Interactive Print Catalogs

Using the words interactive and print in the same sentence may appear like an oxymoron.

But it’s not.

O-CODES has created some technology that allows consumers to interact with printed catalogs, and brands and publishers to interact with those consumers.

Consumers can text the catalog prefix, followed by the catalog number of an item they like, to 62626. Information about the item is sent to their phone via a text message, which can include links to video, photos, and the item in the company’s online or mobile store. This information, and the link to the item, is also saved for the consumer online, in a free account at o-codes.com.

I’ve watched my wife and sisters browse through catalogs and circle (with a marker) the items they like and want to buy or at least add to their wishlists. They dogear pages with the items they like, then plan to go online to find those items later. But they rarely get around to finding the items online, and often miss special sales or offers from the advertisers.

I myself like to browse through sporting goods, tools, electronics, and outdoor gear catalogs and I do the same thing (circle or tear out the stuff I like, with the intent to follow-up later online… but I don’t).

With O-CODES, I can digitally “circle” the stuff I like by texting the item numbers to 62626 (the O-CODES system number). I get information about each item, and the item is automatically saved into my “wishlist” online, where I can purchase the items I’ve saved later. However, if I want to buy something immediately, I can click on the link right on my phone and buy the item right there. I can also share the stuff I’ve saved with my family and friends so they can see what I might like for a birthday, Christmas, father’s day, or other gift.

Catalog publishers can use the O-CODES system to see how many customers are interacting with specific items in their catalogs. If they see, for instance, that 3,455 people have digitally “circled” or “bookmarked” a specific retail item using its O-CODE, they can send those exact consumers a special offer via text message to purchase the item in a private sale at a nice discount. Both the consumer and the retailer benefit.

O-CODES aims to bridge the gap between initial exposure, especially in offline settings, and conversion, which often happens online now. As a consumer, I can now save, share, and shop for the stuff I like using simple messages on my phone. Simple and powerful!

Exposure, Immersion, and Conversion

Marketing and advertising execs often talk about reach, frequency, and conversion rates with respect to budgets and ROI. It is common practice to plan for at least 7 touches, or exposures (some industries place this as high as 14) before a new prospect becomes a paying customer.

There is a tremendous amount of pressure to justify marketing and ad spend, especially in a tough economy. Because most marketing execs can’t measure offline effectively, that pressure pushes them towards online marketing, where they can measure more clearly.

Interestingly enough, this shift from offline to online doesn’t necessarily improve bottom line results… in fact, it sometimes has just the opposite effect. But, since it is the only area many marketers feel they can measure and justify, they stick with it.

It is my opinion that effective advertising and marketing has to be a hybrid mix of offline and online, not one or the other. How that mixture is represented in your budget must be a factor of the industry you are in, who your target customers are, and how you can best tell your story.

But how can you justify the investment in a form that you can’t measure? That is the problem that O-CODES seeks to solve.

O-CODES is about immersion and conversion.

O-CODES immerse consumers deeper into your brand experience, your content, at the initial point of exposure. Consumers can interact and engage with your offline content using a mobile phone and simple text messages. O-CODES make it very simple for them to take immediate action, to convert to a paying customer or loyal follower, and to share your content via their social networks.

This also allows for the effectiveness of your offline advertising and marketing to be measurable, in great detail. If you have a campaign that spans multiple offline channels (transport ads, outdoor ads, TV commercials, radio spots, and direct mail, for instance), using unique O-CODES in each channel (and even in different zoned areas within each of those channels) you would be able to track consumer engagement related to your brand in each area. You could test slightly different messages as well as different times or geographic locations to see which ones produce the best results.

Offline channels are still brilliant and effective with respect to their simplicity and ability to quickly expose a captive audience to your brand, message, or story. Where offline falls short is immersion. Most offline channels are quick blasts of short exposure snippets (thus the requirement for multiple exposures before a prospect becomes a customer). O-CODES changes this, by allowing consumers to become immersed into your brand experience quickly and easily (using their mobile phone) at the moment of initial exposure. Print and TV and radio ads create that first attraction or interest, which can be followed up instantly with video, audio, product demos, infographics, pictures, and links to special offers or promotions – instantly and right in the consumer’s hand.

