Walter Hussman, the publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, makes the argument that newspapers are killing themselves by providing news on their websites for free.  He compares the circulation losses of newspapers that provide free news on their sites to the gains or less egregious losses of his paper and the Wall Street Journal (they both charge subscription fees for full access to news on their site).  He also throws out some numbers like this:

The Inland Cost and Revenue Study
shows that newspapers will generate between $500 and $900 in revenue
per subscriber per year. But a newspaper’s Web site typically generates
$5 to $10 per unique visitor per year. It may be that newspaper Web
sites as an advertising medium, and free news, just can’t generate the
revenue to sustain a valued news operation.

Without getting into the details (read his piece if you want the details) he goes on to conclude that the decrease in revenue leads to layoffs in the newsroom, which is essentially killing the newspapers’ Golden Goose:

Collectively, the American
newspaper industry spends $7 billion on news and editorial operations.
This includes everything from copy editor salaries to sports travel
expenses. In addition, the Associated Press spent about $600 million
world-wide in editing and creating news. By offering this news for
free, and selling it to aggregators like Google, Yahoo and MSN for a
small fraction of what it costs to create it, newspaper readership and
circulation have declined.

These declines are accelerating.
In 2004 and prior years, industry circulation declines were usually
less than 1%. Since March 2005, these declines have been 2%-3% per
year. With declining readership comes declining ad revenues, which are
followed by layoffs.

The newsroom layoffs are most
troubling, as less news with less quality, context and details results
in more declines in readership and later, declines in advertising. If
the $7 billion spent covering news becomes $6 billion, and later $5
billion, it is not just the newspaper industry that gets hurt.
Journalism will be diminished in America with less investigative and
enterprise reporting; indeed, less reporting of state houses, city
halls, school boards, business and sports. Clearly a lot is at stake.

It is time for newspapers to reconsider the ultimate costs and consequences of free news.

I think there are some very valid points to be made about newspapers charging a subscription for access to their news, but I think Mr. Hussman is being short sighted, and here are some reasons why:

  • Ad dollars have only just started to migrate online.  Online advertising is still a relatively immature business and old-line advertisers, agencies and publishers are just now figuring out how to best buy and sell ad inventory.  The online piece of the advertising pie is going to explode and the newspapers that put up a paid wall around their online operations will probably suffer in the long run.
  • Web sites are a hell of a lot cheaper to run than printing presses.  When the online advertising takes off the margins of the online operations will make the print guys green with jealousy.
  • The "newsroom" is going to look very different in the future.  I think the trend towards a professional staff of writers/editors managing content submitted by semi-pros in the community will continue.  Operations like the Greensboro News & Record are beginning to show that members of the community who have a vested interest in stories are more than willing to provide content for free, or really cheap.  Editorial operations should actually get bigger as a percentage of total head count in the future.

These last three points are a real stretch, but since I have no vested interest and everyone knows I’m not that bright I’m going to make them anyway.

  • I think that offset presses are going to eventually be replaced by digital on-demand presses that do small runs for micro-markets.  Think of all those neighborhood editions on a smaller scale.
  • With the digital production I think you’ll see micro-market ad packages being sold. The ad rates will be higher on a cost-per-thousand basis, but they will be more attractive to advertisers because they’ll offer more neighborhood-specific targeting.  For instance, if you’re a restaurant wouldn’t you be willing to pay $30/thousand to reach the 5,000 people who live within a 5-mile radius of your restaurant than $10/thousans to reach the entire 100,000 newspaper circulation?
  • This type of production might necessitate a new distribution model, i.e. using the US Postal Service for home delivery from Mon-Sat.  Not sure what would be done on Sunday, but the reason this might happen can be found in the direct marketing industry. Direct marketing companies already do household-level prospect targeting using digital production and the USPS Zip+4 database.  You know those Money Mailers you get in the mail all the time?  That’s advertisers buying space in an envelope that they know will be delivered to only select neighborhoods they want to reach.  The newspapers could offer similar targeting.

