Fargo, N.D. Image via Wikipedia

If there’s one thing marketers get drummed into their heads, it’s the need to test specific ad concepts and strategies before going live with them — and spending buckets of dollars to do so.

Testing itself is a cost, of course.

Testing ad concepts with focus groups is time-consuming and costly. But the good sense doctors of marketing say that only a fool goes out into the market with fresh advertising — especially on a major regional or national scale — without first probing for audience disconnects.

When your target market is national or super-regional, as was the case with a new ad from the North Dakota Dept. of Commerce’s Tourism division, promoting the state’s lively, if not abundant, night-life, it’s advisable to do the focus group part right.

N.D. Tourism apparently decided to use Facebook as its focus group venue. Turns out, Facebook is a great way to get feedback on advertising tests. Too good, in fact. The online testing experiment blew up in North Dakota’s broad face, strewing hard-edged shards of criticism across the Internet.

The ad in question, designed for magazine display, depicts some sporty but clean-cut young chaps lounging in the window seats of a trendy-looking bar, eyeing with unabashed pleasure a group of three young women decamped on the sidewalk outside the bar. Everybody seems to be having a good time, or at least looking forward to having a good time together, not so surprising considering this is what young men and women tend to do when they go out on the town.

But the copy lines, while terse and grabby, were all wrong according to many of the online commentators. “Drinks. Dinner. Decisions. Arrive a guest. Leave a legend.”

Too suggestive to many, it seems, of a meat-market approach to marketing the social virtues of urbane North Dakota cities, in this case, Fargo.

What first brought my attention to the matter was this Thursday evening Tweet from journalist Lucy Kafanov, to wit: LucyKafanov This North Dakota tourism ad pretty much cements my desire to avoid the state at all costs. twitpic.com/86irif

Ms. Kafanov’s stony sentiment toward the Peace Garden State was soon echoed across the cyber universe. Scads of reviewers, many young women apparently miffed over the idea of becoming the stuff of lewd legend should they venture into the North Dakota wilds, voiced their objections online. N.D. Tourism officials woke up on Friday morning to discover their world gone mad. What started out as an innocent attempt to pre-test the efficacy of the ad on the Tourism department’s Facebook page had degenerated into a monumental pile-up of ill will toward the state.

Holy haystacks! What a PR nightmare for Sara Otte Coleman, N.D.’s tourism director, forced to plead her case for understanding of the ad against a din of derision that would leave her in the end to say, in a Forum news story: “At this point, I would say we’d have lots of other options to showcase the nightlife and the downtown fun atmosphere that Fargo and Grand Forks and Bismarck have to offer,” she said. “I would say no, we can probably find a better way to communicate the intended message than that ad.”

So there. Lesson learned, the hard way: be careful what you test for on Facebook. You might be starting a viral fire that’s really hard to squelch once it gets going. And not all viral fires are friendly. Makes a typical focus group meeting, with soft drinks and pizza all around, seem downright inviting.

Related articles

• North Dakota Tries To Be Cool, Fails (the1955hudson.com)
• Come to North Dakota, where women have one thing on their mind. (adland.tv)
• North Dakota officials unveil new tourism campaign (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Hog numbers up in North Dakota (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

Tracy Rubietta (right), co-author of the new book The Chemo Zone: Your Guide to Living and Flourishing During Chemotherapy, and Debbie Menke Roscoe at the Minnesota Ovarian Cancer Alliance’s (MOCA) 2011 Silent No More Walk-Run event in Edina on Sept. 10. The book is a comprehensive, user-friendly guide to coping with the effects of chemotherapy, co-authored by Tracy’s mother, the late Linda Rubietta, a much-decorated advertising industry art director who battled ovarian cancer for three years. For more information on the book visit www.thechemozone.com.

Porkys – is it time to stick a fork in it for good? New owners say they’ll close the iconic restaurant, a fixture on University Avenue in St. Paul since the 50s, after Sunday service on April 3. Say it ain’t so…

Porkys, center of Twin Cities car culture and a fixture on the scene since the Fab 50s, is closing for good in April. Where will all the car folk go on Saturday nights in the summer?

