Trading 8s » Metablogging

Half-time in America

Ronald C. Burkhardt — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:31:27 +0000

There are a handful of American campaign advertisements and political speeches that have stood the test of time. Consider JFK’s moonshot speech, FDR’s “nothing to fear except fear itself”, LBJ’s “Daisy” advertisement, and Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America”.

I firmly believe that one advertisement – from an unexpected place – has the ability to reframe our national debate and our expectations of the political process. You saw it last night during the Super Bowl. I am of course referring to Clint Eastwood’s “Half-time in America” spot for Chrysler*, embedded after the jump, with transcript.

Transcript:

It’s halftime. Both teams are in their locker room discussing what they can do to win this game in the second half.

It’s halftime in America, too. People are out of work and they’re hurting. And they’re all wondering what they’re going to do to make a comeback. And we’re all scared, because this isn’t a game.

The people of Detroit know a little something about this. They almost lost everything. But we all pulled together, now Motor City is fighting again.

I’ve seen a lot of tough eras, a lot of downturns in my life. And, times when we didn’t understand each other. It seems like we’ve lost our heart at times. When the fog of division, discord, and blame made it hard to see what lies ahead.

But after those trials, we all rallied around what was right, and acted as one. Because that’s what we do. We find a way through tough times, and if we can’t find a way, then we’ll make one.

All that matters now is what’s ahead. How do we come from behind? How do we come together? And, how do we win?

Detroit’s showing us it can be done. And, what’s true about them is true about all of us.

This country can’t be knocked out with one punch. We get right back up again and when we do the world is going to hear the roar of our engines.

Yeah, it’s halftime America. And, our second half is about to begin.

*In a strange bit of copyright controversy, the NFL asserted copyright over Chrysler, LLC’s video on YouTube, including on Chrylser’s OWN YouTube channel! I have inserted the version that appears in the Detroit Freep, which unfortunately has a pre-roll advertisement.

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Squeezing the Middlemen

Ronald C. Burkhardt — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:11:10 +0000

by Ronald C. Burkhardt

Comedian Louis CK [website, Twitter] is the latest of real world creatives to sidestep the various middlemen involved in content distribution to go it alone. He went directly to his fans, releasing a show taped at the Beacon Theater for the low price of $5. He also omitted any digital rights measures (DRM), opening the door to potential content piracy via various online methods such as download sites, torrents, or newsgroups.

Louis, in a stunning moment of transparency, released a statement breaking down his revenue, costs, and profits:

First of all, this was a premium video production, shot with six cameras over two performances at the Beacon Theater, which is a high-priced elite Manhattan venue. I directed this video myself and the production of the video cost around $170,000. (This was largely paid for by the tickets bought by the audiences at both shows). The material in the video was developed over months on the road and has never been seen on my show (LOUIE) or on any other special. The risks were thus: every new generation of material I create is my income, it’s like a farmer’s annual crop. The time and effort on my part was far more than if I’d done it with a big company. If I’d done it with a big company, I would have a guarantee of a sizable fee, as opposed to this way, where I’m actually investing my own money.

The development of the website, which needed to be a very robust, reliable and carefully constructed website, was around $32,000. We worked for a number of weeks poring over the site to make sure every detail would give buyers a simple, optimal and humane experience for buying the video. I edited the video around the clock for the weeks between the show and the launch.

The show went on sale at noon on Saturday, December 10th. 12 hours later, we had over 50,000 purchases and had earned $250,000, breaking even on the cost of production and website. As of Today, we’ve sold over 110,000 copies for a total of over $500,000. Minus some money for PayPal charges etc, I have a profit around $200,000 [...]. This is less than I would have been paid by a large company to simply perform the show and let them sell it to you, but they would have charged you about $20 for the video. They would have given you an encrypted and regionally restricted video of limited value, and they would have owned your private information for their own use. They would have withheld international availability indefinitely. This way, you only paid $5, you can use the video any way you want, and you can watch it in Dublin, whatever the city is in Belgium, or Dubai. I got paid nice, and I still own the video (as do you). You never have to join anything, and you never have to hear from us again.

By cutting out the various middlemen, Louis CK made more money for himself, delivered an unrestricted product, and provided it at a fraction of the price of a similar product as compared to the established systems.

There are some caveats to this story. You are not Louis CK. You have not spent a career touring comedy circuits. You do not have a network TV show. You have not appeared on TV comedy specials. You have not been a guest on the late night TV shows. You are most certainly not in a position to have rented a hall and packed it with fans. The pearl of the story is unquestionably true – you can do better on your own selling outstanding content.

Cross posted at my own site.

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Jobs 101

Ronald C. Burkhardt — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:18:45 +0000

by Ronald C. Burkhardt

Cross-posted at my own site.

It became apparent to Steve Jobs in the summer of 2011 that his death was a near certainty. Fortunately, he had set out with a plan to distill the Essence of Jobs into a form that could be taught to Apple Executives as early as 2008. An anonymous Apple Executive said the following in a recent LA Times article by Jessica Guynn:

“Steve was looking to his legacy. The idea was to take what is unique about Apple and create a forum that can impart that DNA to future generations of Apple employees,” said a former Apple executive who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve his relationship with the company. “No other company has a university charged with probing so deeply into the roots of what makes the company so successful.”

Jobs personally recruited Yale Business School Dean Joel Podolny to create educational material to help executives learn, think, and make decisions like Steve Jobs. Podolny in turn recruited other leading business professors.

Org Theory points to the back cover of Podolny’s Status Signals[Amazon] and gives a hint – Jobs is hoping to continue and formalize the corporate culture that he singularly created and enforced.