    You could argue that readers want their paper first thing in the morning, but honestly how many people use their local paper for breaking news?  They get that on TV, the web and radio.  The local paper is for depth of local coverage.  I’d be willing to bet that most people would be okay with reading the paper over dinner rather than breakfast.  Also, because the number of home subscribers is trending down, quickly, it might not be cost effective to have dedicated delivery people who drive around delivering papers door to door. If there are only two deliveries per street how much can a delivery person reasonably expect to make?  On the other hand the mailman is delivering one way or another so why not piggy back?  Obviously the USPS isn’t the only option, but I think it would be interesting to look at it. I’m still not sure what you’d do about Sunday delivery, which is a rather large hole in my thinking.

These are just some of the reasons that I think Mr. Hussman’s conclusions are right in the short term, but not the long term.  The media environment, of which newspapers are but one part, is dynamic.  Mr. Hussman is right to challenge the current thinking in the newspaper industry, but I think his strategy will ultimately limit his newspaper’s growth potential. 

(Cross posted on Lowder Enterprises, LLC).

Meeting with the Cos

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JeffandbillcosbyMy cousin Jeff graduated from High Point University with honors in December.  His graduation ceremony was this past Saturday and they had Bill Cosby as their commencement speaker. To the left is a picture of Jeff shaking hands with the Cos and according to the email from my Uncle Frank about the graduation the Cos shook hands with all 700 graduates.  You can hear the full commencement address here, and it’s vintage Cosby. 

I wrote about Jeff’s graduation here so I’m not going to repeat myself.  All I’ll say is that my admiration for Jeff’s accomplishment has not diminished with time.  Way to go bud.

A Tale of Two Cities

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I spent much of last week in New York staying at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.  Although most of my time was spent in a conference room I can tell you that even when I ventured out to get a late dinner at 11:00 pm on a weeknight I still found myself surrounded by thousands of people.  Cut to last night when Celeste and I went to Charlotte with our friends Bobby and Beth Figuracion to see comedian Brian Regan.  We pretty much had the city to ourselves until right before the show when the few thousand people that could fit in the Belk Theater showed up.  You could roll a bowling ball down Trade Street without fear of hitting an animate object, and this on the final day of a major PGA tournament being held in town. You know a town is sleepy when not even Tiger Woods can wake it up.

New York can make almost any other city in America seem sleepy, but Charlotte is downright somnolent. We got to Charlotte early so we could grab some dinner, but we found most of the restaurants closed and ended up eating at the Champions in the Marriott.  (About the restaurant: on a 1-5 scale I’d rate it a 1.5, but because we were eating with Bobby and Beth it seemed a lot better. Great company forgives a lot doesn’t it?)  I’m sure if we’d kept looking we’d have found some other restaurants open, but I was amazed how many we came across in the immediate vicinity of the theater that weren’t open. We’re talking the heart of downtown, in the midst of all the hotels and they didn’t open their doors at all on Sunday.  ZZZZZZ…..

By the way, Brian Regan puts on a great show, is about as "clean" a comedian as you’re going to find today (i.e. safe for pre-teens and up) and the Belk is a great venue to see a show. 

The Week (+) That Was

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Well, it’s over.  "Hell Week" is that week, or more, built around the SCIP conference where I feel like I disappear into an abyss.  Days begin at 6 a.m. and usually last well into the night.  Sunshine is an abstraction except on the rare occassion that I get out to grab a sandwich.  This year’s conference was at the Marriott Marquis in New York (Times Square), surrounded by Broadway theaters and my only experiences outside the hotel were a couple of quick trips to delis or restaurants.  One of the shows I’d really liked to have seen was Spamalot and the theater was literally less than a block away, but there was no way.  Ah well, maybe next time.

For the record, everyone on the SCIP staff is in the same boat and some of them have it harder than me.  They all do a great job dealing with the stress, probably much better than me, but speaking for myself I can tell you that I’ve rarely been as tired as when we finish these conferences.  It amazes me that they weather it and I literally get email from them the day after the conference as if it’s just another day in the office. 

The conference went really well and I’m glad that it was a success, but honestly I’m relieved that it’s over and I’m home.  I was originally supposed to take a 9:30 p.m. flight out of LaGuardia on Thursday, but I got lucky and got a seat on standby on the 3:30 flight.  That meant I was able to get to my youngest’s baseball game in the fourth inning, just in time to see him pitch for the first time ever.  That helped me get over my fatigue. Well, that and the hugs and kisses I got from Celeste and the other two kids when I got to the field.