The gap between initial exposure / first impressions is closed more quickly, and exposure becomes instant immersion which leads to quicker conversion. Prospects become customers in an instant, with the ability to get enough information about your product or service to make a decision, and make a purchase, all in the palm of their hand.

In addition, O-CODES enables the reach of your message to be amplified via social networks. Consumers can share your content to their Facebook wall, their Twitter stream, and into shared Evernote notebooks instantly without any special applications…just a simple text message. Your offline content and messaging becomes social, viral, and interactive.

This is all measurable. The path from point of exposure, to immersion, to conversion is trackable. And the marketing and advertising budget decisions are justifiable and clear.

The future (at least in my lifetime) is not ALL digital. It is a hybrid mix between offline and online content, each with advantages and value. Knowing how to use the mix to maximize the value of your content is the secret to success.

Hypocritics (yes, I meant to spell it that way)

I saw this quote on Twitter today, attributed to Bill Maher: RT @gedeon: “Every asshole who ever chanted ‘Drill baby drill’ should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty.” – Bill Maher.

While I’m not one of those assholes, it did make me wonder if Bill Maher either rides a bike everywhere or has himself volunteered to help with any previous oil spills?

It’s a terrible mess. Yes. But I get tired of the arrogant critics who are paid so well to criticize and rant from a comfortable distance. Nobody wants to be in the middle east (for oil or for chasing WMDs or for whatever reason) so we either have to find oil on our own soil (or water) or we all have to ride bikes or convert to electric vehicles immediately. I look forward to the day when we don’t have to rely on foreign oil, or any oil for that matter (might not be in my lifetime), but in the meantime if you don’t want to be in the middle east, and you don’t want to drill for oil here, you better be riding a freaking bike and not flying, using the bus, or consuming oil in any other way.

Apple vs Adobe (or Gone in a Flash?)

It’s been interesting, to say the least, to follow the public battle between Adobe and Apple related to Flash and HTML5. Steve Jobs posted an bold letter to customers this morning on Apple’s website, which caused yet another wave of reactions through the twitterverse, as well as responses from Shantanu Narayen (Adobe CEO) and Kevin Lynch (Adobe CTO).

I remember the beginnings of Apple and Adobe’s relationship. In fact, the company my father started was involved with both companies back in those days. I remember later when Apple stock was in the toilet, and analysts were saying that Apple might go out of business. I recall Adobe at that time made a decision (I don’t know if anyone can blame them, fairly) to focus on the Windows platform which owned the business environment and was gaining ground in the desktop publishing and graphic design arena. Even though Steve Jobs was not at the helm at that time, I have wondered recently if he was upset by Adobe’s decision back then – I’m sure if I Google it I might be able to find out (some reporter my age or older must have asked Steve that question already?).

Some of Steve’s comments today about Flash make sense. But companies I have worked for have been on the receiving end of his sometimes selfish and surprising decisions which weren’t always motivated by good business sense alone. While I’m not defending Adobe here, their decision to focus on the Windows platform back in the day could arguably be viewed as a purely strategic business decision. Steve’s decisions aren’t always this clear cut. In some ways, they’ve made Apple what it is. In other ways, those decisions have made Apple a dangerous company to partner with, or rely on. Partnering with Apple seems a dangerous (albeit seductive) dance, and almost always requires a contingency plan in case Steve changes direction on you.

I agree that Flash isn’t an “open” format. It may be ubiquitous, as Steve pointed out, but that doesn’t mean it is open. Conversely, I’m not sure I buy Steve’s arguments related to crashing, battery power, and rollover functionality as to why Apple is not supporting Flash. I think the main reason is related to control. However, if game developers can make games for the iFamily in HTML5 and bypass the Apple store and their approval process, that argument will be null. Time will tell.

