The planes in Alcoa fly over head in the small hotel we are staying at.The last one that flew over, I chuckled without really knowing it as I stood outside watching it fly over. Squirrel Queen said I sounded like an 8-year-old boy. I didn’t know what I sounded like as I was delighted.

The weekend started early Saturday. So early that we didn’t see the sunrise until we had been on the road for more than an hour and a half, edging swiftly in a borrowed truck near the Tennessee River. Bags tied down with bungee cords in the back. We were animated, as she talked of covering a new football season and myself, so desperately relieved to be out of the rigors of Hoots that have literally kicked my ass since April. I love Hoots, but there are times that you are so damned delighted to see it in the rearview mirror that your blood runs hotter than normal.

The mission was layered. Head to Knoxville: for me to do some work for my current job and for SQ to cover the UTM/Vols game. We knew the day would be long, filled more than with logistics than any human being would want to endure. When luggage is tied down to the bed of a 13-year-old pick-up, there is no stopping but more of a desperate need to unload the back and head to the first, second, then third locations that needed to be visited.

Four hotels in six days, each scheduled event important.  Excuse me if I’m disjointed but there is so much.

We saw R. Neal and BizGirl as we wandered through the endless, what seemed miles, of young, and old for that matter, tailgaters celebrating the beginning of an orange sea of possibilities. Every football team in a winner on the first day of the season. New Orleans orange beads were on everyone, as Tennessee-based team played each other. Would David slay Goliath? Not here, although it would happen in Oxford but not in Neyland.

I stood on the sideline and got to see first-hand the Pride of the Southland band set up. Pockets of band members took their place and I found myself fascinated that there was a circular group on the sidelines prepared for the preshow. The Drum Major, the blessed position that I loved as a child first hand was fun to watch, bending back as he marched the band down the field. I smiled. It was a reminder of those days that my grandfather and parents took me to Vols games. I was there for Hoots U, but so many of the UTM fans were also Vols fans. Except our friend who is an Ole Miss grad who was there vehemently supporting his team. I guess he had a bad day.

I grew wear of the sidelines by the middle of the second quarter so wandered through the tunnels that my press pass allowed me. The young men and women in yellow event shirts who never move fascinated me so I opted to see if they would chat. I felt that they weren’t guards at Buckingham Palace and I thought, even though initially they had tired and determined looks on their faces. One man had stood on the edge of the Sheilds-Watkins field since 1 p.m. Their job?

They stand still, observing, and make sure nothing happens.

In the tunnels, many times things were moving. Other times, it was still. I asked questions about why police motorcycles escort two golf carts full into the tunnels in a section at half-time. Policemen told me how they have to make sure that nothing goes wrong. I saw the game on televisions in the media room and anyone could hear the fireworks going off, especially in the second half.

When it ended, we were tired and met with a couple of people quite by accident in a fern bar in front of the first hotel we stayed at. A couple of beers later, I felt all of my age and fell headfirst into bed.

The next day, we arranged the next hotel and met Shane Rhyne and Russ McBee at the Northshore Brasserie. It was an amazing restaurant and we were so smitten and delighted to meet both men, as both of them have been online friends for a long time, supportive and delightful and it was invigorating meeting both of them. Talking with people you have never met before but you feel like you know due to our online connection was what makes the Internet and blogging important and intimate. They told of Knoxville, of politics. of how K-Town has a reputation for being the last place that some great musicians play at and me, sadly with only stories of Hoots, telling them of silly, frivolous things like the man who has named his cats all  Bouncer for the last several years and how they all have a tombstone with just the word “Bouncer” on them. Not Bouncer 1, not Bouncer 2, just Bouncer. It’s a small cemetery of Bouncers.

It was better than wonderful and I told SQ in the car I could have sat there for another four hours.

Labor Day was a work day. I wanted so much to meet up with some Knoxville Bloggers who I have admired from afar over the years, but it was a work trip that took me to the World’s Fair Park, a girl with a red Mohawk who wanted to talk to a bonafide liberal (me and Steph) and other things that delayed my seeking amusements.

We are excited though. We saw incredibly huge pumpkins in Blount County that I had trouble believing were real. The weather was amazing.

And, as I write this, I’ve sat outside watching the planes land over my head, so close that I feel like I could touch them. I find them to be a reminder of possibilities. Remember when I was a child, I thought I could touch the moon.

I find Knoxville to be just what I needed.

Now, on to Gatlinburg for a conference where I’m speaking. Cross your fingers that I do my very best.

While I know the ins-and-outs of Keynote fairly well, I’m not a designer. Fortunately, I work with some great designers and from time-to-time get asked to provide some technical tips while one of them is working on a project that involves presentations.

During a recent project related to some presentations a client’s sales group will be using with iPads, a designer and I became aware of some finicky needs the iPad “app version” of Keynote requires to easily accept a presentation developed on the desktop version of Keynote. (I assume these principles apply to presentations created in Power Point, as well, but someone else will have to run such tests.)

While I feel one can, if in a bind, create a presentation on an iPad, it’s never going to be my preference. I’m far too comfortable in a work flow that depends on my Wacom pen tablet and the light-weight software utility called Skitch.