Lehman Brothers Rockefeller Center

The Weekend Report:

Writing in The Wall Street Journal Weekend, Jason Zweig has a rip roaring good time poking holes in the latest work of investment wisdom from James K. Glassman. It was Glassman who co-penned the notorious “Dow 36,000” book, published in 1999 or not long before the start of one of the most dismal decades for investing ever. ”Extremely exuberant” is a mild way to put Glassman’s 1999 view on stock investing.

It was Glassman who said that stocks are not risky then — and he apparently still holds to that view. Zweig quotes him as saying, “The data [still] show that stocks aren’t risky.” Although he’s now hedging his bets a bit more.

Lost In Space?

Say what, Mr. Glassman? What’s the name of this alternative universe that you inhabit, Mr. Glassman? Were you there, on planet Earth, in September 2008 when the stock markets collapsed in the wake of the Lehman Brothers bust? Stocks went down down down. Sure, the short-sellers — making book on stock market risk — were happy. But most investors, some perhaps still clinging to their copies of “Dow 36,000″, lost big-time. If they had money in, say, Countrywide Financial, Wachovia, General Motors, Colonial Bank, the names go on and on, they lost almost everything. No risk there?

Stocks in general have bounced back since then. But not all, many still trade well below their 2008 highs, and many were burnt to a crisp in the meltdown. People who bought into those stocks may view the market with a bit more jaded focus on the risk factor.

“Safety Net” is the name of Mr. Glassman’s new book, and Zweig gives him his due — noting that Glassman has written those three little words that financial gurus most abhor: “I was wrong,” But not so wrong about the risk of stocks? Maybe in theory, stocks should be a no-lose investment. Countries shouldn’t fight among themselves either, theoretically speaking.

Reading Has Its Own Risks

Zweig also tells of a new book written by Howard Marks, chairman of Oaktree Capital Management. “The Most Important Thing,” Mr. Marks’s forthcoming tome, is a “superb” book that helps explain risk clearly, Zweig writes. Sounds like a winner to me, although I’ll have to wait until I’ve actually read it to say for sure.

One thing’s for sure. I would approach anything written by Mr. Glassman with my risk evaluation attenae on high alert.

Nice Guys Live On — On Late-Night Radio

Meanwhile this radio guy does a talk show out of Boston, he’s got this doctor for a guest on his late-night show. Seems that the Doc has taken to writing about a historical family figure – a relative from the 19th century who put on trial for killing someone, perhaps a paramour or husband, who knows? I’m only paying attention to the show between loading up the clothes washer and taking out the garbage.

Anyway, the aforesaid Doc, in the course of the interview, allows as to how his relative, a female who was a loose woman by 19th century standards, was almost certainly guilt of the crime of murder. But he opines that the jury declined to find her guilty, not so much because she wasn’t the culprit, but because the state was just then starting to offer up electric chair executions. This new-fangled style of putting people to death was seen by many as being perhaps a more painful way of dying than, say, the tried-and-true method of hanging or firing squad.

Being considerate people, the jury let the accused off, said the Doc, in spite of the fact that she was in all likelihood guilty as charged – and the prosecution had proved it.

And so, our late-night host comes right back with the assertion that “well they couldn’t prove that she was guilty…” blah blah blah. Indicating his willingness to cut the lady in question, now long dead but obviously a woman of some spirit, a break. This despite the Doc’s own assertion that the lady was guilty, the jury most likely knew it, but didn’t want to send a poor woman to what was probably an unduly painful death. My takeaway was that the host was bending over backwards to make the guest feel appreciated — so much so that he failed to acknowledge what the guest had just said. It was as if he didn’t hear what his guest had just said, which is no way to treat a guest.

Crime Yes, Punishment, No

All of which made me think, well, this late-night radio guy, a nice guy from the sounds of it and a very personable chap, probably goes overboard in his efforts to not cause his guests to feel distressed by his questioning. No Porfiry Petrovitch, our radio man is charged instead with providing a pleasant listening experience for his stressed out late-night audience.