The ultimate question is, even though Adobe is focusing on all the other mobile platforms for Flash, if you are a publisher, advertiser, or game developer would you want to have to develop your site, your content, or your game for both Flash and HTML5 and H.264, or would you just use the latter which will run on all devices equally? Without picking sides, I can’t see why anyone would pick the first choice for resources and time and maintenance reasons. I suppose that would mean the end of Flash, and would be a big blow to Adobe unless they found a way to participate in, and support, the other formats from within their applications just as easily as Flash.

I think that today (well, the past 8 weeks really) is historic with respect to the relationship between the two great grandparents of desktop publishing. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few years, but if I had to put my money on one horse or the other (Flash or HTML5) I’d have to bet against Flash.

iTouch’d the iPad

So I finally got my hands on an iPad (thanks Pops!) and played with it for about an hour. My initial impression was very positive… it IS sexy. I am continually impressed by Apple’s design capability, not only from an aesthetic standpoint, but from a materials standpoint as well. And frankly, Jonathan Ive has reached some kind of design godlike status in my opinion.

It didn’t take very long, however, for me to realize that there are some drawbacks to the iPad that would prevent me from rushing out and buying one myself. (Note to friends: if you want to buy me one as a GIFT, I certainly wouldn’t turn it down ).

First, while the iPad is relatively light and small (compared to notebooks or netbooks), it is still heavy enough to be awkward to hold in a certain position for any length of time. I began reading a book and noticed that I couldn’t finish a single page before I was shifting the iPad around in my hands trying to find a comfortable angle to read. It is heavy enough that after 10-15 minutes of reading, it becomes a little uncomfortable to hold like you would hold a paperback book or a magazine (out in front of you, not supported by any inanimate object). I mentioned this to my dad and he agreed – in fact, he mentioned that even though he had downloaded the Kindle app for his iPad, he quickly went back to (and prefers) reading books on his Kindle. He said the Kindle is not only lighter, but the Kindle screen is actually easier to read (no glare from lights overhead) than the glossy iPad screen.

I checked out several magazines on the iPad, and even though the photo/video presentations were pretty cool, actually reading the stories wasn’t that great. I would much rather read those same magazines in their print format when I am focused on the actual story – which creates an interesting conundrum: the presentation of slides, animation, and video makes a magazine on an iPad attractive, however, the larger format for photos and the better readability of the text (IMHO) makes a print magazine more attractive.

I also spent some time on YouTube, and was disappointed to realize that most of the videos on YouTube, even ones that are marked as HD, looked very blurry and pixelated on the iPad. I’m sure this will improve over time as more and more videos are shot in HD, and wireless bandwidth increases to accommodate the quick streaming of these larger file sizes. Until then, and this surprised me, I’d rather watch most YouTube videos on my iPhone in the smaller format, than on the iPad.

I checked out Twitter next. While I could view more tweets on the iPad than I can on my iPhone, I realized that it is impossible to both hold the iPad AND type a tweet at the same time with a single hand. I love the fact that I can tweet with one hand on my iPhone. And, similar to the problem with reading a book, I noticed that I hadn’t spent much time on Twitter before I had set the iPad down on my lap and was craning my next and/or elevating my knees to be able to scroll through and respond to various tweets.

This brings me to the keyboard. I was looking forward to trying out the onscreen keyboard, thinking I might be able to use it like a normal keyboard. This isn’t the case, however, at least for me. The keyboard layout isn’t big enough for me to type on like a normal keyboard, but not small enough to access with one hand. So I found myself hunting and pecking the keys with my index finger, which was OK but not ideal. I didn’t try the iPad out with the physical stand+keyboard combo… but I imagine if I was using an external keyboard frequently there wouldn’t be much advantage to using an iPad over my MacBook.

