Money officially grows on trees

In a time of economic turmoil, global warming has become a big biz. Corporations and small businesses alike have been leaping onto the environment band wagon, all hoping to portray themselves in the heroic image of being a pro-environmentalist. That's a fantastic PR move, considering all the global warming hype. The movement has become so popular, in fact, most relevant industries would have to be crazy not to have some eco-twisted branding.

Of course, naysayers are reading this article thinking "it's for the environment. Money has nothing to do with it!"

Au contraire.

Many are familiar with Al Gore's passion-filled initiative to bring home the bacon with global warming. Speaking around the world, an Oscar winning documentary, a Nobel Peace Prize... the man has done it all. And he's not done yet. The Gore entourage has recently embarked on a 100 million dollar ad campaign to urge business and government leaders to focus on developing environmental policies and solutions that will bring change. Or in other words, grow the green industry.

Calling all capitalists: There's money to be made. And who better than to follow the man who invented the Internet?

Don't get me wrong. Environmental savvy is a critical part of our planet's well-being. However, make sure you see the bigger picture behind hopping on the eco band wagon. Recycle, turn the lights off, car pool, yes. But be careful not to buy into carbon credits, bumper stickers, movies and media hoopla that has made it cool (and highly profitable) to be green.

Twitter this: Social media can be a waste of time

Thanks to Scott Monty for providing this one. Although this is made mostly in jest, it may be pretty close to the truth for some. If you don't have the patience to sit through the whole video, at least catch the last 30 seconds or so.

It might give you an idea of how intertwined you are into internet culture.



And just for kicks, give this a shot. No one can survive a busy online lifestyle without being a savvy typist.

Happy key pounding!

84 words

Speed test

The Facebook Faker

Listen up, oh dwellers of the Facebook/ MySpace/ Orkut domains. Most people (or about 50% of you reading this) have at least one profile or more on these social networking web sites.

To marketers everywhere, you are an elusive demographic. In context, imagine if Facebook was actually a physical warehouse... just one giant room full of 80 million+ people. Flashing your company's brand and key messaging over that isolated crowd sounds pretty tantalizing, yes? Billions of advertising dollars have already been dumped into social networking sites since 2004. However, sincere doubt in the effectiveness of this type of advertising has begun to surface. Why?

Why should a stranger believe that the goofy profile picture with you and all your little buddies is really you?

Sure, we've all been warned about not talking to strangers on the street. Cyberspace especially. Today, anyone (whether you're 10 years old or going on 90) with basic knowledge of web browsing can create on online profile on any of these sites.

Big deal, right? You know that YOU'RE real, and so are all your internet friends. Well, they probably are. You hope so, anyway. Not so fast. Go ahead and search for your favorite celebrities on any social networking site. You might begin to think that cloning in America is legal after all.

Now apply that same concept to yourself. How do you know that you're the only you out there? Perception, of course, is everything. When it comes to the internet, seeing isn't necessarily believing. I have a friend who recently created a fake Facebook profile to see if her boyfriend would respond to flirtatious messages. He bought it.

And who remembers the infamous MySpace suicide case? To refresh you, some parents created a MySpace profile to harass and embarrass their daughter's ex-friend. The ex-friend took the internet bully for being real, and the situation ended in tragedy. Follow this link to get the whole story.

The bottom line is, until we begin entering social security numbers to verify authenticity, and sites like MySpace and Facebook run full background checks on their new members, social networking is still just hype.

Come to think of it, how do you know that I'm real?

Now for the devil's advocate

These types of sites are incredibly handy for small groups to stay in touch. Or for stalking people you don't want to talk to in person. Then again, email and a coffee shop rendezvous haven't failed us yet. How DID people in the 1920s communicate anyway? They must've had, like, zero friends.

Now go search for your clone in cyberspace!

The Awareness Test You Will Fail

Thank you to Seth Godin for pointing this one out.