America’s a big place. More than 300 million people live here, which means there are more than 300 million stories to tell in this naked country alone. So why would radio hosts worry about having enough guests to fill out their air time?

So many stories, but people are not equally adept at telling their stories. Many people tend to stagger through their narratives, saying too much or — what’s even worse from the interviewer’s perspective — saying too little. They often over-explain, only natural for conscientious people who want to be sure their listeners understand what they’re saying, and end up boring the listeners to death — perhaps more than once. And as we all know, nothing kills talk radio so quickly as boring on-air talkers.

Talking points. That’s my advice to would-be stars of the talk-radio world. Work on your talking points. On radio, as in real-life occurrences such as when the cop stops you for speeding, it’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it. Pre-conceived talking points can get you through almost any situation. Another way of saying it, one that we all learned in our high school days when we were called in to face the music by the school principal, is the old “let’s get our story straight” imperative.

Late-night talk show hosts have it tougher than most, though. For one, there’s the time barrier — not that many people with productive day time jobs are up and talking coherently in the middle of the night on a regular basis. They need their go-to regulars. And the regulars would be scared off if the host came on like the relentless interrogator Porfiry, who so mercilessly bedevilled Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment.

Related Articles

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• Beware Most Market Studies, They’re Mostly Misleading, Often Incorrect – Seekingalpha.com (seekingalpha.com)
• Marks to market: buy low, sell high (openitstrategies.com)
• Excellent article From the Economist. Please Read (brokermandaniel.com)

Truman Capote, photographed by Roger Higgins

Never shout “fire” in a crowded room – unless there actually is a fire, of course.

That’s an axiom we’ve all grown up with, and yet, it seems to be pretty much useless as an admonition in a digital world driven by fire-shouters.

Just today, as every online day, I’ve seen a Tweet or two alluding to some set of “essential” things I need to know about this, that and the other thing. All of which are aimed at making me feel as if I’m an inadequate marketer unless I quick grab hold of the mouse and click on over to the poster’s page of invaluable, nay business- and reputation-saving, tips. It’s all about garnering attention, certainly, and I can understand that – in the battle for share of the digital marketing mind, all is fair.

But I as a client, assuming I were a client, would not be much in a mood for getting much work done if I spent the livelong day chasing down every hot new lead purporting to clue me in on what’s missing in my marketing strategies.

The Chattering Seas…

Since I am both client and client-seeker, in my business life mind you, I am sorry to say that on certain days it just seems as if I’m adrift in a sea of mind-addling marketing teases. That’s the time I spend online, exposed to the Twitter medium, for example – a medium that I abuse, no question about it, and much to my chagrin. Because when you get right down to it, there is a lot of essentially non-essential information floating about hither and thither under the guise of essentiality.

Which is not to say it’s not good information. People dispense with an abundance of good information all the time via the social media platforms. But separating out what’s essential versus what’s only good, therein lies a challenge of epic proportions. But that’s only half the challenge, and indeed the lesser half as it stands. The better half of the challenge, the more Herculean aspect, is to know how to rein in one’s curiosity, it seems to me.

What Would Pliny Say?

Because the Internet is a world of wonders for those with a yen for the new. There’s always something new out of the Internet, to piggyback off the statement that Pliny the Elder made re: Africa some years back. The trick, it seems, for me, and perhaps a few others, is to try and figure out how to enjoy and even benefit from this world of endless inspiration, entertainment and edification without going crazy. I’m reminded of the comment once made about Truman Capote, how he in his years after writing In Cold Blood mostly abandoned the writing craft and became a magazine addict. Better than an opium addict chez Coleridge, perhaps, but still not highly conducive to the pursuit of personal productivity.

So there you have it. Resolved, here and now, to be a better, more conscientious consumer of digital goods.

How to do it? Perhaps I’ll write on that later on. Maybe even put together a series of essential tip sheets on how to make the most of your Internet experience.