Two more issues I discovered were the lack of Flash (already knew this but wasn’t sure how it would affect my iPad experience without trying it) and the inability to store files on the iPad (at least not outside of the app that created them). The whole Flash vs HTML5 / Apple vs Adobe battle will be interesting to watch play out over time. But, in the meantime, the user is screwed because there are so many websites that use Flash out there, those sites are seriously crippled or unusable on the iPad. And, without the ability to store files, I can’t see the iPad as a replacement for a laptop for school or work settings.

In summary, I think the iPad is a cool toy. But definitely not a replacement for a laptop. It is a sexy (but expensive) supplement to a mobile phone and a laptop (replacing neither), and for me would essentially end up being a fancy notepad for quick meetings where I didn’t need my laptop, and a nice entertainment toy for watching movies on flights. It will not replace my magazines or books, regardless of how great the user experience on the iPad is, mostly because most of the places I read books and magazines (camping, poolside, at the beach or the lake, or even on the patio on a sunny day) are places where the iPad is essentially unusable or too risky to take.

I was glad to finally get to hold one and play with one… both to satisfy my curiosity and to confirm the fact that I am in no hurry to rush out and buy one. I think it will be a few years before Apple sells as many iPads as iPhones (I’ve seen the comparisons about opening weekend sales, which indicate the iPad is outpacing the iPhone, however, I think these numbers are not sustainable for several reasons: 1) cost of the iPad definitely puts it out of reach for as many people as could afford the low-end model of the iPhone, especially since the iPad can’t replace a phone, 2) there was so much hype about the launch of the iPad, I think most of the early adopters/ubergeeks that wanted one also wanted to be one of the first to have one and went out of their way to get one opening weekend, and 3) iPhone sales were likely affected by the fact that they were accompanied by a contractual commitment to ATT which required many iPhone adopters to pay cancellation costs on their current wireless contract, and go through the pain of switching to ATT).

Mobile is the the future, I think that is certain. But my laptop is mobile enough to pretty much be perfect for what I need. If Apple made a mac tablet running OSX that had the profile of my Macbook screen, with the ports, DVD slot, fine-tip stylus (not the dull-tip, nubby stylus available for the iPad), and a decent battery life, I’d be an instant buyer. Add the ability to make calls (via a bluetooth headset), and I’ve have the perfect mobile all-in-one device. Until then, it’s a multiple-device world and the iPad is a fancy extra, not a replacement or improvement on the ones I already have.

A hybrid future for news

Friday I attended a local chamber of commerce event, and listened to an esteemed newspaper chief editor speak about the future of print newspapers. He admitted they certainly have their challenges, and that they have not been quick enough to adapt to changes in the marketplace, but he also pointed out that a large portion of the original news we consume is generated by newspaper sources. TV, web, and radio often aggregate and edit the content that is created by newspaper journalists. He was emphatic in his opinion that newspapers are not doomed, despite recent struggles and despite advancements in handheld digital technologies. He opined that the future will be a hybrid of print and digital, and suggested that even the technorati like to be “unplugged” from time to time, and can consume and browse information in printed form much quicker and easier than the same content in digital form. I have to admit I agree with this opinion… I am as geeky and gadget-hungry as they come, yet I still enjoy (and often prefer) to read interesting (especially if they are lengthy) stories, and view beautiful photos, in large print format.

There is something unique about the physical nature of paper that a digital format will never replace (even with flexible plastic paper-thin ePaper). I do prefer the smaller tabloid format to the traditional large newspaper broadsheet, and I prefer a semi-gloss non-smearing paper to the cheap newsprint that leaves your fingers ink-stained, and I think newspapers will all trend towards this format.

Breaking news will undoubtedly be digital, at least the headline and the 160 character synopsis Twitter is training us towards. But, you can’t really uncover the story behind the headline in that short format, and Twitter does not lend itself to investigative reporting – only quick bits of instant information. So there will always be a need for the in-depth info with the details and drama that depict the real story. This is the realm where print can reign.

The problem with print is that it is passive. You can’t easily save the great content you encounter there (clutter, even if it is “organized”), and sharing it with multiple friends instantly is very difficult (scan and email?). Try finding a story you read in print 6 months ago in the moment you need to refer to it… almost impossible.

