Not Always On

Audi marketing, what are you thinking?

I am the proud owner of an Audi A4 2.8 Quattro, 1999 model. I love my car. I love it so much, give me a few minutes and I'll likely convince you to buy an A4 as your next car. When I buy another car, it will likely be another Audi A4. That's why when I read this piece, 2009 Audi A4 makes local debut in the Sacramento Bee, I had to wonder who the heck at Audi is making these types of marketing decisions?

Apparently, Audi had its "North American debut" of its new 2009 A4 in El Dorado Hills last week. Yadayada. Catered by Bistro 33, I like that place, I'm sure the food was great. But what about this part, "Prime Time Boxing provided entertainment, with eight semiprofessional boxing matches announced by professional boxing announcer Michael Buffer"? What? What the heck does boxing have to do with a new car? Especially an A4, which given its compact size is just as much of a girl car as a boy car. They're trying to appeal to women buyers with boxing matches?

]]> No, wait, here's the appeal for women, in the next sentence, "Area clothing boutiques such as Blush Boutique, Luxe, Taylor James and Studio T held fashion shows between bouts." A friggin fashion show? Give me a break guys. (I'm saying guys because I can't imagine a woman coming up with such a lame idea.)

Oh boy, it gets better, "After the last boxing match, the A4 -- or "undisputed champion," as Buffer introduced it -- was unveiled after the last match by Sacramento Kings cheerleaders, who uncovered two A4s that flanked the boxing ring." Looks like someone took a page out of the American Idol finale boxing gimmick. You know, the one that BOMBED. Regarding cheerleaders, I like cheerleaders, like watching them, AT GAMES.

Hey Audi. I love my A4. I really do. But boxing, fashion shows, and cheerleaders to introduce a car? Maybe I should be pointing the finger at Niello Audi, my local dealer who put on the event. Perhaps it wasn't really the "North American debut" as the paper said, but just a local PR event. Maybe it was a big hit, maybe the good people of El Dorado Hills actually give a damn about boxing, fashion shows, and cheerleaders, and I'm just totally out of touch. That's the likely scenario come to think about it. Sigh.

</rant>

JK Rowling Gives Commencement Speech at Harvard

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling gave the commencement speech at Harvard this year. Harvard Magazine lists the full text of the speech as well as a Quicktime video. Rowling focuses on two themes - failure and imagination. On failure,

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

]]> Most of us super-achieving types don't like to dwell on failure. We "reframe it", ignore it, work around it on our resume, focus on the positive, and focus on success. But utter failure can truly be liberating. We no longer have to be what we thought we should be. We have already shattered that illusion. When I had lost my company to bankruptcy, my health and therefore my ability to work, my roommate to cancer, when I could no longer support myself and I could barely function through the day, that's when most everything that I thought mattered didn't matter any more. My family mattered. My closest friends mattered. That was it. As self-pitying as I wanted to be, I couldn't. My dear friend had died. I was still alive. I was grateful every moment for having two loving, living parents, who could help me as I worked on regaining my health. I got rid of every single thing in my life that caused me stress. I only put energy into things that nourished me back. I became brutally impatient with everything that was stupid or superfluous. Priorities became crystal clear.

This is the gift of complete failure. Stripping away everything except what truly is important.

On the importance of imagination, Ms. Rowling had this to say:

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people�s minds, imagine themselves into other people�s places.
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

What wonderful insight into the power of imagination. It is through our imagination that we can even have empathy; it's what make us human.

This is a fabulous speech, by the one of the most read writers of our age. If you listen to it or read it, please let me know, what are the parts that resonate the most with you?

Virtual Fish Pond

A friend of mine recently put koi pond in his backyard. Lots of work. Lots of anxiety over getting the water chemical balance just right, and keeping wandering egrets, storks, and raccoons from eating his fish.

This version is easier. Click in the pond to feed the fish. No worries about overfeeding them either.

link

Ants, Scale Infestations, and Tanglefoot

About this time of year in the spring, when the weather warms up, the blooms are off the stone fruit trees, and the new fruit are just beginning to grow, the ants start to stake their claims on the trees. You can see them marching up the trunks and disappearing into the foliage. What are they doing? Most likely building their scale nurseries. The ants nurse and protect the scale insects, which, tapped into the sap of the tree, produce a sweet nectar that the ants love to eat.