Minneapolis Loppet - a celebration of winter's wonders

http://www.facebook.com/widgets/like.php?href=https://prstar.wordpress.com/?p=767

What’s in a name? A plethora of wobble-legged snow cruisers, in the case of the world-famous City of Lakes Loppet in Minneapolis. When a California friend asked me what a loppet was, I was forced to admit I didn’t know. This in spite of living and working in Minneapolis all these years, with some ongoing exposure to the cultural life of the city. In my ignorance, I suggested to my SoCal friend that a “loppet” might indeed be some kind of a rabbit – a notion derived via a mental association of the word with the lop-eared rabbit of lore.

Visions of rabbit-stormed streets dashed

But I was wrong. It turned out there were no armies of ski-borne rabbits slipping noiselessly through the streets of Minneapolis during the recent loppet weekend (Minneapolis Star Tribune loppet recap).

No these were just ordinary two-legged cross-country skiers of the human kind, now assembled en masse in one spot for a weekend of slippery snow-sliding fun and friendly, democratic competition.

Nordic roots

As I discovered in doing due loppet diligence on-line:

“The word ‘loppet’ has its origins in Scandinavian culture and commonly refers to a mass participation cross-country ski event which includes longer, marathon length distances and both recreational and competitive elements. Some definitions refer to a loppet as a ‘citizen’s race,’” according to Sleeping Giant Loppet – a site promoting the March 5, 2011 loppet to be held in Thunder Bay, Ontario.

So it was that, once again, the value of a name was driven home to me.

Selling loppets to Californians

Loppet is assuredly a curious name for an event held in the United States – and on the same weekend as the superlatively named Super Bowl, of all things – and one that commands attention if only by begging for further explanation.

If a Californian has to ask, “what’s a loppet?” then there’s obviously a case to be made for a more forceful public relations effort in behalf of the world-famous Minneapolis Loppet. Something for Minneapolis Mayor R. T. Rybak – the chief proponent of the Minneapolis Loppet – to consider as he basks in the afterglow of this past weekend’s very successful event. And one in which the Mayor himself was very much involved, as denoted from his breathless Sunday afternoon Tweets charting his own progress over the snow-covered course.

If the loppet of Minneapolis is indeed a cross-country ski celebration, as it most certainly is, it perhaps should have a mascot – and a lop-eared Finnish rabbit from Lapland would be a good one, in my humble opinion.

Randomly Noted:

Cost to make a child’s wish come true: “about $6,000,” according to Tom McKinney, executive director of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Minnesota. (See “Clawback Incorporated” in Twin Cities Business Monthly for details.)

Image via CrunchBase

New from TweetDeck, a new workaround – or an improvement, if you’re of the marketing persuasion – that allows Tweeters to break the 140-character tweet barrier on Twitter. (Say that tongue-twisting sentence three times in a row without stopping to breathe.)

Say what, you might say, is Twitter no longer Twitter without its minimalist approach to free speech?

I say, “Bring it on.” Much as I enjoy the art of crafting the pithy Twitter call-out, I have often found myself stretched to compress a thought into the standard Tweet tube.

TweetDeck’s new Deck.ly service lets you write as much as you like in Tweet mode. When you post to Twitter, the service provides a link to a TweetDeck page where your excess verbiage can be viewed all its glory.

It expands on the notion of Twitter as a micro-blogging platform, while maintaining the breezy brevity of Twitter itself. (Deck.ly based Tweets are truncated at 140-characters on Twitter itself.)

[DISCLAIMER] I’ve not used the Deck.ly service yet myself, but plan to shortly. Why write about it before using it? Sounds like an excellent addition to the Twitter arsenal, especially for those in the PR, marketing and journalism worlds. More to come once I’ve taken Deck.ly for a test spin. I’d certainly like to hear from anyone who’s used Deck.ly and seen some results from it.