However, if you are going to create on a Mac and present on an iPad, get ready for some bugginess. Here are a few tips I’ve learned the old fashioned way: trial, error and Google.

1. Know the limitations of the iPad Keynote app prior to starting the project: Recently Apple posted this best practices for creating a Keynote presentation on a Mac that is intended for an iPad. You need to bookmark it as it provides two lists that you will find handy: A. A list of fonts native to the iPad B. A list of effects supported by the iPad app.

2. Don’t use any font or effect not supported by the iPad (thus, why you need that list handy): Note for those who didn’t hear me the first time: A lot of problems will be averted if you limit yourself to effects and fonts that actually work on the iPad.

3. Here is an effect that you’ll try, despite me telling you not to, twice: Don’t “Group” objects on your Mac version of Keynote and expect the effect to survive the trip over to the iPad.

4. Very important: Use .png format graphic files rather than .jpg. Trust me, do this. If you don’t, you’ll have missing graphics and you’ll be trying to figure out why they disappeared. Most confusing, some jpgs will convert easily, while others won’t.

5. Resize your .png graphics to the largest size they will appear on the iPad screen. Don’t leave them “big” — like the way I sometimes do: I’ll insert a large graphic file into a presentation and merely shrink the display size of the graphic. With presentations that you think may end up on the iPad, you need to go ahead and use the “Preview” utility (or use what I use, Skitch) to resize the image before adding it to the presentation. (And yes, the Preview utility has a resize feature.)

6. Advanced suggestion: If you are familiar with the transition “magic move,” it works nicely in the iPad app and can be, if you’re creative, a good means to hack some animations that might be missing. But, like alcohol, use animations in moderation.

There may be some other nuances I’ve missed with certain types of elements others use in presentations, but at Hammock, we avoid bulletpoints and Excel-created charts and grafts, so I have no tips related to them — except, if you want to be a good presenter, avoid them if possible.

Related articles by Zemanta Tips for creating an iPad-compatible Keynote presentation (tuaw.com) Tweet

This 2007 commercial for the Apple TV
was the low-point of Apple advertising.
However, very few people saw it.

Two years ago, I wrote the following about the Apple TV:

“I don’t believe the problem with the Apple TV is about technology. It’s a (you can’t believe how amazed I am to be writing the next few words) failure by Apple to successfully market a product.”

In that post, I suggested that the first generation (or, “the Hobby Model”) Apple TV failed to catch on because Apple did not support it with the typical advertising juggernaut the company uses to push out products.

A lot has been written today about the new Apple TV and if it now has the correct mix of features and the right business model.

I’ll judge if it’s a serious effort by Apple if, during NFL football games, I see ads for the Apple TV mixed in with the ubiquitous spots for the iPad. And it will help if they’re not a lame as that ad from three years ago.

(P.S. I own a first generation Apple TV which means I am even more reluctant to believe in the Apple TV do-over.)

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• Apple Takes Aim at Cable With Tiny New Apple TV (wired.com)
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Like the New York-centric consumer magazine industry, commercial book publishers and, frankly, most everyone, thinks of books found in bookstores and libraries when they consider what book publishing is. Perhaps, they’ll concede there are some independent book publishers out there somewhere, and perhaps lots of books that are published by “the academic press,” but that’s about it. Oh, except for those “vanity press” things people publish, that no one reads. And text books, yes, there are those, also. And, come to the think of it, there are lots of reference books that are in bookstores and libraries also, but they would never show up in any review of books. And then, there are all those manuals that come with every product you purchase — I guess those are books, also. So there are many types of documents formated as books that are not listed in the New York Times best selling lists each week.

Our understanding of “vanity press” and self-publishing is evolving rapidly — even if the traditional publishing powers-that-be have refused to acknowledge it (with some notable exceptions.) However, with progressive authors like Seth Goden leading the way, and, the proliferation of a wide-array of technology (like on-demand printing and eBooks) and enticing business models (like Amazon’s 70-30 split of eBook revenues), the term “vanity publishing” will soon be placed in the trash heap of pejoratives.

Last week, a small, but perhaps significant step was made in this inevitable march towards the day when an organization or author who wishes to sell a book will finally finish off the disintermediation of what we currently think of as Book (with a capital “B”) Publishing: Apple announced that an update to its desktop document software Pages includes the ability to save a document as an ePub file is included.

While some observers have cast this as an Amazon vs. Apple move, such characterization makes little sense to me now that the Amazon’s Digital Text Platform (how one publishes an eBook to be sold via the Kindle Store) now supports the ePub format. I’m not a student of this particular skirmish of the technology wars, but it seems more of a slam at Adobe’s PDF format than a swipe at Amazon. (Adobe is also the company behind Flash, the video format that doesn’t work on the iPhone or iPad.)

So, here’s the deal: If you have a Mac and iWorks and you want to self-publish an eBook and sell it via Amazon.com or Apple’s iBookstore, you now have all the technology you need. (Of course, there are ways to do this using Microsoft Word and some hacking, but I’m talking about the easy way, not the Word way.)