The last couple of days have largely been spent hanging out with the family, recharging the batteries and hoping to God I never have to be gone for 9 straight days again.  I know other people do it all the time, but I’m just not built for it.

Home sweet home.

Running on Empty

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I apologize ahead of time for the whining.  This time of year is usually tough for me because there’s too much work and lots of stuff going on with the kids, like baseball, soccer, tennis and such.  Truth be told this year feels worse than the last few because, truth be told, I’m not getting any younger.  Right now I’m sitting at the computer trying to wind up my day after getting up at 4:45-ish, heading to the airport for a 6:30 flight to DC, heading straight to SCIP‘s (my client’s) office and I’m still here at 8:30 (that’s PM) with another hour of work to do.  I know there are lots of people who have it worse, but I’m telling you my tank’s about dry.

I’m hoping to sleep hard tonight, but I’m one of those people who can’t sleep well in a hotel so I don’t hold out much hope.  The worst part is that this is the first day of an eight day trip.  The last four will be brutal as we put on SCIP’s largest event of the year.  Everyone here will be on the clock from 6:00 a.m. until some time after dark, and everyone in SCIP’s office has had it as bad (actually worse) than I’ve had it for the last few weeks.  I wouldn’t want to be trapped in a closed room with any of us come Wednesday of next week. The upside is that these are a great group of people to work with and I seriously don’t think I’d be doing it if they weren’t. 

BTW, if you’re in New York next week you should drop by the Marriott Marquis and check out the conference, especially if you happen to be in the competitive intelligence business.  It ain’t free, but it’s a great conference.  If you’re not in CI then maybe you can just drop by and check out the elevators in the place; they’re fast and they go way-high (49 floors).

Yep, I’m exhausted because even as I write this I know it’s one of the dumbest, most self serving things I’ve written yet.  I know it’s self serving because I’ve yet to mention what Celeste has to deal with while I’m gone: games that overlap and necessitate scheduling gyrations and begging for carpools, single-handed homework checking, and dealing with two teenagers and one tween for eight days solid.  It’ll be a miracle if I don’t come home to find her in AA.

But, it beats the alternative of unemployment and everything that comes with it.  With that I declare this whine-fest over.  Everyone have a great week.

Am I Cool or an Embarassment?

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So I roll into my driveway last night, or rather this morning at 1:30 a.m. returning from my brief business trip to DC.  I’m up at 5:30 because I have a tight deadline that I have to meet today, and I go out to the driveway to get the paper while the coffee’s brewing.  There I find that this little ‘ol blog has been profiled in the Winston-Salem Journal, and it includes a picture of the family.  I’m thinking this is kind of cool and I’ll bet the kids will love seeing their picture in the paper, so I put it on the kitchen counter and get the two olded up at their usual 6 a.m. to get ready for school. (The youngest is at Camp Hanes with the rest of Lewisville’s 5th graders). Here’s what happened:

  • Neither one of them noticed the paper on the counter.  They’re pretty much zombies in the morning.
  • I pointed out the article to Michael, my 14 year old son, first.  He says "Cool" and goes to get dressed.
  • Five minutes later I pointed out the article to Erin, my 13 year old daughter.  She says "Oh my God.  This is so embarassing.  I’m going to be laughed at at school."  Then she packs her stuff up, gives me a kiss and leaves for the bus.
  • Michael says "See ya" and runs out the door after her.

That left me with a cup of coffee and the question of whether I’m cool or an embarassment.  Yep, a normal day.

FYI, Kim Underwood from the Journal emailed me some questions for the profile a few weeks ago and asked for a picture.  I wasn’t sure if it would actually make the paper because the other blogs they’ve profiled involve "missions", or in other words they are written by people doing something good for the world.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out he actually ran the profile since this thing is pretty much random thoughts spilling out of my addled brain.  Make sure you check out next week’s Web Sightings since it will feature what I consider the best blog in town, Life in Forsyth.