[ADDENDUM, Feb. 1] More than one killer content expander service for Twitter, here’s another: http://twi.me Must be even more to come…

More information at: http://tinyurl.com/4vqujyp

Related Articles

• Tweetdeck officially unveils Deck.ly, for tweets longer than 140 characters (thenextweb.com)
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Good writing is good PR and good marketing, whether it’s a 140-character Tweet, a  Facebook post, a press release, website copy, a blog, a brochure, a presentation…

Annoyance Avoidance

Advertising Age writer Bob Knorpp recently riffed about the often lamentable state of “PR prose,” as he termed it:

“I promote myself every bit as much as the worst spammy PR offender on Twitter…,” Knorpp wrote in his blog, The BeanCast. “Yet time and again, I’m specifically called out by people saying ‘You do it right.’ How so, he asked – and people said, “You aren’t as annoying.”

His secret: he looks for the interesting angle.

Shock alert!

He writes to be read, in other words.

Give ’Em A Reason To Read

Not such an earth-shaking revelation. Really, it’s J-School 101 stuff, and yet — here it is, 2011, well into the information age, and what have we?  Knorpp, a respected writer, certainly one on the receiving end of untold number of fuzzily focused PR pitches and abysmally written press releases, needs to remind PR people that their first duty to their reader is to be interesting.

So, we’re not talking about fancy writing. We’re talking about writing that people actually want to read, writing that they can understand and absorb. Writing that will motivate them to do something that corresponds to your underlying reason for communicating with them in the first place. To visit your store or website, for example. Buy your book or call you to discuss a new project. Hire your firm to handle their business.

Write with care, write with the needs of the audience in mind. When in doubt, rewrite. Consult the AP Stylebook. Good writing – part of that all-important “content” equation – is always a good business investment.

Edward Bernays, PR pioneer, press release pro

All this talk about the press release being dead, it’s just talk. And what is talk if not cheap?

Granted the press release, ever malleable, gets used in ways never imagined by early PR superheroes such as Edward Bernays or Ivy Lee.

It’s certainly true that a press release can be issued on Twitter, 140 characters, maybe less, directly on message and without further ado – such as links to backgrounders, bios, calendars, visuals, etc.

Reliable, Always In Demand

If so, so what? What is a press release but a tool, more like a pair of pliers or a screwdriver than an air pressure gauge – that is more of a generalist than a specialist – and so adaptable to whatever purpose is at hand.

The press release is just a handy device, really, something that can be created readily enough by a seasoned pro, easy to use, informative and always there when someone such as a media person asks, “What have you got in writing?”

A Social Media Workhorse

I don’t know what could be simpler than that. Sure, we’ll go ahead and add in all the social media bells and whistles, the links, the graphics, the interactive pieces, the embedded video, the boldly concise writing style, all the wizardry of the digital age. It’s still a press release, requiring some effort by someone, usually a PR person, to organize information in such a way as to communicate a message about something.

So no, I don’t think the press release is going away anytime soon. (Although we could all do with a lot less of the PR-speak that seeps into a lot of press releases, giving them a written-by-a-lobotomized-robot feel.)

Not all press releases are created equally. A simple new-hire release needs to be short and to the point. It’s going to get boiled down to a line or two in the trades anyway. But a new product release, or a release announcing a new study, survey, initiative, new use for an existing product, those are the kinds of releases that can use some creative flair and persuasive language.  Something out of the ordinary. News! Real news! Make the most of it. Write up a fireball of a press release.

Pay By The Press Release? If Only…

But as all of us in PR know, we don’t get paid by the press release. We get paid for results.

Maybe what the press release needs is its own advocacy campaign, sponsored by some organization such as The Society For The Preservation Of The Press Release (SPPR). Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Maybe I’ll send out a press release asking for contributors to the cause.

[Note: the author owns no stock in any press release manufacturing organization other than his own PR agency at the time of this writing.]

Sedan Chair, Image via Wikipedia

“Make haste slowly.”

Said to be coined by Augustus, the Roman emperor who succeeded Julius Caesar.

Excellent bumper sticker material (or something to stick on the side of a sedan chair, a favorite conveyance of the Roman well-to-do back in the day), and often quoted by poets, philosophers and other pundits living and dead.