You can pick off the scales one by one (they're squishy underneath their hardened shells, like baby snails, yes eww gross, wear gloves) but unless you tackle the ants, the scales will just come back.

So, what to do?

]]> The best solution we've found is to use a sticky product called Tanglefoot. It's all natural, no pesticides, perfectly safe, and extremely sticky. Spread some around the trunk of the tree (up a foot or so from the base) and the ants can't get by. So, they can't carry the scale nectar back to their nest. Trapped, they can only hang out in the tree and eventually they die.

Just make sure that there isn't a path into the tree other than the trunk or the ants will find it. And after a while, the tanglefoot will need to be reapplied.

The Return of Doctor Who

Doctor Who fans, season 4 is about to start, at least in the UK. I am completely and unabashedly in love with this show and its star David Tennant. Took an episode or two to recover from the loss of Christopher Eccleston and his sexy, swagger Doctor. Tennant is decidedly more subtle in his performance than Eccleston. But, boy can he act. He skillfully fills the range required by the role. Charming, exuberant, funny, determined, loving, sad, lonely, Tennant can navigate across all of these qualities and emotions within moments. The good Doctor returns for another adventure-filled season and I can't wait. Billy Piper comes back. Catherine Tate joins the cast. Here's a review.

Who is your favorite Doctor Who?

It's About Time

Stanford announces financial aid enhancements.

Stanford University today announced the largest increase in its history for its financial aid program for undergraduates.
Under the new program, parents with incomes of less than $100,000 will no longer pay tuition. Parents with incomes of less than $60,000 will not be expected to pay tuition or contribute to the costs of room, board and other expenses.

The program also eliminates the need for student loans.

Other significant enhancements have been made to the program that will benefit aid recipients at all levels of income.

When I was at business school I heard former Stanford president Donald Kennedy speak on the need for those of us "best and brightest" to go into public service. I talked to Mr. Kennedy after his talk about the financial realities of this. When I got out of undergrad my school loan payments were as high as my rent. There is no way I could afford to take a job that didn't pay much. In fact, my observation was that the only people who could afford to work for non-profits were those with trust funds, or those who had gone to a state school and weren't loaded down by debt.

I didn't pay off my combined business school and undergrad loans until I was in my mid-thirties, and then I celebrated by throwing a "zero net worth" party.

As an alumn, I'm tired of having my donations to the school go to maintaining more and bigger buildings. Stanford has a huge endowment, one of the largest in the country. There is no excuse to saddle their students with huge debt burdens that take decades to pay off and limit career choices.

Thanks to similar announcements by top tier East Coast schools, Stanford has been compelled to offer more aggressive financial aid, just to stay competitive.

All I can say is that it is about time.

Interview with Allee Willis of Bubbles and Cheesecake

I first met Allee Willis in the mid-nineties when we worked together on "Willisville", a virtual world of 19 or so wildly amusing fictional inhabitants of a town by the same name, accessible only through the Internet. It was a grand experiment, funded by Intel, and like so many things that Allee creates, years before its time. Allee is one of the bravest, truest artists I know. Brilliant ideas come hurtling out of her faster than most of our brains can process. She seems to thrive teetering on the edge of either disaster or brilliant success, ready to leap fully into the next thing, forging ahead wherever her creative juices take her.

Recently Allee teamed up with recording artist Holly Palmer to create and publish their own music, skipping the established record labels all together. Their video It's a Woman Thang was featured on YouTube and has had over 800,000 downloads to date. Allee is a grammy award winning songwriter, over 50 million songs sold, used to write a lot for Earth Wind and Fire, wrote a lot of the music to Beverly Hills Cop (remember Neutron Dance?). She co-wrote the music to the Broadway show "Color Purple", produced by Oprah, based on the book by Alice Walker. I've always been awed and amazed by Allee Willis and am delighted that she agreed to be interviewed about what motivates her and the latest stage of her career:

]]> Elise: After years of working with music publishers, you've decided to "go direct". Why this route, and why now, at this point in your career?