(I feel the need to add a sidebar comment at this point: If you’ve never tried to sell a self-published book, you’re better off not trying it the DIY way first time out of the gate — or maybe, never. If it’s a book you actually want to sell, I suggest you enlist the assistance of what Apple calls “iBookstore Aggregators.”)

The professional designers who work with me have professional tools that export beautifully designed documents to more formats than I knew existed. However, I predict that for those who are comfortable in Keynote (the software, Pages, works exactly like Keynote, without the “effects”), this “save as ePub” feature could be a very significant step in the journey towards you becoming a book publisher.

Also, while this post pertains to “digital” eBooks, the process and “aggregators” also can be used with Print-on-Demand, as well.

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[Part of the RexBlog "Thoughts on Twitter" series.]

(Note: This is adapted from a segment of a recent project that included an explanation of how Twitter is not just what one sees on the Twitter.com website. For many readers of this blog, it is “old ground.” I thought others might find something in it of use. Later: And it’s especially timely as the official launch today of Google Realtime adds yet another major example of how people can view Twitter content without ever visiting the website, Twitter.com. For an excellent overview of Google Realtime, see (as always with Google feature launches like this) the explanation by Danny Sullivan.)

As I (and others) have said, the reason no one gets Twitter is because each user’s experience with Twitter is unique. If you follow more than a dozen or so Twitter accounts, the chances of you and another Twitter user being part of all the same Twitter conversations and observers of the same information stream becomes statistically improbable. Add to that, the Heraclitean nature of the ever-flowing stream (or, river) of tweets and you’ll realize that even as individuals, we can never step twice into the same experience with Twitter.

Another way we each experience Twitter uniquely (from one-another, and as individuals at different times) is the  ability for users (and publishers and developers) to easily  syndicate (or, subscribe to) content appearing on Twitter and then, “re-display” that content in near endless ways.

The creators of Twitter were wise enough to understand a few fundamental laws of the web (some of which are still confusing to those who bring legacy media logic and conventional business rationale to the internet).

From Day 1, they accepted as indisputable truths the following:

• Those who use a service like Twitter aren’t creating content for a company. They are communicating with one another.
• It’s extremely rare, not impossible, but rare, for a a pure-play Internet company to achieve a $1 billion if the strategy is limited to one URL. (In other words, “Twitter” has never been just about http://twitter.com.”)
• Never explain what your service is or does or how you’ll make money. It’s weird, but those who are important at different stages of the development of something like Twitter, will know the answers to those questions by the time the product hits their radar. New Internet things are like jokes, if you have to explain it, there’s something wrong with the person you’ve told the joke to.

As I have used the telephone as a metaphor in previous Thoughts on Twitter posts, let’s consider that again: individuals “own” the content of their telephone conversations and we really don’t care what kind of  equipment the person at the other end of the conversation is using. So it is with Twitter: We can initiate or receive tweets in countless ways (and, pushing forward the telephone metaphor,  Twitter wants to have a monopoly on the enabling infrastructure — oops, that’s another post for another day.)

So to recap what I just said: Twitter.com is a website, but there are millions of Twitter users who rarely, if ever, visit that website. If you are reading this on my blog, you can see a “widget” in the right-hand column that display my most recent “tweets” — so you are using Twitter, without actually visiting Twitter.com.

Viewing Twitter Content via a Twitter Client

Additionally, there are countless Twitter clients, computer software applications, web-applications and mobile “apps” that are created by companies and individuals independent from Twitter that allow users to post or read Twitter content. These clients are designed for special purposes and special types of use, and provide various ways for individuals to manage and display content from Twitter . Such clients can be dashboard-like (one example: Seesmic), simple iPhone apps (Twitterific) or category-bending new ideas like Flipboard. (And, literally, thousands more).

Twitter.com displayed with
PowerTwitter browser extension

One of the reasons Twitter is so gigantic is that Twitter’s creators granted the permission and provided the tools and methods for third-party developers to create such products — for free. (Some heavy-duty users of Twitter data have special relationships that enable them to have even more access.

Viewing Twitter.com in New Ways

One of the downsides of being such a third-party developer of applications that run “on-top”  of a product like Twitter (or, perhaps a more correct metaphor is “on bottom”) is the knowledge that Twitter will continuously add new features that “fill holes” in the service — so if your “product” is something that Twitter believes is merely a “missing feature,” your “product” is likely going to one day be redundant to something on Twitter, itself. For example, I am currently experimenting with a browser extension called Power Twitter that enables a layer of features that could one day be user options, or a part of the product. Currently, with the third-party extension activated, I can make Twitter.com appear like it is shown on the photo to the right. It embeds into the Twitter stream the photos and videos that are linked to by the people I follow. (This feature is a part of several Twitter “dashboard” clients, as well.) It also translates the truncated URLs that are character-saving tactics used by Twitter users into a full-description of what the linked-to content is. (On the downside, it probably collects a lot of data about how I use Twitter that I don’t mind, but may bother others — so for that reason, I don’t recommend you use it, unless you familiarize yourself with its terms of use.) In other words, the extension pulls in content to my personal display of Twitter.com on my computer desktop, making the site appear more like what one might expect to see on Facebook or certain RSS newsreaders.

