Christopher S. Penn – Marketing AI Keynote Speaker

Author: Christopher S Penn

I need a gear system recommendation!
So here’s the situation. I carry a lot of gear with me on a regular basis, and the current system of various bags and backpacks is both a pain and not efficient. Here’s what I carry with me daily:
- MacBook Pro
- MiniDV cam
- MPEG4 cam
- DSLR
- 2 iPods – classic and touch
- Nokia N91
- External 750 GB HD
- Condenser mic
- M-Audio Microtrack recorder
- Flashlight
- Undisclosed ninja stuff that’s small, light, and sharp
Without lugging around a suitcase or having a PA, what systems have you seen that would make carting this pile of kit around more easy? I need your recommendations!
November 30, 2007
How bad is the housing bubble burst? THIS bad.

Just when you thought the real estate market couldn’t get any more desperate:

I don’t know who to feel more sorry for – the person posting the ad or the sucker who buys a house in metro Phoenix, Arizona, where prices are falling on average about 30%. I guess it depends on whether you think US citizenship is worth $595K.

November 30, 2007
Bertucci’s Pasta Sauce: A Culinary Mystery Solved
I’ve had a puzzle for a little while. Actually, more than a little while, about 3 years. The puzzle is simple but not easy: I love the taste of Bertucci’s tomato sauce on their pasta but have never been able to figure out what makes it work. Try as I might about once a week, I’ve never broken the code.

For those of you who may not know, Bertucci’s is an Italian-style restaurant chain of mostly pizza and pasta here in the US. Their hallmarks have traditionally been brick-oven roasted everything, but one of their lesser acknowledged trademarks is a delicious pasta sauce that goes well on just about any plain carbohydrate.

I’ve been trying to replicate its characteristics, which are:
- Sweet without being sugary
- Savory without being hearty (hearty = beef stew, french onion soup, etc.)
- Tangy without being acidic
- Bright, vivid red
Over the past three years, I’ve asked personal chefs and experts, as well as my overlord, Google, and no one’s had a satisfactory answer. I’ve tried to achieve sweet, but that leads to sugary more often than not. Tangy meant everything from vinegars to citrus juices, and it always came out like acid. Savory usually ended up with lots of carmelized vegetables in it – tasty, but not the goal.

Well, tonight was the accidental breakthrough. Here’s what seems to be the closest thing to a clone recipe.

1. Start with a large can of crushed tomatoes. Buy good quality, and buy canned, as canned tomatoes are actually fresher than anything you’re going to get at the store during the off-season. Obviously, if you have access to perfectly ripe tomatoes that are locally grown, go for it, but there’s no such creature in Boston in late November that’s natural. Open the can and toss in 2 teaspoons of sugar and a quarter teaspoon of salt. Stir, then let it sit for as long as you can. Ideally, if you can prep the can in the morning for that evening’s dinner, awesome. Even just 5 minutes is better than nothing, though.

2. In a non-stick saucepan (the non-stick is important!) add four tablespoons of the tomatoes (try to make it mostly chunks) plus a quarter teaspoon of garlic, and a teaspoon of olive oil. Start over 33% heat (on my stove, there are numbers 1 – 6, and I did this at 2, 6 being hottest) and cook until the water is driven off from the tomatoes. Stir a lot.

3. When the water is gone and the tomatoes are pasty, turn up the heat until the garlic mixed with the tomatoes changes color and darkens a little. It’s more than okay at this point if the fringes of tomato residue on the sides of the pan get toasty. Stir a lot, scraping the sides of the saucepan to get any toasty residue back towards the bottom.

4. When the garlic changes color to a darker shade OR the tomatoes are appreciably darker – whichever comes first, throw the rest of the can in. Stir like crazy. Add a quarter teaspoon cracked black pepper and a quarter teaspoon of sweet basil, dried.

5. Crank up the heat to 100% until the stirred pasta sauce boils, then turn it down to 50%; most of the water in the can will surface to the top. Cook with the lid mostly on (letting vapor escape) for 15 minutes.