Allee: I never felt like I fit into the Hollywood structure. Some people get a hit and manage to coast on it forever. But all a hit ever meant to me was that I had a little more cash to reinvent myself via whatever mode of artistic expression I felt was suited to express what I was feeling at the time. No one in the music, TV or film corporate world would me hire me to do anything other than recreate what I had already done. I always risk everything I have in order to keep moving artistically. Other than now I have a little better sense of how far down I'm willing to go as I try to figure all this Bubbles & Cheesecake stuff out as I'm not looking to lose everything I worked for my whole life.

Making money selling music is a thing of the past. Bands make money on performances and merchandise. But we're not a touring band. Our dream is to be the soul man's Martha Stewart. Bubbles & Cheesecake is less a band and more a lifestyle and attitude about living with matching music, products and ideas. If record companies can't even sell music these days I can't see where they would help selling anything else. Also, you can't think about going direct without also trying to figure out how to sell music in this new era, not just make it. I love attacking things from multi levels so although I long for the days when all I had to think about was the songs, it makes it incredibly interesting to have to take business and technology models into consideration. It's terrifying but it's sure not boring.

Elise: Tell us about the message behind "It's a Woman Thang". What inspired you and Holly to launch with this song?

Allee: We launched with it because we loved the pulse, groove and message. We also felt it was a strong visual song and perfect for Bubbles' style of art and animation as well as a great way of combining my music, art, animation and kitsch collection in one place. It's A Woman Thang is a universal song about respecting and expressing yourself - it's an everybody thang. The very founding premise of Bubbles & Cheesecake is to inspire people to build up their self esteem by learning to express themselves creatively in every aspect of their life - in words, lifestyle, dress, lawn ornaments, what's in the pot on your stove, whatever canvas Life shoots your way. Where people are getting this notion that the song is a war chant about wanting to crush men is nutty.

Elise: Did you anticipate that this song would stir up so much controversy? How are you surprised?

Allee: It never dawned on Holly or me that that one little pop song and video could unleash such a firestorm of self expression, if that's what you can call the diatribes, many of them incredibly illiterate, that have polarized men and women on youtube. THIS SONG HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MALE VERSUS FEMALE ANYTHING. It's not even about girl power. It's about personal power. After years of people telling me what my songs mean to them that have absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote it's no surprise to me that people hear what they want to hear. A lot of times all they hear is the title and form an opinion based on what that means to them. That's certainly a large percentage of what's going on with "It's A Woman Thang". And then part of the nature of youtube comments is that they attract many disempowered, frustrated angry (probably 15 years old) people who have no other mode of expression in the real word. So once a few daggers are thrown it's like cheese to a mouse. By the way I put a phrase-by-phrase what-we-meant-when-we-wrote-the-song lyric in our blog the other day. You can also actually hear us writing the song, line by line, discussing the intention of each, at http://www.bubblesandcheesecake.com/iawt/writingaudio.html.

Elise: With so many creative ideas bouncing around your brain, I imagine that some days you just feel like exploding. What do you do as a daily practice to keep sane? (Or is that even a goal?)

Allee: I stop and take a break on my back porch as soon as I feel my head begin to spin. I watch television and pet my cats. I also take rides. And going to the right party never hurts.

Elise: You're doing the web "thang". What do you love about it and what do you find most challenging?

Allee: I love and hate a lot of the same things. Because Cheesecake and I basically do everything - write, arrange, play, sing, record and produce the songs, paint and prep the art, shoot, animate, edit and direct the videos as well as create all the web components, it's a delicate balance between the joy of creative freedom and learning something new everyday and the torture and frustration of constantly being lost or having to deal with something it never dawned on you was ever relevant. It's the agony and ecstasy of creating for a medium that's still defining itself, limited by technology you've got to figure out new and effective ways to use, dealing with immediate feedback from users, where you have to not just figure out new forms of entertainment and social interactivity but technology and business models that can sustain you. Complicated by, in our case, our core product, music, being something people don't really pay for anymore. So I love that this complex batch of things brings freedom because it�s our world to figure out and then build whatever we come up with - something that could never happen if we were beholden to someone else. But it puts a lot of pressure on an artist when 70% of what stands between them and recognition has to do less with the creation of the music or art itself but, rather, with how to promote it, monetize it, grow it, etc. And when you're totally indie like Bubbles & Cheesecake a load like weighs heavy on your shoulders.