To some people, that may be a good thing. To others, it may seem at odds with what they think Twitter is all about. But that’s what I mean when I say, we’ll never “get” Twitter:  Each person has an individual preference for how things should be sliced, diced and displayed — which, come to think of it, is also the only explanation I can think of for mullet haircuts.

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Last night I saw Dirk Diggler and his strapping son, Dirk Diggler Jr. (DDJ) who were throwing an Anheuser product back anticipating hump day, I guess.

Dirk told me that someone purposefully killed DDJ’s husky, whose name was Ice. Not only did they kill this dog, but they killed three of the neighbors dogs, a lab, a boxer and a boxer mix, with poison.Whatever poison it was killed these four large dogs quickly and in just a matter of minutes. Dirk lives outside of Hoots

Dirk ended up going to retrieve the animal at 3:30 in the morning after he got a call from his neighbor, the one who lost three dogs in one night. Ice was gone. The authorities took what Dirk said was an empty tupperware bowl and some of the pets’ blood for analysis to see what exactly they had been give to eat.

These pets were murdered.

I am more pissed off than words can say about this.

Whoever did this, I hope your man or woman bits fall off painfully. You are a waste of air.

Rant over.

Sorry to do this those of you who are getting this via the methods my blog’s content streams out into the Internets. I am doing this post to test something. Carry on.

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I walked into the used bookstore in what I will now call Hoots City, which is not Hoots Proper or Hoots Commons. It has a tire plant, a Christian coffee shop and some rather exquisite juke joints. I walked in, my friends, with a heavy mind.

I love a used bookstore. There is a smell and a feel that you can only get with an arm load of books that you spend less than a tenner on.

I miss reading. I do. Without Wifi (how many times must I tell you that living in rural Tennessee is horribly expensive. Without broadband access, which is terrible enough and, no, don’t stereotype it or I will cut you, because you honestly just don’t understand. How could you? 60 bucks for 5 gigs transferable and then a dollar a minute. Imagine kids who need the Innertubes who just can’t afford it. Hell, I can’t afford it. Sheesh. Lecture over.)

I decided I needed a book. Something amusing and entertaining that I wouldn’t have to think about. A diversion where the boy gets the girl, where there are alligators and monsters or something especially special, like aliens.

The books smelled as all older paperbooks do. Earthy and almost a bit like musk and sawdust, many of the spines were broken but I looked through them with determination. I will not pretend that I looked for Jane Austin or Charles Dickens. I found books I like from Carl Hiassen and a new horror author to me named Nate Kenyon who wrote a book called Bloodstone, which has imagery of a small town in New England that will make your gums bleed it is so powerfully detailed.

We forget things, you know. We are so busy, all of us, being pundits these days on line, that we forget what enamored us to the word on a page.

A woman, in what my mother would have called putter pants in a shade of dusty pink with expensive shoes to match, looked diligently in the romance section of the small shop. Her hands where full with Harlequin Romances, the kind that used to cost about $2.95 when I was a kid.

I don’t judge, man. I love a good story where two people find each other. It’s escapism. I have nothing more to say about that. Occasionally we all need a little bit of romance in our lives.

Actually, as I was looking for true monster books, I was a bit jealous.

Her hair had been completely coiffed in a beauty shop and stood sweetly on her head in a strawberry blonde that had obviously been created just for her. It was quite attractive and you could tell that this was a moment for her each week that gave her some extra oomph. I can only imagine that she chatted with casual friends who gave her a moment of feeling a bit … special.

I walked around, looking for a find. I picked up one book and the pages were so old and fragile that there was a slight dust that came off of the dry pieces of bound paper. I am sorry, Richard Matheson, yet I had read the book before so I put it back, fragments of aging, yellow and brittle paper stock on my fingers. I can only imagine that it had set in an attic or a basement for a time and had been sent to the place called budget books.

I found an old copy of Danse Macabre by Stephen King, which I absolutely love. I put it in my pile, but it was in no better shape than the Matheson book.

I bought it anyway. Some people are comforted by romance novels where the true love reins supreme. I, on the other hand, feel a special bond with monsters.

Strawberry Blonde peeked in and was staring at me as I set in a small chair in the “H” section. I knew she was chatty the minute I saw her, yet I was having a day of feeling a bit invisible. It wasn’t warranted, mind you, it just was.

SB (Strawberry Blonde) : “Do you like books?

Me: (Feeling invisible and somewhat surprised that someone could see me): I do. (I smiled because that is what you do in Hoots.)

SB: I come here every week. (She grinned. It was the grin of a lonely woman. You have to understand, on this day, I was a bit lonesome too.)

Me: It’s a good place to come. (Could she see me? I wondered. No one has seen me for months. I mean, yeah, I get talked at but not always talked to, and I was surprised. I am not crazy, but in the last few months, I have felt like I was just an invisible person living in this world. I really thought I was transparent at least. A living ghost.)

SB: (Smiling) What is your favorite book?

Me: (As a ghost, which would have been me, I was gathering my books. I had three. I hoped she didn’t notice.) I guess ‘To Kill A Mockingbird”. What is yours?