O-CODES was created to solve these problems and to combine the best attributes of the print and digital worlds. Consumers can enjoy the reading experience related to print, yet engage with that content as if it were digital (easily saving the stories and ads they find compelling, sharing them instantly with friends via their social networks, and being able to quickly find what they’ve saved later).

In addition, O-CODES aims to address the challenge of measuring engagement and influence for publishers and advertisers creating this content. With offline forms, this has been very difficult (if not technically, then certainly financially). Without revealing personal consumer information, O-CODES can track and measure the interaction readers have with all forms of offline content, and link that to their online behavior as well. This lends credibility to, and confidence in a hybrid model of publishing and advertising for those content providers who are feeling the pressure related to the “measure everything” mantra.

I agree with the editor that the future of news is a hybrid model where the headlines and instant information will be digital and the follow-up details and powerful photos, especially for local stories, will be available in both print and digital forms. And it will be the goal of O-CODES to bridge the gap between offline and online information in a way that benefits both the consumers of that content, as well as the creators and curators.

The Media Pendulum

I follow a lot of media “experts” on Twitter and the web. A lot of focus (especially with the advent of the iPad) has been on the future of news and what newspapers and magazines will look like in coming years. What will the entire print industry become? Is there a future for print at all with the digitization and socialization of everything?

I believe there is.

History (from my perspective) works something like a pendulum. Imagine this pendulum moving through a third dimension (z), or time, while the pendulum arm moves back and forth and up and down (x and y) from one extreme to the other. The pendulum tip never crosses the same x,y,z coordinate twice as it moves through time, but it does cross back and forth through the same x and y coordinates.

Because I am watching the Winter Olympics right now, another analogy we might use is the snowboarder in a half-pipe. Moving down the hill (z) through time, while moving back and forth (x) and up and down (y) through space.

To go back to the pendulum and tie it in to my history example, the speed at which the pendulum arm moves depends on innovation. As the arm slows down and starts to equalize, some paradigm-shifting input puts the pendulum in motion once again, sometimes violently so.

One tendency of pundits and “experts” is to take a snapshot view of the pendulum at a given point in time, and postulate or pontificate that this is representative of the way things are, or the way things always will be. This is most dangerous when the pendulum arm is at the apex of its path, or at one extreme immediately after a paradigm shift has occurred. The same mistake is made by companies and organizations when they are planning their strategies for the future.

This is like taking a photo of the snowboarder at the apex of their jump out of the half-pipe and assuming that snowboarders must be able to fly, or conversely, a photo of the snowboarder at the base of the pipe and assuming that snowboarders are never airborne.

So what, if anything, does this have to do with media? Well, Twitter, Facebook, and digital portable devices are three fairly recent inputs that have set the media pendulum in motion towards an extreme apex (the digitization of all information) which I think is unrealistic to extrapolate into the future. Will almost all content become digital? In fact, most of it already is. Most media (since 1984 and the advent of desktop publishing) STARTS as digital, and then is converted to print and offline forms.

I believe that there will for a very long time (it is never wise to say always) be a valuable and valid place for printed content in the market. On one hand, it is still a good entry point to information (even though it is hard to act upon after the initial introduction – like saving, sharing, searching through it later). On another hand, it is also something tangible and is associated with certain senses and experiences we do not get with digital media. Even though I am very “wired” and consume a large amount of digital data, I like (and actually look forward to) consuming non-digital media (still love books and magazines and well-design newspapers).

The drawbacks to consuming offline media (and the reason pundits believe everything will become digital) are twofold: First, as consumers we cannot easily share offline media we consume with friends. This wasn’t as big a deal a few years ago before the advent of social networks, but now many of us have an enhanced desire to share what we find with friends and family. Second, as consumers we cannot easily save and retrieve later the content we have consumed in the past… and with the amount of information we can now consume this means great stuff we encountered previously is often lost and gone forever (even if we remember having encountered it).

