Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

Author: Christopher S Penn

  • Still in the 21st Century

    LA Times, August 16, 2008: President Bush delivered yet one more tough warning to Russia today over the crisis in Georgia: “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.”

    “The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction— and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack. To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.” – President Bush, June 1, 2002

    Again, 2002, still in the 21st century. Pot, kettle. Kettle, pot.

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  • Buddhism shows up in the funniest places

    Go look for the lyrics to the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Life Changes” song, their tribute to ODB.

    Most of the sites on the Internet have “Asian language”, “Man speaks Mandarin” or something equivalent at the end of the song in lyrics transcription.

    It’s actually Sifu Shi Yan Ming, a refugee from China who escaped and sought asylum in the US in 1992. He’s reciting the Heart Sutra in Mandarin.

    When you think about it, that’s kind of funny. Millions of Wu-Tang fans are being exposed, if surreptitiously, to an age-old Buddhist text that some say has positive, life-changing effects even for those who hear it, but don’t understand it.

    Here’s the translation that I’ve learned, via Stephen K. Hayes:

    Kanon Bodhisattva
    Steeped in transcendental wisdom
    Saw five heaps as empty
    Knew this ended suffering
    Shariputra, form is empty
    Emptiness is form
    Form’s nothing but void
    Void’s nothing but form
    Feel, see, think, mind are the same
    Shariputra, empty aspects
    Birthless, endless
    No spoiled, no pure
    No gain, no loss
    Emptiness has no form, feel, see think, or mind
    No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind
    No color, sound, smell, taste, touch, think
    No vision on to
    No mind to think
    No delusion
    No making bright
    So forth to no age and death
    No conquering age and death
    No pain, cause, cure, path
    No wisdom to gain
    Nothing to attain
    Enlightened ones know
    Transcendent wisdom is key
    Mind is no block
    With no blocks there are no more fears
    On beyond delusion’s pull to enlightenment
    All enlightened ones grasp transcendent wisdom
    So attain perfect supreme unsurpassed enlightenment
    Perfect wisdom is found in the
    Great divine phrase
    Great bright mantra
    Unsurpassed phrase
    Matchless mantra phrase
    That ends all suffering
    All truth
    Nothing false
    Transcendent wisdom mantra is the mantra that goes
    Going
    Going
    Going beyond
    Going on beyond
    Wakened to all
    Heart of wisdom

    Translation by Stephen K. Hayes

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  • In the 21st century, nations don't invade other nations

    “In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.” – John McCain on Russia’s invasion of Georgia

    Two minor pieces of trivia…

    1. You voted to invade Iraq and Afghanistan in 2003.

    2. 2003 is a year in the 21st century.

    Just sayin’.

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  • The Death of America's Favorite Brands

    The Death of Brands

    Something is killing off brands in America.

    Perkins.
    Uno’s.
    Marie Calendar’s.
    Fresh Mex.
    Bennigan’s.
    Steak and Ale.

    Who killed these brands?

    Private equity. Over the past decade, private equity funds have bought up popular brands and essentially stripped them of assets by issuing debt, borrowing heavily against them, then keeping the proceeds.

    Imagine dating someone, maxing out all their credit cards, keeping the cash or goods, and then dumping them.

    That’s the corporate equivalent of what’s happening to a lot of brands that we know and love in America. As the bills for the debt come due, the brands and their associated companies go under.

    The lesson for new media folks and social media folks is this – be VERY careful who you work with, who you allow to leverage your personal and media brand. As the economy trends ever downward, the need for our community to police itself grows ever greater. Rough times bring out rough characters. Just as there are large corporate raiders who strip companies and leave the husks of their brands on the side of the road to rot, there are equally predatory companies and individuals in every space. Do your due diligence, know what you’re getting into, read and understand EVERYTHING before you sign, and watch your back and the backs of your friends.

    Watch your back.

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  • Spam is a market signal

    Here’s a thought. What is the killer app online? How would you measure such a thing? I’ll throw this out there: follow the spam.

    Spam = unsolicited commercial bulk messaging.

    Spam is a mass market play. Paraphrasing the words of Matt Mason (of the Pirate’s Dilemma), spam is a market signal.

    Why? Spam follows the money. You need massive quantities of people (who preferably don’t know what they’re doing online) to make spam work, since it probably has a conversion rate in the hundredths of a percent. Likewise, spam requires a marketplace where a minimal amount of work generates maximum results. Create once, send everywhere, wash, rinse, repeat. Spam that requires babysitting, customization, and customer service is a no-go. In the largely unregulated world of the Internet, spam is the marketplace acknowledging value and potential for commercialization.

    What does this mean for social media and all things 2.0? Simple. You can measure the probability of success for a service by how easily it is spammed, or by how much time the service has to devote to fighting spam. If spammers move in, congratulations – you’ve got a product or service that the marketplace thinks can or has the potential to reach large groups of people. You’re starting to see plenty of blog and podcasting spam in the form of RSS scrapers. You’re seeing spam on MySpace and Twitter. You see a never-ending flow of spam in your inbox.