SB: I like every book. I do love the romances though. My husband laughs at me.

Me: Well, I like them too. No worries, really, it’s a good thing.

SB: (She looked at me pitying me. I didn’t expect that.) Oh, I’m not apologizing. They make me happy. After my husband died, I lost myself in them. It was our joke, you know.

Me: (No words. Feeling like a major heel. Still feeling invisible although at this time, a very small tiny person. Her look was so … beautiful as she said it was a joke between them. What is wrong with me, was my first thought. These books were her connection to her love that was died.)

SB: Oh, don’t you fret, honey. Life hits you sometimes. It’s best to find things that get you through it.

Me: Of course. (I was the size of Tinkerbell at this point.)

SB: (smiling a broad smile at me.) Enjoy your books, honey.

And then she was gone.

I got in Squirrel Queen’s truck after I paid and I didn’t move for a very long time.

As I write this, I hear a storm brewing in the distance. I wonder if she is reading her books.

I hope she is, as am I.

I went home and read about monsters in small towns.

A couple of month ago, I wrote a post titled “You can’t plug up BP’s gushing problems with PR and “crisis communications” in which I posited the following:

“1. Crisis communications may be a good hammer, but stop thinking every corporate crisis is a nail.
2. Don’t dive into another guy’s oil slick. It makes you appear slimy.
3. Not even the most brilliantly executed crisis communications plan can compete with the impact of one photo of an oil covered pelican.”

My bottom line on that post was that “No amount of spin control could have, or will ever, help BP salvage the company’s or its brand’s ‘reputation’ in the U.S.”

It has been over 20 years since I have professionally advised clients on crisis communications, but I used to have a job that required me to wear a beeper and be on call to work with a client whose size and scope made them a magnet for controversies, big and small. Most of my theories of crisis communications are based on that experience — as well as doing all the required study and testing that allowed me to earn an “accreditation” by the Public Relations Society of America, which I must say, lapsed shortly thereafter.

While long, gone from such professional duties, because of that experience, I perhaps now observe the handling of communications during corporate crises like former college football players watch games on TV: with a cringing, painful understanding that might be overlooked by other fans.

My main complaint with the notion that “crisis communications management” is a solution to crises is the knowledge that every crisis is different; each with a unique blend of “chaos” and cross-purposed priorities that can never be anticipated. So, while it is important to plan for crises and to have a strategy, there’s a reason the expression “hits the fan” is applied to crisis situations: You don’t know which way things are going to fly.

In today’s New York Times, Peter Goodman explores the challenge to the conventional wisdom related to “crisis communication” (better “handling” of communication during a crisis will lessen its blow) that the BP and other recent corporate-related controversies have raised.

Goodman’s piece looks at both sides of the argument, but is one of the first times I’ve seen a main-stream organization like the NYT question the notion that poor “crisis communications” isn’t always the problem PR Monday-morning quarterbacks suggest it is when a crisis occurs. The problem can be the problem.

While I do not completely agree with him, I find that Eric Dezenhall’s quote in Goodman’s piece a refreshing challenge to the notion that the “standard playbook” is useless when the facts are sufficiently distasteful.

Quote:

Mr. Dezenhall is particularly scornful of the classic imperative to “get out in front of the story,” as if swift disclosure provides inoculation against all ugly realities. When the facts are horrible, he argues, the best P.R. fix may simply be to absorb the pounding and get back to business, while eschewing the sort of foolish communications gimmicks that can make things worse.

If you’re in PR or are fascinated with this topic, I recommend reading the entire piece.

As for my own beliefs on this topic, just to be clear: I believe crisis communications planning and execution are good things. I just don’t believe they are a panacea some PR people want us to believe. Most important thing I believe: I’m glad I hung up my beeper 20 years ago.

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How Facebook Selected the Places Logo

[Perplexed? Background]

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I’ve posted on Flickr a set of photos of the new and highly anticipated (well, for some people) BookBook iPad case. The case is handmade and (I swear) looks and feels like a century-old leather-bound classic. You can learn more about the company that makes it on their website, TwelveSouth.com. The company has a Nashville connection (the Twelve South name should give that away to locals) as an alumni of Griffin Technologies founded it. I had seen one of their MacBook Pro cases, but am not a “case” person for my laptop. When I heard they were coming out with an iPad version, I placed my order immediately. (In other words, I bought this and have no relationship in any way with the company (now, a small company in Charleston, S.C.) — except as a fan.)

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From the RexLabs

Since the dawn of time, humans have been seeking a breath mint that tastes like a candy mint and a candy mint that works like a breath mint. Yet, whenever someone comes out with two-, two-, two-mints-in one, the only people who actually believe it are those who sell the product.

As consumers, we get it. If, for example, we want to purchase a camera that is dual anything, the savvy consumer will know not to expect the best of either. We merely hope the compromise won’t end up with the worst of both. We are consumers, okay, so we understand that the best camera is the one you have with you when the photograph or video-worthy moment presents itself. Accessibility is the feature that trumps all feature compromises when you see the Loch Ness monster. (Frankly, in the hands of a talented photographer who knows what he’s doing, a hole at the end of a shoebox can capture a great photo.)