At the end of the process, you’ll have a tomato sauce that tastes remarkably like Bertucci’s, close enough ideally to dissuade you from dropping ~~$15~~$20 for a meal that costs a lot less to prepare at home.

One last secret of Bertucci’s is that the pasta is cooked al dente, or somewhat chewy. Whatever the directions are on the box of pasta, chop about a minute off the cooking time and you’ll have roughly al dente pasta. Al dente is important for two reasons: first, the pasta is a different texture, not mushy, and second, there’s still a fair amount of water in the pasta sauce. Cooking it al dente will let the pasta absorb a good portion of that water when it’s mixed together.

What I do typically is take the pasta as it reaches al dente, drain it, toss it in a large bowl, throw all the sauce on top of it, and stir for 5 minutes with a big spoon. This lets the pasta absorb excess water from the sauce and ensures that it’s evenly coated.

Give this a try and let me know how it works for you!

Also see this blog post about 5 easy ways to win at pasta for more pasta tips.

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November 25, 2007
For every shadow there must be light

For every shadow there must be light

Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff coined the slogan “For every light that shines, a shadow falls” as part of his audio drama, Shadow Falls. The reverse is true and worth thinking about. For every shadow, there must be light, else it’d be pure darkness.

This past year was a tumultuous year. Next year promises even more change, some chaos, and economic harbingers that are less than comforting. That said, the coming year can also be the very best year you’ve ever had. We’ve talked about it recently on an episode of Marketing Over Coffee, and I’ve talked about other advance preparations on the Financial Aid Podcast.

Ultimately, when times are bad, when things get ugly, you have three basic choices:

1. Do nothing and hope that the river of life doesn’t send you over a waterfall.

2. Deny that anything’s wrong in the hope that your delusions will become truth.

3. Take positive action to prepare others and yourself for trouble and find ways to leverage the troubling times.

I’m shooting for camp 3. I’ve outlined the dangers ahead – with $3 trillion -$ 5 trillion possibly at severe risk (bear in mind we are an economy of roughly $14 trillion), you have to prepare for rough times. Cash is king, debt is your enemy, liquidity is an advantage, tied-up assets are not. Mobility is important, as is network reach. Always have a backup plan.

You can also be a source of inspiration and power in your community, whether offline or online.

Now is the time to step up your community involvement if possible. Get out there, be visible, be involved. Have involvement with as many people as possible – as Mitch Joel says, DO talk to strangers, because the ninja method advocates having as many people in your network as possible so you can get different perspectives, have your ear to the ground, and see things coming from very far away.

Be on top of changes – know what’s changing, know who brings the harbingers of change. Subscribe to lots of blogs and read the best quality ones voraciously, because when winds shift, you want to be in front of the change, catching the wind and sailing past danger.

Grow and develop your sphere of personal power. In your community of friends, do you know what their superpowers are? How can they complement you, and more importantly, how can you complement them?

The ninja of old were renowned for their seemingly supernatural powers, chief among them the ability to foretell the future. Most of that wasn’t supernatural – it was having a strong network. You have access to a network that the ninja grandmasters of old would have traded their right arms for – a global, decentralized, instant information network. What does it tell you – and if it isn’t telling you what you need to know to avoid danger and embrace prosperity, how can you change your network to fulfill that function?

For every shadow there must be light.

Are you ready to shine?

Side bar: The Chinese word for crisis, weiji, does not mean “danger and opportunity”. Kennedy screwed that one up, that cliche about the word for crisis meaning danger and opportunity. Weiji means danger and a crucial point. It’s more like the point at which you’re in a barrel approaching the waterfall’s edge. You’re just about to go over. You don’t think about trying to go fishing for opportunity – your goal is not to die.

November 23, 2007
Marketing Over Coffee Serving Again

The WordPress install for Marketing Over Coffee went bye-bye for a little while tonight, but fear not – the best marketing podcast has its web site back and a new episode for your listening pleasure, featuring my dauntless co-host, John Wall.