    Spam is a market signal. If you operate a 2.0 service of any kind, and more of your time is going towards fighting spam, congratulations. The marketplace thinks you have serious, legitimate potential.

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  • Why pro conferences are different than PodCamps and why neither is better

    Company logoImage via Wikipedia

    Why pro conferences are different than PodCamps and why neither is better

    Some interesting discussion this morning on the differences between PodCamps and pro conferences like the Affiliate Summit, which I’m speaking at on a panel on Tuesday, August 12. A difference to highlight, from the registration page of the Affiliate Summit:

    PHOTOGRAPHY, RECORDING & VIDEO TAPING: Sessions may be photographed, recorded and/or video taped by Affiliate Summit. By your attendance, you give Affiliate Summit permission to be photographed, recorded or videotaped and agree to the public display and/or sale of the photographs, recordings and/or videotapes. Personal recording or videotaping of any kind during the event is prohibited.

    This is part of what separates PodCamp from pro conferences (that and the price tag, PodCamp Boston 3 was 50,99 at the door, the Affiliate Summit is 949 for early bird,1,949 at the door). That said, there are several very good reasons for pro conferences to prohibit recording, considerations that went into PodCamp and were ultimately rejected.

    1. Protection of speaker intellectual property. This is a big deal. PodCamp has been absolutely blessed by speakers like David Meerman Scott, Mitch Joel, David Maister, and many others, who normally charge tens of thousands of dollars to speak at a conference. The presence of any kind of recording online causes them real economic harm – it literally costs them money, since it makes them a less valuable speaker. Why? Exclusivity counts for a lot. Imagine being a conference planner and trying to advertise that your pro conference has information that’s exclusively available at your conference… and then finding out that your keynote speaker can be found on Blip.tv or mDialog for free. You’re less likely to book that speaker as opposed to someone who’s always behind a paywall.

    2. Protection of conference revenue. One of the biggest sellers at a conference? The conference DVD, often for up to 2/3 of the price of the conference. If you pay 1,949 for the conference and the DVD is available for695 or you can see it on YouTube for free, which will you choose? More important, if recordings are freely available online, why would you go to the conference in the first place?

    3. Protection of conference attendees. As we said at PodCamp Boston, the conference is the hallway. At top-tier pro conferences, there are a lot of folks floating around who, quite frankly, don’t want to be recorded for any reason unless they’re compensated to be, and that’s fair. That’s their choice. Some of these folks have exceptionally valuable information that isn’t intended for the world to consume, and the premium they charge for that information is their prerogative.

    All of these considerations are valid, and make good sense for a professional conference model. That’s an important distinction, because a lot of folks in social media believe PodCamps, BarCamps, etc. are the evolution of the conference, and that the models which power PodCamps, BarCamps, and unconferences are the right way to go for professional conferences.

    They are not.

    Professional conferences and unconferences are two completely different animals, two completely different models. Professional conferences work on a revenue model that emphasizes profitability. Speakers get paid and share proprietary information, attendees pay and derive value from sessions (not to mention craploads of handouts, printouts, etc.) and access to VIPs, vendors and sponsors pay and get lead generation lists and access to top level corporate folks. Everything works.

    Unconferences emphasize a revenue model of meeting costs. Attendees occasionally pay, sponsors pay for exposure, speakers don’t get paid, but the net effect is that everyone pays much less than a pro conference. An “expo floor” booth at an unconference will probably run a company 1,000 or less. An expo floor booth at a pro conference will cost at least10,000, if not more. Because no one’s making money beyond meeting costs, expectations are lower and people are more free. Again, everything works.

    Which model is right? Both are right for their roles, and both are supremely wrong out of context. A professional conference that let recordings be free would do itself significant economic harm. A PodCamp that sold its registration list for $25/head would be demonized by its community. It’s inappropriate for members of either style of conference to criticize the other for not being more like them, since each plays a vitally important role in the events ecosystem, and each attracts the crowd that wants to be there.

    There’s room enough for everyone, pro conferences and unconferences alike.

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  • The Strangest Ninja Garb Ever

    Hat tip to Stephen K. Hayes for this gem from Japan.

    Who knew?

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  • What YOU Can Do To Endure the Bad Times

    It’s not like there’s too many walls.
    It’s not like I don’t have the balls.
    It’s just that I, well, I don’t know how
    to live my life in the here and now.
    – Matthew Ebel, This Too Shall Pass

    A few folks have lamented that whenever I blog about economic issues, it’s never positive. In fact, it can be downright apocalyptic in tone. I make no apologies for the twitter stream and pile of blog posts that highlight just how unstable our economy is, but a few other folks have asked for something more than just paralyzing fear. What can we do, they ask?

    That’s a good question. On a macro level, not much. The market has to correct itself, and government meddling (particularly to save preferred investors) will only prolong the misery. We’ve essentially poisoned ourselves, economically, and the only cure is to flush the poison out. The longer we take, the longer we wait to make hard choices, the more it hurts and the more permanent damage the poison does. Ultimately, I believe as I mentioned in the past that this economic downturn won’t hit bottom for a few more years – we took years to climb to the top of an absurdly overinflated peak, and we have at least the same amount of time on the ride down.