Excellent advice, when you think about it.

Act fast, but not so fast as to lose your head, shoot yourself in the foot, do something stupid you’ll regret, rush to judgment, run off the rails, plunge off a cliff, etc.

I like it.

I like it more than that equally inarguable old saw, beloved by mothers everywhere, ”haste makes waste.”

Make haste slowly sounds much more like something I could use when starting, say, a new high impact project for a client. Especially if said project has a lot of moving parts to it which must be assembled under heavy deadline pressure.

Just something to think about in these emotionally charged times.

Drawing a crowd: the action at the display for the Microsoft X-Box 360 kinetic system at the Mall of America on Black Friday

People lined up to play at Microsoft’s XBox 360 kinetic demonstration stand at the Mall of America in Bloomington, MN on Black Friday. I want one of those things.

Bowling in the digital age - a young man gets set to take the Microsoft X-Box 360 Kinetic game for a trial roll at the Microsoft Store at the Mall of America on Black Friday

I journeyed out to the Mall of America on Friday evening — Black Friday, as the day after Thanksgiving is now called in the U.S. — to see what was happening. By the time I got there, around 8 p.m., the biggest part of the shopping day was over. Parking wasn’t too much of a problem.

To my untrained eye, the Mall seemed to be  much busier than on a normal Friday evening. Not to say that it was crowded, but it was certainly bustling with activity — especially for such an advanced hour in a shopping day that kicked off in the wee hours of the morning for many people. The Mall of America opened at 5 a.m., I believe.

Dueling For Holiday Dollars: Microsoft And Apple Go Nose To Nose

Camera in hand, I nosed around the Mall for an hour and a half or so. I was really interested in checking out the new Microsoft Store — it opened in October, situated directly opposite to the existing Apple store along one of the Mall’s indoor avenues. I wasn’t alone in wanting to see the store. It was a late night hot spot. (See pictures.)

Microsoft Store at the Mall of America on Friday, Nov. 26, 2010

Across the way, the Apple Store was getting its fair share of shoppers as well. Beatle-power  was played  up with the early-days Beatles poster in the window display; the minimalistic white decor of the store certainly plays well to the theme of the Beatles’ most famous work, that of The White Album.

Macy’s Wants To Make You Believe

You’ve got to believe in the holiday season if you’re a retailer, and Macy’s makes that message explicit in its theme for the season. Store traffic seemed relatively muted, but then again, it was nigh on to 9:30 p.m. by the time my path finally led me to the Macy’s neighborhood.

You can believe in the holiday season at Macy's this year

Conclusion: based on purely empirical evidence, I’d say that the consumer society is alive and well in America this holiday season. I don’t know how successful Apple and Microsoft were at converting lookers into customers with their hot new electronic toys, but they sure had plenty of potential prospects crowded into their stores.

I’m interested in the retail market.  I plan to do a few more forays into the field this season. If you’d like to come along — metaphorically speaking – I’d be glad to have you as a blog visitor. And of course if you have any comments, please feel free to comment away. I’m curious to know what you think both about what I’m doing and about the retail business in general this holiday season.

Update Mall traffic was strong throughout the Twin Cities on Black Friday according to this article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press Black Friday Strikes Gold.

Bowling in the digital age by Doug Hovelson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.bigthunderpr.com/info_request.htm.

Stop dumping social media on your PR | The Wallblog/UK
The journalist of the future: 7 – 0r 8 – archetypes | Media Standards Trust/UK
Nonprofits still see the potential in social networks — but so far aren’t seeing many results | The San Francisco Business Times
Share Your Story | Northland Church

Image via Wikipedia

Good afternoon,

Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to come together with family and friends to give thanks for all the blessings in our lives.  It’s also an important time to be thankful for our men and women in uniform and their families who risk everything so that we can be safe and free.  And we must also remember those in our community who are in need of our help and support – especially during these tough economic times.