An interesting point when considering purchasing ad space. The facets of effectiveness to consider are virtually infinite when you think about it. Timing, location, size, aesthetics, copy, colors... even advertising en mass isn't necessarily the best policy.

Here's some viable proof.

Looking for a job with upward mobility? Debt Collectors are hiring!

While the economy is likely entering the early stages of a recession, few industries are hiring. Much less are any growing at eye-popping rates. If you're into TV ads, you may have noticed the recent spike in debt collection commercials. With thanks to credit cards, student loans, housing mortgages, car payments, and missed doctor's bills, America has created an entire industry capitalizing on people's inability to pay up.

Not to slight America, since debt collectors have been around since man figured out how to loan money. Unfortunately, the world has learned how to live while owing money and not how to eliminate it permanently. America is beginning to remind me of the old millionaire who dies and all that remains is unsettled debt.

So in such a nervous economy, what better time for the debt collection industry to shake off the dust and beef up it's image a bit? After all, “Collectors actually care about consumers,” said Rozanne Andersen, general counsel of ACA International, the main industry trade group. “They want to teach consumers how to get out of debt. They’re trying to put themselves out of business.”

Put themselves out of business? REALLY? For being such a booming industry, I don't find that to be a very savvy business move. Or maybe that's just some good old spin. The industry has even begun to call debtors "our customers." Somehow, that doesn't quite fit the stigma. How "customers" are handled has been overhauled industry-wide. “You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar,” the ACA foundation’s chairman, William E. Wilcox, said.

In short: customers = flies. Hm.

So here's the perception dilemma. Don't be fooled by the sugar-coated approach of the debt collection agencies. The bottom line is still clear: PAY UP!

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

And there's no better time than now to put this old phrase into action. By 2016, employment in it is projected to exceed half a million workers - 23 percent in a decade. In 2005, 150,000 debt collectors took in $51.4 billion, a PricewaterhouseCoopers study indicated.

I wonder if they've started calling their phone operators "Customer service representatives" yet.

Last words of a dying father

Although I wouldn't consider myself an avid Oprah enthusiast, this is undoubtedly a clip worth 10 minutes of your time.

Randy Pausch is a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, and Design at Carnegie Mellon, where he was the co-founder of Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center (ETC). He was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. He has done Sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering and Electronic Arts (EA), and consulted with Google on user interface design. Dr. Pausch received his bachelors in Computer Science from Brown University and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author or co-author of five books and over 70 articles, is the director of the Alice (www.alice.org) software project, and has been in zero-gravity.

He's also married with three young children.

Welcome to the Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department & Trauma Center

Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio was constructed with help from a 50 million dollar donation from the insurance mecca. It's no surprise that any legitimate organization, particularly a children's hospital, is more than happy to accept such a generous donation. Children's hospitals are an illustration of innocence and a hope for brighter futures- an affiliation plenty of companies would pay top dollar of which to be a part.

Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch agrees. Nationwide Children's Hospital is about to break ground on the Abercrombie & Fitch Emergency Department & Trauma Center after receiving a 10 million dollar donation from the clothing giant. On the way in, you can also stop by the Limited Too and Justice Main Lobby. No, seriously.

Maybe we could build a new home for the President of the United States and call it the Ronald McDonald House. White is a boring color anyway.

As most are aware, A&F has a reputation for utilizing increasingly risque advertising, and is often accused of targeting young adults and adolescent teens with sex appeal.

You don't have to be a Seth Godin to realize the conflict of interest at hand. Advocacy groups have collaborated in a minor uproar against A&F's strategy. It's easy to see Abercrombie's motivation behind such a donation (there's only so many times you can hear "clean up your act" before the corporate PR team has to do something). Nevertheless, a donation to a Children's hospital just gives Abercrombie's image a little bit of sleaze. A donation fueled by guilt, even.

Not to take it to the extreme, but basic psychology tells us that people often are the strongest advocates for a cause in which they secretly partake. Let's go down the list:

Mark Foley
Larry Craig
Eliot Spitzer

It's anyone's argument whether NCH should have accepted the donation. To be the devil's advocate, that money is going toward something that will truly benefit society. But a question of ethics? Definitely. Although it would never happen, an anonymous donation would have been best suited.