Why are elite jewelers reluctant to sell turquoise, despite strong demand? Why did leading investment bankers shun junk bonds for years, despite potential profits? Status Signals is the first major sociological examination of how concerns about status affect market competition. Starting from the basic premise that status pervades the ties producers form in the marketplace, Joel Podolny shows how anxieties about status influence whom a producer does (or does not) accept as a partner, the price a producer can charge, the ease with which a producer enters a market, how the producer’s inventions are received, and, ultimately, the market segments the producer can (and should) enter. To achieve desired status, firms must offer more than strong past performance and product quality–they must also send out and manage social and cultural signals. Through detailed analyses of market competition across a broad array of industries–including investment banking, wine, semiconductors, shipping, and venture capital–Podolny demonstrates the pervasive impact of status. Along the way, he shows how corporate strategists, tempted by the profits of a market that would negatively affect their status, consider not only whether to enter the market but also whether they can alter the public’s perception of the market.

The Wall Street Journal points to Pixar University, which was acquired by Jobs and subsequently sold to Disney. Pixar has an onboarding thatfocuses on education, training, and improve with regards to filmmaking.

The academic team was tasked with creating case studies about critical Apple decisions with the intention of sharing them with the Apple leadership team of the future, with ‘classes’ being facilitated by top executives including CEO Tim Cook, says Fortune/CNN. The collection of this material is likely the greatest undertaking of knowledge management ever undertaken, with the outputs likely being the Holy Grail for those interested in organizational theory.

Jobs personal strength, passion, and intensity were the lens through which Apple saw and was seen. Apple’s position in the marketplaceand relationships with users, peers, content suppliers, and vendors was wholly derived through their relationship with the products, Apple as a corporation, and its mercurial and charismatic CEO. How will these things be affected by the loss of the hot, bright sun that was Steve Jobs?

You can take a look at this infographic for a sparse overview.

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Gimmicks Are Not a Sustainable Business Model

Ronald C. Burkhardt — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 12:58:13 +0000

by Ronald C. Burkhardt

Crossposted at my site.

I’m impressed by Philadelphia Media Networks’ bold push into the tablet-consumed digital content space, but dismayed as well. This is a solution to A problem, but not the problem.

PMN will be selling a subsidized Archos ANOVA 10 G2 (similar to this one on Amazon), bundled with applications and subscriptions for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. The tablet will have a 10″ and has contemporary technical specifications (though not quite equal to the iPad). The launch is scheduled for Black Friday. From Philly.com:

Customers who sign up for a two-year subscription to the package of apps for $10 per month will pay $99 for the tablet, for a total price of about $339, a 65 percent discount. Customers who agree to a one-year subscription will pay $129 for the tablet plus $13 per month, for a total price of $285, a 53 percent discount.

The package includes replica-edition apps of The Inquirer and Daily News, in which tablet users can view digital images of every page of the newspapers, or click on headlines to see enlarged versions of each article or column. Subscriptions to those apps, initially developed for owners of Apple’s popular iPad tablet, each sell for $13 a month.

The offer also includes a newly developed multimedia app that expands on The Inquirer’s content with photo galleries, video, social-media links, and other new features, the company said. Separate subscriptions to the new app will eventually be sold for $45 a year, the company said.

The problem that print publications have had to deal with is two-fold. First, billions of items of content are available online, for free. Secondly,this has conditioned the reader to not pay for content. Neither of these gets to the real problems.

Paid circulation in terms of readersof dead-tree editions has been dropping. This has been undeniably true for years, with the trend having started with Cable-TV news. The internet is just the latest to siphon-off eyeballs.

Gimmicks such as digital fascimilies and subsidized tablets may be necessary, but they are not sufficient. Cutting staff, editions, and closing bureaus weakens your product while strengthening the bottom-line and creating a viscous-downward cycle. Aping Cable-TV with tabloidization or showcasing political shockjocks devalues your product. Gimmicks are not a sustainable business model.

The place that is in desperate need of innovation is advertising. The daily deal space may ultimately prove to be a loser, but this is an innovation that SHOULD have come out of the newspaper industry. If you can’t get more readers and more advertising, make the readers you have more valuable.

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Don’t Be Scared. It’s Only a Tool.

Anthony W. Orlando — Tue, 17 May 2011 02:52:54 +0000

There’s been a lot of ink spilled lately — when will that phrase become obsolete? — about the effect of the Internet on our society, our children, even the neurons in our heads. Reactions range from apocalyptic to apathetic, with the World Wide Web being blamed for everything from the Arab Spring to ADHD.

But, at the end of the day, the Internet is just a tool, like a hammer or a wheel or a locomotive. It’s an inanimate object — though we’re getting to the point where “inanimate” is a gray area — that humans use to achieve a goal. And, like every other tool in the history of the world, it has pros and cons. It can be used for good or bad.

New tools are hardly ever as scary as they seem. The culture adapts and almost always becomes better through the interaction. With each passing generation, we’re building a more complex society because doing more things and doing them better requires increasing complexity.

But with complexity comes risk. More tools mean more opportunities, but also more things that can go wrong.

So it’s definitely a good idea to debate the best way to use the Internet. But doing so without studying the history of tools that came before it is like trying to build a television without first learning how electricity works.

Which is why we at Trading 8s rely on an expert like Ron Burkhardt, who knows the history and cites the research and never confuses the tool with the homo sapien using it. And that’s why we’re excited to announce Ron’s new blog Social Proof, which has must-read essays like “History of Modern Social Media” and “Social Impact of Media“.

Add it to your daily reading list.

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