November 21, 2007
Dalvik, Android, AppleTV, and TechCrunch

TechCrunch calls it first: Google Android could conceivably work on a television set top box. More than that, it seems destined to, from my perspective. Look inside Android:

Look down in the media layer. H.264, MPEG4, MP3, AAC, you name it, it’s in there. Plus OpenGL graphics for 3D.

How many phones have the processing power to take advantage of OpenGL? Not many. Maybe the Nokia N series.

How many set top boxes have OpenGL ready 3D graphics chips? More than a few. Here’s Eagle Broadband‘s set top box.

Android is written on Dalvik, the virtual machine that looks a lot like Java and quacks like Java, which is what a lot of mobile phones run. However, lots of set top boxes do as well, plus Windows Embedded and Linux… which is what Android’s core is.

Google already serves up TV ads on EchoStar, according to the TechCrunch article. How much more powerful could it be if it controlled the set top box?

November 20, 2007
Politicians NEED Illegal Immigrants

Politicians Need Illegal Immigrants

Why, you ask, do politicians need illegal immigrants? Simple: economics. Illegal immigrants don’t show up in labor statistics or the official work force. Thus:

– when the economy is good, illegal immigrants provide a labor boost, increasing productivity without increasing official payrolls. Illegal immigrants also don’t get health insurance or any other benefits, making them the cheapest labor for companies. Politicians can claim credit for economic improvements on their watch.

– when the economy is bad, illegal immigrants can be terminated from the work force quickly and invisibly. They cannot claim unemployment and they do not show up in unemployment reports; as a result, politicians can claim that an economic downturn is not as severe because jobless claims didn’t increase very much.

– illegal immigrants cannot vote. A politician can continue to disenfranchise illegal immigrants with no political consequences because there’s no voting repercussions.

Given that the current status of illegal immigrants provides multiple positive incentives for politicians and few negative ones, is it any wonder that progress on a pathway to citizenship has not been made?

November 19, 2007
2008 Recession or Depression is Likely

2008 Recession or Depression is Likely

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately. Most of it has not been of good news and all of it has been about the economy. The economic issues that have caused disruption and disorder in 2007 – the credit crunch, housing bubble bursting, and high fuel prices – are, by my estimates, only going to get worse in 2008.

Here, for example, is the number of subprime mortgages set to reset in the coming year, courtesy of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank.

The economic difficulties that resulted from subprime mortgages going bad – loan portfolio writedowns, CDOs and other financial instruments imploding – all will only accelerate in 2008. Take a look at March, 2008 on the chart. From about $35 billion in resets to$ 50 billion – and upwards of 70% of subprime mortgages seem to be going bust lately. This is going to be a major economic shock.

On December 2, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez may gain the power from his constituents to suspend oil production in Venezuela, according to the LA Times. Should he gain that power, he can throw America under the bus, as a hefty percentage of American fuel runs through the refineries of Venezuela. A fuel crisis just as the holidays hit would be a major psychological shock to the US economy.

How do you deal with this all? Well, prepare as much as you can. Investments are likely to be unsafe – double check your retirement and where money is allocated. Look internationally or in secured accounts, and soon. Cash is king; debt is your enemy. On the fuel front, if you have any option of switching off fossil fuels to biomass – even a wood stove – do so, or have the capacity to do so. If you’re economically able to do so, now is the time to trade in the gas guzzler for the most efficient thing your money can buy. Negotiate with your office if possible to telecommute as much as you can – if gas hits $4/gallon, not driving a day a week to work could pay for the fastest class of broadband available in your area.

It’s never a bad idea to have some emergency rations on hand. Brown and white rice store well in plastic, animal and insect-resistant containers, cook relatively easily, and last for months, if not years. Having a few gallons of water in your basement in sealed jugs is always smart, even in the best of times.

Be ready. 2008 is going to be a rough ride.

