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October 30, 2007
Sometimes, Jeff Pulver Makes Me Cry
I went to Jeff's traditional PulverParty this evening, footsore, dragging after a 8 AM to 8 PM series of introductions, meetings, and various other events.
I almost skipped it.
But I get there, and there's some guy on stage warming up for Herding Cats. He sounds good, can't really place where I've heard him before... and then somebody introduces him as Matthew Ebel.
*Lightbulb*
I heard Ebel's music over a year ago on Adam Curry's Daily Source Code podcast. Always meant to buy his album "Beer and Coffee," but never got around to it.
And now the effer is on stage and I go up and talk to him and gee, I can even buy his new album "Goodbye Planet Earth" for a paltry $10, well, live, at the Roxy.
Tazer me bro! Tazer me!
Oh, but it gets better; he's also got a box of the "Beer and Coffee" CDs rattling around, so I can buy both albums for $20 cash and consider it either an impulse buy or a noble effort to support a new artist.
Turns out Matt was in town with the podpeople for PodCamp run by Chris "Don't Taze Me, Bro" Brogan and knows Matt, blah-blah.
Matt sells his own music via the Internet and right now I'm listening to his music while processing the 70+ press releases for the day and it's the only thing that's keeping me sane at about midnight local time.
Posted by dmohney at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2007
VON + Red Sox = World Series Champions
In 2005, the Boston Red Sox were in the World Series Championship games and VON was taking place in Boston. The throngs at the evening PulverParty were watching the big screen TVs as much as Huey Lewis and the News (Altho' Huey and the band didn't seem to mind...)
This year, the Sox are giving a beat down to the Colorado Rockies. And VON is in Boston once again.
Game 4 will be played this evening (Sunday) in Colorado, but I'm betting the Rockies come up with something tonight so there's one more game taking place ... during VON.
The Red Sox Nation might wanna start thinking about sending us tickets.
Posted by dmohney at 12:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2007
Wave to me if you see me at VON...
My schedule at the Fall VON conference next week is, shall we say, challenging...
I think I've got about a 15 minute gap from 8 AM to 10 PM on Tuesday, October 30th; everything else is spoken for. Wednesday looks to be similar.
Remarkably, I'm starting to pick up meetings on Monday. Da-da, Monday-Monday...
There have been about 120 or so meeting requests that have flowed through/towards/in the master schedule, so parsing and juggling and assigning meetings has been a real headache.
Plus the steady flow of last minute can-you-meet-with-us meetings...
Posted by dmohney at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2007
Oooh, pretty new Pulvermedia Events page - I like
If you haven't had a chance, swing by the updated/new/improved pulvermedia events page here http://www.pulvermedia.com/web/eventCalendar.php
Graphically, it's quite nice. And then some, if you can read between the lines, so to speak.
This reminds me of a conversation I had earlier today with A Company about a strictly hypothetical event that may or may not be announced next week in Boston. Of course, the company couldn't tell me anything directly, but I put three little bits together to come up with a theory and we both agreed I might get a phone call in Boston.
Hypothetically speaking, if such an event might take place.
Posted by dmohney at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)
October 19, 2007
This Just Out - 18-24 our of 100+
On a typical month, we (VON Magazine) get over 100+ product/service press releases. From that list, we run anywhere from 18 to 24 new product listings, depending on space available.
So, that's roughly a 1 in 4 chance on every month that if you send us a product listing AND it doesn't get spam-eaten, it might show up in print.
Not great odds, I admit, but it's better than not sending at all = Zero.
Posted by dmohney at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)
October 18, 2007
Booked 103 press releases in 3 days for Friday's VON Focus
From Tuesday through Thursday, I "processed through" 103 press releases that were deemed worthy of being in the VON Focus electronic newsletter listing on Friday, October 19th. To get to 103, I have to filter out duplicates, marketing releases ("Come to our Free Webinar"), award/list announcements, and some other things that are not what we deem newsworthy (Wanna know what is newsworthy? Go visit www.vonmag.com and review our PR submission guidelines)
In a typical month, I print about 330-400 unique releases in a month through the electronic newsletter, with surges around VONs of around 500-550...
So this week was pretty brutal. Monday was no cakewalk either, with around 60-75 releases.
Add on to that a steady stream of "I wanna meet you at VON" e-mail, trying to put together articles for the print edition of VON Magazine, finalizing the on-line web form for VON Magazine's "Innovator" award and, well, it's been a pretty busy week by far.
I have already made one request to Chris Brogan to tazer someone in the Boston area. Chris responded by sending me his selection of "Don't tazer me, bro'" parodies floating around on YouTube. I responded by sending him my YouTube URL of an Iron Sheik interview where... well, there are some things I won't repeat on a public blog... Let's just say the former WWF/WWE wrestler brings a new meaning to the phrase "Make him humble."
Posted by dmohney at 11:21 PM | Comments (0)
October 17, 2007
A Case Study in Bad PR...
I recently got an e-mail out of the blue from a PR firm representing a satellite company, saying "So and So would make a great VON Pioneer and would be of interest to your readers" - in other words, he'd make a great cover story.
Didn't know the PR firm. Was familiar with the satellite company (see SkyCache/Cidera/"Satellite Broadband" Magazine). Knew that said satellite company had never-ever been to a VON, either in a direct (exhibit role) or an ancillary (speaker/podium) role.
So, out of the blue, I'm supposed to put this Guy on the cover of VON Magazine when nobody's every seen his company at a show or heard him speak at a show. Yet, he's supposed to be of interest to "your readers."
Point this out to the PR flack. "Well, I wasn't suggesting a cover story," he doeth protest.
