While I'm pretty opinionated...I guess hitting the 2,000 post mark on this blog seemed an impossible target when I started this screed back in the autumn of 2006. It was, to be sure, a vastly different world a mere 8 years ago.
This is Number 2,000.
And thank you, dear reader, for giving me the motivation to continue to aim higher.
My friend Harvey Briggs recently took Bic to the woodshead for its silly rollout of "Bic for Her."
While the whole marketing concept behind the pen is hardly inspired, the comments on the product's Amazon page are. Take the opportunity to laugh out loud by reading them here.
I started this blog five years ago today. My first post got two views. Today, they get more.
But it's interesting what moves people to share my blog with their friends.
Not surprisingly, one of the most viewed posts had nothing to do with the industry I blog upon...but my thoughts upon dropping my youngest daughter off at college.
My thoughts on the 2007 passing of Dan Fogelberg was another magnet. I got a lotta action on a post about TSA...but I think it's because the image showed a women hooking her bra. Likewise, another post scored high because of the image of a buff guy. Hmmm, should I start adding images of skin regardless of the topic?
One of my rants that could be a business for somebody was another winner (but I haven't seen the beta yet).
One of my Air Laws hit a nerve...as Number 13 chastised those that bogart power sources in airports (but I woulda thought it would be Air Law 1).
I opined on the state of convention food. A lot of people shared that one.
But the one that got the most page views over the past five years was when I went off on a TSA proposal that, during the last 60 minutes of flight, would have forced us all to put away our books and computers so the flight attendants could see our laps.
Guess I need to go off on TSA more often...
Sunday is typically the day when this blog experiences the fewest views of the week. Which isn't surprising, as I rarely post on Sunday and you should have better things to do. So why did this Sunday see one of the highest numbers of visitors ever in almost 5 years? Could I have really struck such a chord in my presentation at the International Downtown Conference that morning?
No...that would be hubris talking. Instead, it was because the "other" Bill Geist (the one on CBS Sunday Morning) nailed one of those segments that rang so true to so many...driving viewers to Google to find out more or see it again. And, in doing so, hundreds found me, too.
My eldest daughter was married the weekend after 9/11, ten years ago this month. I relived some of the same sentiments as I watched Bill's segment online yesterday, remembering that surrealistic time when everything about our world had changed. And, yet...it hadn't, as here were two people getting married four days after the attack on America.
We Bills have several things in common. Both of us began our careers in suburban Chicago media. We both have enjoyed success with segments on top-rated TV programs (he national, me local). We're both authors. And we both have daughters named Elizabeth (though, his goes by Libby while mine prefers Liz).
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that I claim as mine. We've never met (though we occasionally e each other). And, yet, like most fathers of brides, I feel I know him very well. As do the millions that welcome him into their homes every Sunday. And, those who watched him as he watched his daughter get married.
Congratulations Bill (and Libby)...and thanks for sharing your lives with us.
Tim Morrissey is an icon in Madison Media. He's also one of my favorite bloggers. And, not surprisingly, his is called "Rifles at Dawn."
We enjoy each other's screeds...commenting back and forth. But, there's just something about yesterday's post that rings so true.
I didn't ask him whether I could reproduce the close here...but, I don't think he'll mind:
"Some dweeb who wants to be President says we need to do away with Amtrak because it doesn’t make a profit. Hmmmm….I guess that means we’ll also have to do away with THE ARMED FORCES, because they don’t show a profit. Why is it so many people can’t seem to understand there are so many things critical to our way of life (education, policing, firefighting) which were never intended to “show a profit” and that “government” is not the same as “business”? How’d that work out when we “semi-privatized” the Post Office?"
Tim...as always, you so nailed it.
Fascinating that my first post was about the need to develop mobile versions of our websites...something with which we continue to wrestle today.
Thanks for stopping by to read this (almost) daily commentary. You make it all worthwhile.
In a recent rant, Daniel Edward Craig said of starting a blog: "Blogs, in particular, are hard to maintain and time-consuming, often devolving into thinly disguised publicity vehicles or random posts from semi-literates. An abandoned social media platform is like a frayed carpet in your hotel lobby: it speaks of apathy and neglect and is off-putting when stumbled upon."
So true.
It was the send-up remake of the Chicago Bears' Super Bowl Shuffle. Having played on the Bear's Charity Softball Team (they could never get 10 guys to show up for the games...so I was usually announced as the walk-on from Clemson), I knew these guys and couldn't wait to see the spot. Which was cute and fun in its own way...and Steve Fuller still can't dance.
But it didn't crack the cloud. At all. Not close. Because the majority of the people on Twitter never saw the Superbowl Shuffle...and didn't understand the spot. Which, of course, brings into question who Boost Mobile was targeting with this spot. Because if it wasn't 50 and 60 years olds or Chicago Bear fans, ummm, this was stupid.
Which reminded me of a series of local TV News gaffes my friend (and fellow blogger) Tim Morrissey and I have been discussing. There are just some things that a Madisonian knows that today's news anchors and reporters don't. Like that Tommy Thompson used to be Governor (duh). That Green Day's Grammy shout out to Butch Vig was huge for this town (totally ignored). And that the scoreboard announcement that it was "a great day for hockey" wasn't referring to the temperature at this weekend's outdoor game between the UW and Michigan...but a quote from hockey coaching legend Bob Johnson. Who, of course, the reporter had clearly never heard of.
Hey, I was young and stupid when I broke into broadcasting. But, there was a difference. If I didn't know what the hell something meant, I moved on to talking about what I did know. Today's broadcasters...they're just making it up as they go, thinking their reality is the only reality.
Which is why I don't know why we expect to be informed by today's media. They don't have the benefit of the background to any story...and they apparently aren't too interested in digging into anything other than TMZ stories. How else to explain the complete and total miss (prior to the election) that the recent winner of the Democratic nomination for Illinois Lt. Governor used steroids, abused his ex-wife and held a knife to his ex-prostitute girlfriend's throat.
And don't say it's just Illinois. It's a news industry that buys cheap, eager young talent at the expense of knowledge. I don't begrudge young reporters...because I used to be one. I begrudge media conglomerates firing all of the institutional knowledge in the newsroom so that the kids will never learn.
And, thus, we will never know the truth.
After leading the Durhan CVB for over twenty years, our friend Reyn Bowman has stepped away from the chair and hopped on his Harley for the next ride. Over the years of this blog, we've often referred to Reyn's stream of consciousness-raising "mutterings." Always thought provoking...and invariably spot-on.
Before he departed, he offered a Top Ten List for why some DMOs haven't engaged in DMAI's Accreditation program.
Which, in my mind, makes it a Bottom Ten list.
It's a new decade. Time for new thinking.
And, I'm betting some of it will continue to come from Reyn.
Congratulations on a great run, my friend. I'm looking forward to where the road takes you next. Or, where you take it.
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