    I’m punching out, it’s time to go.
    My days are numbered, this I know,
    but as it turns out no one burns out
    ’till they think they’re in control.
    – Matthew Ebel, This Too Shall Pass

    On a personal level, you can do a tremendous amount. First, close to home. Pare back spending. I mean it. You may or may not be feeling the effects as drastically as your fellow citizens, but pare back anyway. Learn to cook. Learn to make a decent cup of coffee at home. Learn to do more with less – and you may be surprised when you do that you’ll uncover skills, aptitudes, and pleasures you’d bypassed for convenience’s sake. I recently made strawberry mint jam with my wife and for the price of a few jars of commercial swill, we made 20+ jars of the most incredible thing you’ve probably put in your mouth recently.

    Teach and share as much as you can. If you find a great bargain, tell your network about it. If you discover a new trick, or a new way to optimize something in your life, share. Teach, share, trade. Got a super low cost recipe for a great dish? Blog it. Know of a good deal coming up? Tell us all. For example, I’m a huge advocate of Craigslist and Bargainist, both of which have terrific free sections.

    If you’re religious, this is a great time to unplug the television, filter out some of the distractions of daily life, and give some study time to your faith. As things get worse – and they will, before they get better – people in every community will need pillars to lean on, and those pillars aren’t just the guy or gal up at the podium. If faith sustains you and those you care about, focus on learning how to power up and recharge fast.

    Help. Help as much as you can, in any way that you can, even if it’s something as minor as retweeting something. Get out of the digital world if you can and go help in the real world. Raise money for a non-profit like Second Harvest or the charity of your choice. Tutor a kid in the local school. Volunteer for a campaign like College Goal Sunday. If you’re a social media maven, change your focus from the fishbowl to using the power of the tools you have to effect change and make your patch of the world a better place.

    Plug into some uplifting music and have it handy. Music is incredibly powerful and can change your mood instantly if you let it.

    Most of all, understand that this is an end of an era, but not the end of the world. There is and will be a great deal of need in the days, weeks, months, years to come, a great deal of suffering and pain – as it has been for millennia, and as it will be for millennia to come, long after we’re gone. The periods of relative prosperity are tempered with periods of relative pain, but as long as we focus on the things that really matter – the people we care about and who care about us, our community (virtual and real), our patch of reality that we can call our own – we can be rocks, mountains of strength against the maelstroms of uncertainty.

    I work all day and
    take my time to smell the grass.
    I’d run away but I know
    I can’t run that fast.
    Life may be short,
    but boy is it a blast
    and all this too shall pass.
    – Matthew Ebel, This Too Shall Pass

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  • Why politics makes me sick

    I’m exceptionally proud of the PodCamp Boston 3 community.

    1,000 raised and donated to feed hungry kids in the greater Boston area.

    According to the Greater Boston Food Bank, the agency we donated to, they can take that and provide more than two meals per dollar donated.

    That means the PodCamp Boston 3 community, which earmarked the food for kids programs, has in effect fed over 2,000 kids in the Boston area.

    America’s Second Harvest estimates that 35 million Americans are hungry or at significant risk of hunger. One in four is a child.

    Providing food assistance to all of kids, basic assistance, would cost about3 billion per year.

    The total amount spent on JUST the presidential election so far is $1,087,990,028. (source)

    What do we have to show for it?

    All those kids go to bed hungry at night still. No amount of lip service from Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or any of the other candidates is putting an ounce more food on the tables. Sure, it’s feeding the families of advertisers, marketers, PR folks, political spin masters, and campaign staff, but in terms of making an actual difference to the people that politicians are supposed to be serving?

    Why politics makes me sick 25This is why, when asked, I don’t bother donating to political campaigns. Let the special interests waste their money on it. $25 could buy 7/100th of an inch of a full page ad in the New York Times, or it could buy a 30 pound bag of brown rice that could feed a child for a couple of months. That’s an easy choice – do the most good you can with scarce resources.

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  • Whale of a fail, pure silly fun

    Anyone old enough to remember the classic Disney film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?

    Whale
    Got a whale of a FAIL to tell ya lads,
    A whale of a FAIL or two
    ‘Bout the flying birds and tweeting herds
    Of days and nights with endless nerds
    A whale of a FAIL and it’s all true
    I swear at FriendFeed too.

    There was the robot all broken up
    Upside down birds, no more tweeting
    Was the romance poor? Was it 404?
    Maybe it was simply fleeting.

    Got a whale of a FAIL to tell ya now,
    A whale of a FAIL or two
    ‘Bout the flying birds and tweeting herds
    140 letters and real short words
    A whale of a FAIL and it’s all true
    Looks like Jaiku is down too.

    You’ve hit the limit, no more follows
    Can’t tell the world your sorrows
    Your status blog updates rings hollow
    Never mind, we’ll try again tomorrow

    Got a whale of a FAIL to tell ya girls,
    A whale of a FAIL or two
    ‘Bout the flying birds and tweeting herds
    A business model would be absurd
    A whale of a FAIL and it’s all true
    At least the whale is cute.

    The original:

    [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyMwpmvM1E4[/youtube]

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