Elise: What's next for Bubbles and Cheesecake?

Allee: A lot more songs and videos, a constantly evolving web world and extensions via everything from books to clothing to new forms of entertainment into physical and virtual spaces that allow us to express the philosophy of Bubbles & Cheesecake. www.bubblesandcheesecake.com is designed to be a connection of song chunks, each song with it's own visual universe of video, web and mobile components and matching products. And then promoting all of it any way we can. And, oh yes, we'd love to figure out some way to make money!

******************

Thank you Allee for giving us a peek into what fuels your creative genius! For those of you who haven't yet seeing "It's a Woman Thang", here you go:

Links:
Bubbles and Cheesecake site and high quality video of It's a Woman Thang
Bubbles and Cheesecake blog
Allee Willis bio

Photos from http://www.bubblesandcheesecake.com

Woah - Google 411!

Tired of getting those $1-$2 charges on your phone bill every time you call information? Google has just launched a free 411 telephone directory service. Call 1-800-GOOG-411 or, 1-800-4664-411, to check it out. Absolutely brilliant. It really works!

I love the way that Google is using a YouTube video to blast the message out that this new service is available. Talk about doing a product launch in the new Web 2.0 world. Google puts a link to a fun, non-stuffy, non-overworked video on its site. It instantly gets thousands of viewers, and people like me with blogs to repost their video. Contrast this to everything Apple does - exceedingly polished, but very closed. Not so easy to repost an Apple ad, or a Steve Jobs keynote.

Christine Kane Live - Right Outta Nowhere

Found this great video of Christine Kane performing live "Right Outta Nowhere". I wrote about meeting Christine and BlogHer a few months ago. She performed a week ago at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, but unfortunately I was too sick with a cold to go see her. :-(

Imogen Heap - Goodnight and Go

Here's another great Imogen Heap video. (Still on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9athUdhH40) Gorgeous dress. Beautiful color scheme in the photography. I wonder who art directed the video. Anyone know?

Here she is doing the same song live on David Letterman. From the Speak for Yourself album.

Time

Photo by Shuna Fish Lydon

Someone sent me an email to request a conversation with me tomorrow at 2:00 pm. Ever since I stopped wearing a watch with regularity a couple of years ago I've been struck by how tethered we are as a culture to the idea of hours and minutes. Time, as in the time of day, days of the week, is so woven into the fabric of our lives that we have a hard time organizing ourselves without considering it. We have difficulty imagining what a day would be like if it weren't broken up into hours and minutes.

Slots to be filled with useful activities.

So, when someone wants to have a phone conversation with me, instead of just picking up the phone, they send an email, and try to find a particular slot, bounded by numbers, in which I might be available to talk with them, in a particular slot, bounded by numbers, which works well for them.

Don't people just pick up the phone and call anymore?

The problem is that now that I work for myself, building a business that requires just my creative attention, not a consulting business that is bonded to time constraints of clients, I have a hard time with doing anything at an appointed time, and submit to it only because it is necessary and important to others. There is also TV; Dr. Who comes on at 8 pm on Friday and if I miss it, god help me if I can find a rerun. I get almost a little panicky around the hours that I need to remember, because so out-of-time-consciousness am I that I easily, completely forget. Yet when I need to wake up at a specific time, I can do so, without an alarm. Can you?

Days are a bit easier. Wednesday in the food section. Saturday I can usually get some work done because I'm not bombarded by a hundred emails that need answering. Sunday is church, whether I go or not. I'm addicted to 2 TV programs at the moment, but I don't usually remember that they are on until a half hour before. Monday dinner, "oh, the Closer is on." Friday dinner, "Yikes! Dr. Who starts in 5 minutes." (Except when it doesn't. Half the time our cable company shifts it to another time slot on Friday. Ironic. Dr. Who is a time lord.)