So, despite the hype and whatever marketers tell you, it’s never a “best of both” and most of the time, it’s just “never” — it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about flying-cars or writing devices that are both “pen-like” and “pencil-like.” Lots of promises and predictions, but the best we get are “roadable planes” and “erasable pens.”

Despite this Law of Certs (a name I just made up), when I saw on Wired.com that Sharpie, a company I’ve written about before because it’s on my short list of “they get the web” companies has a new product called a “Liquid Pencil,” I decided to go ahead and drop my shield of dis-belief and decided I’d give it a try.

Unfortunately, the 2-pack version of the new liquid-pencil won’t be available until next month (apparently, back to schoolers buy pencils by the bushel).

It’s at times like these when having a friend like the amazing blogging anesthesiologist Joe (bookofjoe.com, @bookofjoe) comes in handy. (I devoted a post to Joe five years ago.) When Joe saw me tweet that I was looking forward to trying out the new “liquid penci,” he let me know that he had ordered some online. But, as he didn’t need the entire bushel, he’d be glad to share. Yesterday, I received two “test pencils” from the private collection of Joe.

I’m sorry. That was a way-too long setup for a brief review, but before Joe will tell me what he thinks of the device, I had to promise I’d go first:

1. No surprise here: It’s a compromise: It’s neither a great pen nor a great pencil. Of course, it’s not intended to be “a pen,” except it is — after a period of time (Sharpie says three days, but I’m beginning to see it within 24 hours), the erasable liquid (I’m not sure exactly what it is, so I’ll just say “liquid graphite”) becomes permanent.

2. Its tip (equivalent, Sharpie says, to laying down the line of a No. 2 pencil) reminds me of the “fine tip” version of the Sharpie Pen (not to be confused with the “fatter” Sharpie markers you’re probably thinking about). When it comes to pen tips, I’m solidly in the Pilot G2 (blue ink) camp, so the whole “fine point” thing is a bit dainty for my “pen” tastes. However, as a pencil, I’m definitely “fine point” so this actually gives the new liquid pencil a “plus.”

3. So, for doing sketches or things I like to do with a finely sharpened pencil, I was thinking, “Okay, this is nice, except…uh, it’s doesn’t lay down a very good mark. Indeed, at first it seems like you’re writing with a pen that’s running out of ink. Splotchy and skippy are two words that spring to mind. In other words, not a good “pencil experience.” A traditional mechanical pencil is better, but, unfortunately, I never seem to be able to hang on to one.

4. But wait! I wrote #3 last night, during my first test of the pencil. Today, I’ve decided there’s a break-in period that can take at least 20-30 minutes of writing with the device before you get it working in a way that lays down a line correctly. I’m not sure, but I think it’s working better for me now because of three different factors that have kicked in: The tip (nib? point?) is loosening up so that the liquid flows better, I’m tilting the pencil a little more vertically than I usually hold a writing device and third, I’ve adjusted the pressure I’m applying to be more “pen like” than “pencil like”

5. Something potentially very bothersome: Like a mechanical pencil, the tip will retract into the barrel with a “click.” However, the way in which the “clicker” is engineered allows the eraser end of the pencil to slide back and forth. Nervous types will discover that when the writing tip is “out,” the pencil can be shaken to make an very annoying percussive sound.

6. Where I can see the liquid pencil coming in handy: For those who sketch and then apply ink over it (I’m sure some crafters do it, but I’m thinking of certain kind of illustrators), I can see an application. I’ll be trying it out for several weeks with a Moleskine sketch pad I carry in my (stop calling it a man purse) bag. Another great use: Sodoku and crossword puzzles, etc.

7. Issue I didn’t look into: I have no idea if it’s refillable.

8. Office Depot has it listed for $4.99 for a two-back, but “for delivery only.” (If I’m not mistaken, Joe purchased his bushel pack for $34.30 (quantity: 12), at Grainger.com.)

Bottomline: I like the concept and I’m pre-disposed to be a fan of Sharpie products. However, I was very disappointed at first with the way it “skipped.” I’m warming up as I test it more and can see it being great for certain uses and situations.

Okay, Joe. Back to you.

(And thanks, again.)

Bonus: The NYTimes.com Gadgetwise Blog has a review, but nothing as scientific as the RexLabs.

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Recently I complained (using my account’s rarely updated Status Update) on Facebook about receiving a flurry of friend requests that are obviously from spam accounts. The requests feature profile photos of, well, let’s just say these photos indicate the requester may have a future in the fast-growing field of professional “marketing contracting.”

To prevent such requests from making it to my in-box, I changed the privacy settings on my Facebook account so that only “friends of friends” can request to “friend me.” (The spam requests come from new accounts with no friends displayed.)

As a couple of friends (the real kind) have asked me to explain how I adjusted my privacy settings, I thought I’d post it here for the 499 million users of Facebook who find it difficult to figure out the settings.

Here’s all you have to do:

1. Use the pull-down menu under the tab “Account” and select “Privacy Settings.”

2. Click on the “View settings” link found under the heading “Basic Directory Information.”

3. Choose “Friends of friends” from the options for the setting “Send me friend requests.”

If you get such a request, you can always block and report the spammer, but I didn’t volunteer to be a Facebook policeman, so I’d rather they just disappear.