In a Vacuum

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As I mentioned in my previous post we lost power on Sunday night and we’ve been without power and/or cable for about two days.  A consequence of our blackout is that we (Celeste and I) had no idea that something was going on at Virginia Tech until one of the people sitting at the table next to us at Panera started playing the video from CNN on his laptop.  After that the only update I got for hours was on the radio while I was driving my son to his orthodontist.  We stayed at a hotel last night so I was able to watch the news there, but really I felt like I was in a vacuum.

This reminded me of 9/11 when I was stuck on the streets of DC trying to get home and didn’t hear about the towers falling down until someone told me as we waited to get on the Metro.  After that I had no idea what was going on until I got home that evening and saw for the first time the video that the rest of the world had seen hours earlier. 

This also reminded me that my habits have changed considerably in the last few years. I used to get most of my information from broadcasts, radio or television, but now I get most of it via RSS feeds in my reader or by browsing any number of news sites.  I’m beginning to realize how limiting the broadcasts feel, because when I’m online and getting my usual news stream I’m seeing one story from literally dozens of viewpoints.  With TV I’m getting that one story from a limited number of sources who all feel compelled to package events like this as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech" and then in two days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Aftermath", and then in two more days will package it as "The Massacre at Virginia Tech: The Recovery Begins", etc.

Of course I could have read my feeds on my PocketPC but I had the slight problem that I’d deleted my mobile feed reader (long story) and had neglected to restore it.  Once I get the chance that’s now a high priority, because I can’t take much more of the broadcasters.

Nothing Like Timing

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It’s my busiest time of year.  My client’s big annual conference is in two weeks and I’m responsible for all the exhibitors and sponsors.  This is the week that I get scores of calls and dozens of email every day with questions about the conference.  So of course this is exactly when I lose power and cable (i.e. internet and IP phone) for days on end.

Thank goodness for Panera and my wife’s old laptop.  This experience also highlights the severe limitations of my PocketPC, which is great from updating documents and doing light email but is not suited for hardcore work.

Stress now at Defcon 5.

Jon

So Who Prays for Forsyth County?

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After I vented my spleen yesterday I got to thinking that maybe I’d spouted off about the Forsyth County commissioners a little to rashly.  Specifically I said:

The Forsyth County commissioners and sectarian prayer supporters
consistently point out that the commissioners invite representatives of
different religions to open their meetings and so the current policy is
fair.  I’m left to wonder if they think that inviting Baptists,
Methodists, Catholics, Lutherans and Moravians qualifies as different
religions?  Exactly when was the last time a Pagan was invited to give
the opening prayer?  How about a Muslim or Buddhist?  Heck, what about
those Mormons that scare the crap out of your average Baptist?

I started thinking that maybe I should have checked before I wrote that, and I should probably look into it to be fair.  So I did.  I checked out the minutes for all the regular meetings held by the commissioners from 2000 to 2006 and the meeting summaries from meetings held in 2007.  That’s 175 meetings held from January 10, 2000 to April 9, 2007, each of which began with a call to order and then the attendees standing to hear the invocation and the pledge of allegiance.  Here’s who gave those 175 invocations:

  • 152 were delivered by representatives of Christian institutions (Churches, Salvation Army)
  • 16 were delivered by board members
  • 2 were delivered by a representative of a Unitarian Universalist congregation
  • 2 were delivered by a representative of Forsyth Jail Prison Ministry (both in 06)
  • 1 by a Rabbi (November of 06)
  • 1 by a representative of Carolina Dianetics (Scientologists) (1/22/07)
  • 1 (3/12/07) the notes only say "invocation" and do not indicate who delivered it

I guess I was safe in my spouting off.  Although I did see the occassional Seventh Day Adventist included I didn’t see any Mormons, Muslims or Buddhists.  I find it interesting that the Dianetics person was invited last month since that occured after the commissioners received the letter from the ACLU.  Another interesting point is that the board member who most often gave the invocation was Dave Plyler who lost his seat in a close election last year to Ted Kaplan.  Kaplan is one of the three commissioners to oppose proceeding with the court battle that the commissioners voted yesterday to pursue.

I wonder if we’ll see more diversification of invocators as we move forward thanks to the attention from the lawsuit?