The drawbacks to creating and publishing offline media are also multi-faceted: First, especially since most content STARTS digitally these days, converting and distributing it in an offline format (like print) is time-consuming and laborious. It is only worth it if there is a significant return for this effort. Second, the effectiveness of offline media is hard to measure (compared to online media). It is difficult to know how many consumers are reading which specific articles, acting upon or being influenced by which specific advertisements, and which particular mediums and locations are more effective than others. The pressure on advertisers and marketers is to measure everything (even if most of them don’t know what to do with the metrics once they have them), so they begin to migrate away from the mediums they can’t measure. Even if the migration doesn’t lead them to better results, at least they have the placebo of reports and charts and numbers to throw around in meetings which make them sound like they know what they are doing.

I can say this because I have been a marketer my entire career.

In my opinion, offline media is still powerful, influential, and a valuable component to a great marketing strategy (at least for most industries). I love digital and social media, and I am not arguing against it in any way. However, I am saying that abandoning offline media altogether is not wise for most brands and most companies.

I started a company, O-CODES, in order to address the drawbacks I mention above, while preserving the value and validity of print and offline media. What if you could interact with offline content just like you interact with online content (saving the stuff you like in a personal archive that is searchable later, and sharing some of that stuff with your friends and family via your social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter?). And what if publishers and advertisers could begin to measure (with more detail even than offline offers) who is interacting with their content (dates and times, geographic locations, etc) and what parts of their content is being shared via social networks (expanding its reach)?

This is the aim of O-CODES. To bridge the gap between offline and online content. To allow passive media to become active media (social, viral, and interactive).

Things will never be the same for traditional media, but this is good (for everyone). Instead of trying to freeze the media pendulum (or reverse its path), traditional media companies should be asking themselves not only how they can participate in, but LEAD, the innovative disruptions which are changing consumption patterns.

Typography

I love typography. It is the difference between great design and good design. I designed fonts for newspapers in my teens and it was the best-paying, and most enjoyable job I’ve ever had. So when I stumbled across this video I thought it was worth sharing…

Helvetica-Kinetic Typography from Jon DeBoer on Vimeo.

Quick Thoughts on the iPad

So many comments have been posted about the iPad… I don’t expect mine to shed any new light on the views already shared. And, I haven’t seen or touched one, so that diminishes the value of my opinion even further. Nonetheless, and for the sake of reflecting upon my initial thoughts later on, I will post.

First, I think its an interesting idea… but I don’t think its wicked cool yet. It doesn’t seem to do a lot more than an iPhone or iPod touch, except have a bigger screen. In that sense, it feels like an iPod touch for those with diminishing eyesight who also like to buy large format scriptures and complain about small fonts.

Because it is not a phone, I still need an iPhone. And even though I have two iPod touches, I rarely use them because I have my iPhone. I don’t even like iPod touches for working out or running, because they are too big. Nano is great for those occasions.

Because it is not a real computer, I still need a laptop (I have a Macbook Pro). My MacBook is awesome, and with Parallels and Windows XP installed I essentially have two computers in one. And even though the iPad is not as big as my laptop, it doesn’t fit in my pocket so I still need a bag… in which case I might as well bring my laptop.

I’ve heard the iPad doesn’t support Flash (like the iPhone). Both lame… too many cool websites I like use Flash.

I wonder about battery life with the iPad. With all the apps on my iPhone the battery doesn’t last one day, even without making many phone calls. With a bigger screen and bigger videos and games, will the battery make it through the day with much use?

Because it can’t replace my phone and can’t replace my laptop, when/how will I use it? Maybe at home for fun? Maybe take it with me on trips if I have room in my already overpacked bag? And is that worth the pretty hefty price tag they’ve got on them now?