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Earlier this summer, I had the privilege of speaking to a group of independent school (private school) administrators from around the country who were attending an institute at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody School of Education. (I hesitate to mention my speaking there, as I don’t want it to bring down Peabody’s ranking as the best graduate school of education in the nation).

Had it been around then, I would have shown them that funny venn diagram accompanying this post. It’s been making the rounds among the university (and beyond) web development crowd because it satirizes a universal truth about institutional and corporate websites: Too many institutional websites seem designed to appeal to the institution’s senior management, not the people who actually use the site — the audience.

While I didn’t have the cartoon when I spoke with the administrators, I did spend some time warning them not to fall into the trap Finnish communications theorist (and person I’ve quoted more than anyone else for the past 20 years) Osmo Wiio warns us about: Jos itse olet sanomaasi tyytyväinen, niin viestintä varmasti epäonnistuu. Or, for those of us who do not know Finnish: “Being content with the formulation of your message is a sure sign of having formulated it for yourself.”

I believe I said something like the following to the participants: “Osmo Wiio suggests to us, if the head of your school really likes your website, chances are it will fail.”

Recently, I received the following email from one of the people who attended the institute. I thought I’d share it here because in some parts of the country, school doors are already opening again for the fall. Note: In order to “protect the innocent,” I’ve changed some names and job titles.

Dear Rex:

I had the pleasure of being a member of the (group) you presented to at Vanderbilt in June. I, like everyone there, was so impressed by your presentation and was utterly convinced of the necessity to assert my school’s presence on social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. In fact, I was so convinced, that I thought it would be a non-issue when I returned and proposed it. Much to my dismay, I was shot down by (the powers that be) for the following reasons: (He or she) doesn’t want anything to draw attention/traffic away from the school’s website (I already know that both Twitter and FB can DRIVE traffic to your website), secondly, and more importantly (he or she) thinks a school’s communication needs to be more substantive than the space Twitter allows.

I was not deterred. I redoubled my efforts and have now come up with a formal proposal stating the reasons for having this social media presence. However, as I prepare to make this presentation, I was wondering if you had any thoughts that sum up (again) why schools should move in this direction. I have all of my notes from your talk but fear that in all of my drafting and re-writing, I may have missed some perfect encapsulating nugget that will have the effect of convincing (the school’s power that be) to move forward.

[Name Withheld]

(Okay, okay. I should have warned that the email contained a shameless plug for my “utterly convincing” presentation skills.) Here’s a slightly modified version of what I sent “Name Withheld” in response:

Dear Mr or Ms Withheld:

I don’t have an encapsulating nugget, but I’ll give it a try.

First, as I emphasized in my presentation, if you develop a web strategy (or any communications effort) to please the powers that be, it is doomed to fail. Your experience is what I was talking about when I spent way too much time talking about Osmo Wiio.

That said, I’ve had a little success with some non-academic corporate clients (who also don’t enjoy telling their bosses they are wrong) by explaining the issue of “attention and traffic” in the following way:

Unless your business model is one where you make money directly from visits to a website (translation: advertising or e-commerce), the reason for using the internet should not be focused on driving on-site metrics like “traffic” or “page-views.” Unless you are a media or e-commerce company, the internet should be viewed as a means to communicate and build relationships (for example, in a private school context: to recruit future students, communicate better with parents and alumni, develop better ways to “teach,” facilitate and improve development and fundraising activities). If you can accomplish those things better “off” your website than “on” your website, then your “business model” may be served better “off your site” rather than “on.”

If your students, parents and alumni are found on other websites like Twitter or Facebook, why should you focus all your energy and limited resources into trying to get them to come to your website. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine who is a professor at Vanderbilt called me to ask if I knew of a way she could set up a private place on the web where her students could share research, post photos and other digital media and have discussions leading up to and after classes. “Yes,” I told her. “Set up a private Facebook group.” Not only did it work, my friend’s approach became a role-model for others.

Don’t get me wrong: I am a strong believer in a school or business or non-profit having its own presence on the web. But I view the internet as a “place” and like in the real-world, it’s not always the best strategy to stay inside your own four-walls if you’re wanting to communicate with others. It is better to also be in those places wherever your “community” can be found. And, as I hope you can find in your notes from my presentation, the best “social places” on the web provide you with ways to publish content on your site and their’s simultaneously — so using those sites are not duplicating efforts, but providing ways to be several places at the same time. (Note: The participants of the institute asked me to come back for a second “lab” session during which I demonstrated to them how to use Posterous and Tumblr as a means to post once and publish to many places simultaneously.)