This is where I turn to Chris Brogan and go "Hand me the TaZer, Bro.." because the "VON Pioneer" pieces ARE cover stories.
I could use this to rant about how bad PR companies are, but then I'd go into another rant about satellite companies and I'm going to start channeling Kinneson, and it just wouldn't be pretty.
*sigh*
Posted by dmohney at 12:30 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2007
Film is dead - Long Live Film
(Photography) film is dead. But the general industrial processes once used to make it can now be turned to make "Power Plastic" - cheap solar cells, so saith http://www.konarka.com/...
Kinda cool, huh? I wonder if Kodak and Fuji have looked into this...
Posted by dmohney at 05:09 PM | Comments (0)
October 10, 2007
Sprint's WiMAX build - Now more than ever
Wall Street analysts and investors are notoriously short-sighted when it comes to long-term capital investment in network technologies.
Am I making this up? No. Wall Street bitched and moaned about Verizon Wireless putting money into their cellular network, then was happy to take the lift when that investment started paying off.
Same thing when Verizon did the *ahem* CORRECT thing and started invested in fiber optics to the home, enabling them to cleanly deliver both video and broadband to consumers, as well as to cut down on their maintenance and overhead costs. "Verizon is wasting money," whined the pundits until a few months ago....
Now you've got the same frickin' pitchfork-and-torch party gathering around Sprint's investments into WiMAX, a technology that, despite being deployed around the globe, somehow doesn't allegedly "work" when Sprint rolls it out.
Don't get me wrong, Sprint has made their share of mistakes, but WiMAX is about the best bet they can make right now because 1) Intel has already ponied up a bunch of money to make the technology work 2) If they don't do WiMAX, they are basically dead in the water or they have to go get into a bidding war for 700 MHz spectrum 3) WiMAX gives them a two-four year time to market over a 700 MHz services play.
"Hey, what's all this about 700 MHz, Doug? The bidding hasn't even started yet for the second auction block."
WAKE UP TELECOM PEOPLE!!! (With Apologies to Paul Moody) Earlier this week, AT&T dropped a cool $2.5 billion to buy already-awarded 700 MHz licenses that Aloha Partners had been sitting on. Aloha had the biggest chunk of first round 700MHz licenses sitting around, with Vulcan Ventures (some guy named Paul Allen) having the second largest, if memory serves.
So, AT&T already has the foundation of a 700 MHz network -- and remember, 700 MHz is the last "beachfront property" for wireless, and it can go into the second round of 700 MHz spectrum auctions in January 2008 or so and either buy some more stuff or simply go build what it wants with what it has.
Unlikely Sprint has the means to raise money to "up the pot" and bid on the second round of 700 MHz, so they'll have to work the hand they've been dealt.
Posted by dmohney at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)
October 09, 2007
Passion and Feeding the Troops
On Monday, I took a (way too quick) run through the AUSA (Association of the United States Army) event down at the D.C. Convention Center, walking around on the trade show floor and getting a head full of stuff.
You can't talk mission-critical communications in the military these days without having VoIP and data on the menu; data is much more important these days, but networking gear is a must regardless. I think I laughed out loud in the press room when I saw one company's press release announcing an Ethernet switch that looked like they took something off the shelf and painted it camo.
General Dynamics has a lot of interesting hardened networking tech, but if you start asking them if they expect to branch out of military sales into the civilian sector, they'll tell you that Cisco is the 800 lb Gorilla. "You remember how you could never get fired for buying IBM... well..."
I think the thing that about broke my heart, however, was walking by the U.S. Army food display and listening to the U.S. Army civilian employee on the show floor talk up the virtues of the Unitized Group Ration-Express. UGR-E, in Mil-speak
It wasn't so much the subject matter that was sexy -- I mean, c'mon, we're talking about a big box that's one step up above the dreaded MRE designed to deliver a hot meal for 18 warfighters (we're at war, you don't call them soldiers these days) -- but the passion, enthusiasm, pride and conviction this gentleman had for talking about his product.
Basically, the group-meal-in-a-box allows troops, er warfighters to pull some tabs, add some water, and get a hot meal in 30-45 minutes without the muss and fuss of either having to haul out food in insulated containers or sending out a mobile kitchen and a cook to make it. Inside the box, there's 4 six pound trays of food - entrée, vegetable, starch, dessert, plus snacks, utensils, serving utensils, beverages, and dining trays.
When you don't have a McD's in the middle of Iraq or Afghanistan and have been eating MREs for a week, this isn't a bad thing. You also have to understand that food is important for morale.
UGR-Es eliminate the need for convoys to remote places in the field; they can be put in the back of the truck and dropped off, no fuss-no muss, no IED risk. They're so popular, they get picked up off the shipping dock and air freighted straight out to the field.
The second-generation UGR-E will replace the injection-molded plastic trays with fiber coated trays that are cheaper ($5/tray) and lighter. Less weight, more recyclable, better for the environment.
But again, it was the person talking about the product, what they've done with it, what the plan to do with it, how they're working to get scrambled eggs into a tray pack so they just add some water and pull a tab and you can get hot eggs for breakfast that's amazing. Or how they have "box o' Joe" container that you fill with water, dash a little water in the heating elements and 30-40 minutes later you've got a nice hot pot of water...
Well, you get my point.
If I were hiring, I'd be tempted to offer this guy a job in two seconds. But he's so enthusiastic about what he's doing and he knows what it means for his customers -- the warfighters -- that it would likely take 2-3 times his salary to even get him to think about it.
Posted by dmohney at 11:58 PM | Comments (0)