Widgets take the spotlight

Adding to the American love affair with gadgets are web based widgets. Most people have used them, but have no inclination of what a widget actually is.

For those few, a widget is anything that can be embedded within a page of HTML (ie, a web page). A widget adds some content to that page that is not static. Generally widgets are third party originated, though they can be home made. Widgets are also known as modules, snippets, and plug-ins.

Think you got it? See the little counter in the right-hand column of this page - it's a widget. Double click any word in this blog. The bubble that pops up is the result of widget programming. Pretty cool, eh? Many new online companies have begun to offer widget-creation services for other businesses.

According to media week, companies are just beginning to see the mass potential for profitability from these nifty little creations. What a surprise! Now that we've finally figured out a way to block all those annoying pop-ups of the past, widgets are the answer to personalizing consumer outreach.

So here's the big idea: by creating personalized widgets through host servers, consumers are basically creating free advertising for companies through blogs (like this one) and online businesses. Say hello to the newest form of invasive advertising, only this time, everyone wins with a cool gadget and free publicity.

Down the drain and back again

Let me begin by saying that the United States still fares far better than the rest of the world in public water (both in quality and availability). Just ask anyone who's taken a trip down south. Far south. Water is so easy to get that most of us just take it for granted; which is why it's no surprise this recent study has been receiving national attention. Better go get your Brita filter now before they sell out tomorrow.

The study maintains that the city water distributed to more than 40 million Americans has traces of everything from "medicines used to treat anxiety, epilepsy, asthma, angina, and in some places, traces of a sex hormone." No, seriously. That's quite a cocktail. Fortunately, the research states that each drug is found only in the parts per thousand and would take massive amounts of consumption to yield any undesirable effect. Unfortunately, most people won't pay attention to that part.

Long live the bottle.

So after reading several articles similar to the one linked above, I began to wonder what the ultimate response will be to all these shenanigans. Bottled water, anyone?
By coincidence (or not), Pepsi & Starbucks have recently gotten a little smitten with one another, launching a new bottled water campaign.



I'm not necessarily implying that all of this media is premeditated, but who's to say it isn't? Bottled water has long been on the rise.

And to think I drank out of the garden hose as a child.

America's affair with sex scandals

In you've been able to evade recent political scandals, here's your official update.

New York Governor, Eliot Spitzer was recently implicated on charges regarding his involvement with a high-class prostitution ring. The guy was caught on a federal wiretap. If this goes as expected, his PR team will be spending the remainder of his term (which will probably be his last) recovering from the embarrassment he has brought to himself, his family, and the New York legislature. Good goin', Eliot.

Now take a moment to get beyond his sleaziness. Everyone, to some degree has some skeletons in the closet. Spitzer's case, however, surfaces after he gained some national attention for his work fighting corporate money scandals and indicting prostitution rings. No joke. Loads of people undoubtedly feel some outrage, especially since his salary is paid with New York tax dollars. But here's my question:

Are the sexual endeavors of politicians, no matter how twisted, the biggest issue concerning voters? Should they ever be?

Of course, everyone would like to see a squeaky clean JKF take the stage. But in the light of the Moncia Lewinsky 'blow job in the Oval Office' scandal, Jerry Springer's removal from mayor of Cincinnati (he wrote a check for a prostitute), and countless other American political sex scandals... what purpose does the prosecution of these individuals really serve? Without a doubt, Spitzer should be punished, just like Bill Clinton was for lying. At most, though, this news should be given a day to live and should die.

Spitzer is going to get what's coming to him, one way or another. There are far more important issues that deserve the media spotlight, though.

Here's the bottom line (pay attention MSNBC, CNN, C-SPAN, and FOX):

Leave the social drama for E! and MTV to make a reality show. Let's keep American media classy while we still have a fighting chance.