In our family, we have a tradition:  Every year on the day before Thanksgiving, we take some time as a family to help out people in our community who are in need.  Today, we’re handing out turkeys, stuffing, pumpkin pies and all the Thanksgiving fixings with our friends and family at Martha’s Table, a local non-profit organization.

This Thanksgiving, I encourage all Americans to find a way to give back – and maybe even start a family tradition of your own.  Whether you volunteer at a local soup kitchen, visit the elderly at a nursing home or reach out to a neighbor or friend who comes from a military family, there are plenty of ways to get involved in your community.

If you’re not sure how to get started, visit Serve.gov.

President
Obama and I wish you and your family a very happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Sincerely,

Michelle Obama
First Lady of the United
States

Image via Wikipedia

What I learned this week: when talking about the dead, technologically speaking, one is actually referring to a product, system or technology that is declining.

I found this enlightening. (As usual, I’m the last to know.) And uplifting, in terms of my own personal spirits.

Usually when I hear that something is “dead,” it disturbs me. It wasn’t always so.

I, The Wayward Reader

I grew up on a steady ration of books by authors like Mickey Spillane (Kiss Me Deadly, a classic by any standard), Edgar Alan Poe (The Tell Tale Heart, anyone?), Ian Fleming (Jill Masterson, the all-too-golden girl in Goldfinger?) and various other masters of mayhem and the macabre. Later Stephen King with Salem’s Lot and all that lot of the walking dead, high school girls extinguishing classmates by the score, etc.).

Not that these were books on any teacher’s recommended book list. A reading teacher reprimanded me for listing some of my extracurricular literary interests in our weekly report on books read. Since I was one of the few people in the class to take much of a cut at reading for pleasure at all, I thought this was a bit outrageous. Happily, I persisted in my illicit reading pursuits, albeit without making reference to them in subsequent reports.

So it’s not as if I’m one of those people who can’t watch a scary movie without going all catatonic for the next six days.

Dead Ascendant

Still to hear the word “dead” used in a day-to-day business sense, that upsets me. It upsets me more now that it did say 10 years ago. I can’t even remember if it did upset me 10 years ago. I don’t remember it being such a part of the common parlance as it is today. There was that movie, Dead Again, with who was it, Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep, kind of funny the first time around. A movie about the amusing dead. Those were more innocent times.

Microsoft is dead. I’m pretty sure I saw that somewhere within the last couple of months. The web is dead. Didn’t Wired proclaim it to be so recently? The press release is dead (oops, that was last year! And it is okay to use it as an example in this discussion of the technologically dead since it was the Web, specifically Web 2.0, said to be the spike stuck into the inky heart of the  earnest little press release. But wait, since the Web’s now dead, does that mean the press release may yet rally? A topic for another time, perhaps.). MySpace? Pretty much over and done with. Yahoo? Dead as the old Urban Cowboy, that one.

Grim Reaper Swings A Mean Digital Scythe

No question, death and dying within the technology realms is a part of the business zeitgeist. War is war, after all.

Technology in general and the web (even if it’s in a weakening state) in particular run at hyper-innovative speed, as Bill Tancer says in his book, Click. I get it. And now that someone finally explained to me that saying something is dead, technologically speaking, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s morgue material in a literal sense, I’ve got renewed hope.  Maybe I can condition my feelings a little better so that I don’t feel like jumping out of my skin over the sure-to-follow deluge of techno death notices in the days and weeks to come!

In fact, maybe it’s time to write a followup to Norman Mailer’s great existential docu-journal of the 1970s, The Executioner’s Song, about the death-by-firing-squad fate of Gary Gilmore in Utah. It might be called The Executioner’s Song Of Technologies Gone Good As Dead. Or maybe people wouldn’t want to be  caught dead reading such a morbid-sounding tome. Which might not be  such a problem, actually, since e-books are killing off their printed rivals with great gusto — and e-book reading is so much easier to conceal from public sight.

As for me, I think it’s time for some aggressive video therapy. Maybe something to watch on the order of Night of the Living Dead. Dawn Of The Dead. House Of The Dead. Something playfully dead.