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November 19, 2007
Nunavut – Battleground for the Arctic

Ever heard of Nunavut, Canada? I hadn’t. That shows how badly out of date my geographic knowledge of Canada is. Nunavut was designated a Canadian territory in 1999, splitting off from the Northwest Territories. It’s a huge place – 31,000 people spread over an area the size of Western Europe, and it’s a name you’ll be hearing a lot more of in the coming years and decades. Why?

Well, Nunavut contains some of the northernmost points of North America. Previously, that was only sort of interesting, as the area is cold and icy.

Thanks to global warming, it’s not as cold nor as icy any more, and that means the opening of the Arctic Ocean to shipping. What does that mean? Ships won’t necessarily be forced to use the Panama Canal any more – a ship could conceivably sail from England to Tokyo across the Arctic Ocean – which will change the flows of international commerce. This is the Northwest Passage, and is hotly debated in international circles. Canada says the Northwest Passage is sovereign territory. The United States and the EU claim it’s international waters. The difference? Millions of dollars in shipping and passage.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeated that the Northwest Passage belongs to Canada. Frankly, as an American who can actually locate it on a map, Mr. Harper is welcome to it, since most everything you can buy in the United States is made in China anyway. I suspect my opinion is probably in the minority, though. America’s track record for respecting other nations’ sovereignty hasn’t been so hot the last 7 years or so.

Is it wrong of me to say that if you can’t locate Nunavut on a map, your opinion on Canada’s sovereignty claims are automatically invalid?

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November 18, 2007
Thoughts from the road

Thoughts from the road

I’ve been on the road a heck of a lot lately, getting to meet lots of interesting people, talking about new media. Ever since September, it’s been go-go-go and I’m grateful for a pause until spring. In order:

– NASFAA
– Podcasters Across Borders
– PodCamp Philly
– Emerson College
– Bentley College
– NASFAA private engagement
– PodCamp Boston
– MASFAA
– SREB GoAlliance

There have been a surprising number of commonalities during the trips; at each location, I’ve had the opportunity to speak publicly about new media – podcasting, blogging, social networks, and much more. Some of the commonalities of the audiences:

1. At least 50% of the audience has no real mental framework to even begin assessing the worth of new media. They know the buzzwords from mainstream media, but are unsure of how all the pieces fit together.

2. Virtually 100% of the audience is very, very, very interested in new media in one or more aspects. SREB brought me in principally to speak about social networks. MASFAA brought me in to talk about podcasting. The desire and interest to learn more about new media is very strong and growing.

3. Analogies to existing mental frameworks are critical to understanding how to explain new media channels to people new to the world of new media. Some of the explanations I’ve used:

– Blogs are newspaper columns written by columnists… without the rest of the newspaper. Hat tip to Chris Brogan for the seed idea on this one.
– Audio podcasts are downloadable internet radio shows.
– Video podcasts are downloadable internet TV shows.
– Social networks are a cross between virtual conferences and virtual water coolers.

When put in at least a semblance of a mental framework, it’s been my experience that audiences are more easily able to change aspects of an existing idea rather than try to form a completely new one. Downloadable internet radio isn’t quite right (it ignores RSS, subscription mechanisms, etc.) but it’s close enough that people can make adjustments to their internal pictures and sounds rather than create new ones.

4. People have no idea regional new media communities exist. For example, SREB brought me into Atlanta to speak, but there’s a huge blog and podcast community here – heck, there was a PodCamp here, so the community exists. I would love to be able to travel to each of the cities I have been to this past year and help them sign up for a PodCamp; because each city has had one (Atlanta, Boston, DC). That, I think, would go a long way towards not only making PodCamps more local, but also getting new media producers connected more tightly with their communities.

Travel will pick up in the spring again, but for now I’m happy for a couple of months of hibernation and family-only travel. Thanks to everyone who requested me as a public speaker at all the recent events lately – I am grateful for the chances to serve your communities.

November 15, 2007

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