In addition to that, with AT&T as the exclusive data plan provider, I have serious concerns. I use AT&T and haven’t been overly impressed with their coverage or their customer support. And with the problems they have had in NYC and SF regarding bandwidth, and AT&T execs going on record that they may penalize high-bandwidth users or find ways to ‘encourage’ users to throttle back their bandwidth use, I think the iPad will have significant challenges on an already-stretched AT&T network.

I didn’t see a stylus, which would have been cool… and quite possibly a 3rd party peripherals company like Logitech will develop one, but using your finger (if they are as thick as mine are) is just not a good way to write yourself a note or make a drawing. And, if someone created a stylus that would work with the iPhone I’d probably just use that instead (unless I was an architect or artist).

I may be part of a dying breed on this point, but I like print. I like being offline sometimes. I love magazines and books and even though I’ve used the Kindle I still prefer the non-digital experience that some of my magazines provide. Granted, I do love video and I like the interactivity of digital for certain uses, but I can use my laptop very easily for those cases. Will someone buy an iPad that doesn’t have a laptop? Probably… although again it is pretty expensive to use it just for web surfing, games, or email.

Lastly… I will be interested to see/hear about the iPad’s speed. My iPhone 3G (not S) is pretty slow. When I type emails or Tweets, the typing lags behind a bit. Frustrating sometimes, but I put up with it because it is also my phone. If the web browsing experience, gaming experience, or video watching experience is very slow for users, it might prohibit widespread adoption. I certainly wouldn’t want to pay that much money for slow performance.

I am anxious to see one and look forward to hearing from friends who buy them. I’d love to be wrong about my concerns. We’ll see if Apple can create new marketshare with the iPad, or if it will take a bite out of both iPod touch and MacBook Air sales…

Hello world!

Just joined WordPress. Time to do some real blogging… not just pictures of my wife and kid and links to favorite movies and websites. I chose WordPress because of their impressive use of grey hues and strategic mix of Georgia and Arial. Once upon a time I designed fonts… it was a great gig. I made about $200/hr at the ripe old age of 12, and had the coolest BMX bike in the neighborhood. Until it was stolen. But it was returned… by my future brother-in-law, no less. We still talk about that bike (blue Mongoose with yellow mag wheels… which, if you weren’t a teenager in the 80s, is the BMX equivalent of a Ferrari with 24″ chrome spinners). Yet I digress. I really wanted to start this blog to post great stuff about marketing, strategy, customer loyalty, product development, and social (and non) media.

I grew up with newspapers as an integral part of my life. My dad started several, and wrote some software to publish them that has made him very successful. He brought home newspapers and I would lay on the ground (several months old) and roll around in them, crumple them up, and eat them. I literally have newspapers in my blood. I was a paperboy, then a press boy and one of my favorite passtimes was dumpster diving from the paper roll towers into huge garbage bins full of shredded paper. I loved the smell of ink, newsprint, and the sound of the rolling presses.

Things have changed… newspapers have been slow (and sometimes reluctant) to adopt new technology (I know because I spent years trying to sell it to them). They are now paying the price… but I don’t think the game is over. Breaking news isn’t/won’t be their gig so much, with independent journalists abandoning their cubicles in droves and posting great and immediate content on Twitter and other social media channels. However, much of that focus is on national and international events, rather than local events. And while it is amazing that you can get the 140-character synopsis on what’s happening at nearly the moment it happens, it is still valuable to be able to get the whole story at some point. News still happens, and in-depth analysis is still valuable. There is room for news organizations to not be news “papers” so much any more, but to empower, organize, and distribute news content in various forms that complement and reinforce each other.

That’s what this blog will mostly be about. I am working on (O-CODES), a startup idea that could change the landscape a bit, bridging the widening gap between print and digital, social and non-social, offline and online media. I will post about the company, ask for feedback and ideas from customers and investors and critics alike, and will collect articles and images and information that I find informative, humorous, or intriguing.

I may also use this blog as an emotional outlet… other than working out, writing is cathartic for me. You may not enjoy what I write. In fact, you most likely won’t. But this is cheaper than hiring a therapist, and I’m in bootstrap mode right now.