]]> Back to that 2:00 appointment. I have no other plans. But I do have a 9-year old nephew to entertain, and who knows? Perhaps he would want to go to the zoo. I don't know what I'll cook for the site until I after I wake up in the morning, perhaps it will require me cooking at 2:00?

I cherish the freedom to do whatever comes up in the moment, and do whatever is needed to be done at the moment. Saturdays and Wednesdays are dream days because I have absolutely no commitments. Free to create anything. Nothing to remember. No panic over appointments missed. There's something going on on the other days, something that I need to organize myself around.

How do you relate to time? Do you sleep with your watch on? Does an alarm wake you up? What routines do you have that are defined by the numbers of your clock? How full is your calendar? What is "full" for you?

There's no rush for answers. Take your time. ;-)

Spider Love

Yesterday a guy came to the door wanting to know if we had any spiders we wanted killed.

"Spiders? Killed?"

"Yeah, we're doing the house down the street, thought you might have a problem too."

"We like spiders. We don't kill them."

"You LIKE spiders?"

"Yes. We LIKE spiders. We don't kill them. They kill the bugs we don't like. So we don't kill the spiders. Thanks for stopping by, but we don't need anyone to kill our spiders."

So, is it safe to assume that everyone hates spiders and wants to get rid of them? I love spiders. I don't even kill the ones I find occasionally in my room. I might shoo them out the window, but more likely I'll let one build a small web in the corner and let her catch mosquitos. When she's done and gone I'll dust away the web. The daddy long legs do tend to overpopulate the eves outside, but they are easy enough to brush away a couple of times a year.

Why do I like spiders? Because I hate, truly hate, mosquitos and silverfish. Insects that spiders like to eat. Same reason I love praying mantis.

Sometimes at night, I'll find a spider in the bathtub. I'll talk to the spider and say "Hey there Mr. Spider. You don't belong here. Tomorrow morning I'm going to take a shower and if you are still in the tub you are going down the drain." Sure enough, 9 times out of 10, Mr. Spider is gone by the morning.

Here in California, the only spider you really have to watch out for are black widows. But they are quite distinctive. Jet black with a bright red hour glass shape on their belly. Black widows have really ugly webs too, and tend to hang out in outdoor tool sheds.

Anyway, this beautiful gal is an Argiope Aurantia, also known as the Yellow Garden Spider. She is currently camped out on my lavender bush in my flower garden. She's been there for about a week and has managed to devour quite a few bugs.

Links:
Spiders teamed up to create a giant web, scientists say

Fun with Photo Booth

Okay, so I've just discovered the world's most entertaining time waster - the new Photo Booth software that comes with the built-in iSight camera on a Mac.

More photos here.

]]> You too can squiggle your face:

Do really weird things to your your head:

Or remove it all together:

Endless entertainment.

Christine Kane at BlogHer

All day Friday at the BlogHer conference in Chicago I kept running into an interesting seeming woman named Christine Kane, who mentioned that she blogged about music. Christine's eyes are penetrating; you don't easily forget her once having met her. But I had no idea who she was. And then, on Friday night, at the BlogHer party on the rooftop of the Navy Pier, there she was, alone on a small stage with a guitar. And when she started singing, holy shit, that woman could sing. She has a gorgeous voice. Not what you expect when someone you've been hanging with off and on during the day picks up a guitar.

Then I remembered that there was a music CD in our shwag bag and the light bulbs in my brain finally turned on. I looked for her all the next day to thank her for the CD and for playing for our rather inattentive group, but didn't see her anywhere. According to someone, this was a marketing experiment for her. Did it work? I have no idea. But if you are reading this and are remotely curious about Christine's work, listen to a few bars at iTunes, and if you like it, buy it. More people should hear her. And Christine, if you are out there somewhere reading this, thank you.

Imogen Heap - Just for Now (Live Acapella)

Check out this amazing performance of singer Imogen Heap, layering tracks over each other live.