As for the belief that messages from the school need to be more substantive than what Twitter allows, I’ve found that despite it being impossible for school headmasters to understand Twitter, here’s one way I try to explain Twitter and other social media so that “even principals” might understand them:

You can think of “social media” on two levels:

1. At a basic level, they are merely another channel to “distribute” or “syndicate” content. In other words, “Twitter” doesn’t need to be thought of as the place where meaningful conversation and community is going to take place. (And while it is, and I can prove it, that’s not my point.) In many cases, Twitter should be thought of as just another way to disseminate short messages that need to get out fast. Let’s say your school has some breaking news — like it’s on fire. By any measure, that’s substantive communication that can be summed up in less than 140 characters. Since dozens of your parents are already using it for other purposes, Twitter is a perfect message-relay channel to send out updates — in multiple ways (including via text-message to their cell-phones) the subscriber controls. If that is the only way you use it, Twitter is worth using. (Note: Yesterday, Twitter announced a new feature that means you don’t even need to have a Twitter account to get text-messages from, say, your children’s school who send out emergency messages via Twitter.)

2. A higher level of thinking about social media services (beyond a syndication or distribution channel) has to do with developing extended relationships with students, parents and alumni on the platforms THEY have chosen. If you don’t host these online gatherings, they will do so themselves. And if you don’t participate, you’ll be strangely absent. Let’s say, you have alumni associations in different cities around the country. Would you say to those local groups, “I’m sorry, if you want to get together or get messages from us, you’ll have to travel back here?” If your alumni are already hanging out with one-another on Facebook, then support them there: They’re doing all organization work for you — all you need to do is show up and smile.

I hope this helps in some way. If not, maybe it will next year.

Good luck,

Rex

I haven’t heard back yet on how the follow-up strategy session went. If nothing else, I hope this school — and your’s — can make the venn diagram of how you communicate, and how your audience wants to communicate, overlap a little better this year.

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Remember my little rant about April Fool's Day? About how it's ruined by people that don't understand what makes a prank funny? Latest example:

Photos of an aspiring broker purportedly telling off her boss garnered widespread news coverage and more than 105,000 Facebook "likes" Tuesday. Too bad the story was published by two guys who have pranked the media before.

Oh man. You conjured up something totally plausible and got people to believe it. OH MAN. GOOD ONE. Congratulations, you're an idiot.

It had been a week where all I really remember was the haze. The truck stalled on the Interstate as I headed to Nashville for business. The heat index hit 120 as I sat waiting as patiently as I could for the truck to cool. Brian Mays was on Terry Gross on physics and music and I sweated.

It could have been worse, but I admit the heat is a brutal and vicious mistress. Especially when you don’t have air conditioning in your vehicle. I reminded myself that at least I don’t work eight hours a day in a factory that doesn’t have air conditioning. I realize I have little to complain about.

The week was pretty much a blur. I worked on things and, in some ways, they worked on me. Finally I headed back to Hoots where I ran into Mr. Jimmy of Cat Head Biscuit fame. He has also had some not so kind words regarding guns in bars in the past. I have not seen Mr. Jimmy for awhile and being that he is America’s most exquisite cusser, he was a welcome face after a very long week. The night before, I had received some news and although it wouldn’t have mattered to anyone else, it hit me in the gut.

Mr. Jimmy was exactly what I needed. And on another note, what I needed was the comfort of Hoots because the two combined are sometimes life’s best therapy.

Mr. Jimmy: I need a damned yard sign. (Of course I am editing for a PG crowd on this blog when it comes to Mr. Jimmy.)

Me: I’ll get you one. We have some and I’ll get you one right away.

Mr. Jimmy: You can stick the #^$Q@(**# thing in my yard. Only about 12 damned people in this county voted on Thursday. It’s a damned shame. Only thing that is a level playing field and no sumbitches got out there and voted. I see the town just going downhill.

He sighed and there was a wistful look on his face. He believed what he said.

Mr. Jimmy: Ain’t no jobs. Ain’t like it used to be.

Me: I know.

There were friends around and I had been told that he had donated his body to the The Body Farm in Knoxville. A mutual friend said he needed pictures. I asked him about it.

Mr. Jimmy: I got the damned paperwork signed and my body is going to Knoxville. When you’re dead, you are dead as a possum that got hit by a Ford on the damned side of the road. I need some pictures because after they do those studies on me, they will want to do facial reconstruction. They need some pictures. I’ll be dead so it don’t make a damned bit of difference to me. Do you know about The Body Farm?

Me: Yessir. I do.

Mr. Jimmy: Want to see how bugs are going to eat on a dead person.

Me: That sort of breaks it down.

Mr. Jimmy: I don’t go to funerals and I don’t want a funeral. I do walk up to the funeral home. I sign the guest registry and then I get the hell out of there. I don’t want to see my friends dead. I don’t want to sit around talking about how natural everybody looks. Hell, they look dead. And, there ain’t gonna be a funeral for me. I don’t need a damned funeral.

Me: How are you feeling, Mr. Jimmy?

Mr. Jimmy: I don’t feel worth a shit. (And he looked tired. As he walks everywhere with his library books and his cane, you could tell the heat had taken it’s toll.) I can’t even drink beer like I used to.

Another one of his friends came up and his attention was diverted. I had thought I was melting, but I can’t imagine how this heat has impacted people like Mr. Jimmy who must walk where they need to be. He doesn’t have a choice, although his neighbors and friends take care of him when he will let you.

The next day, I put a sign in his yard. The ground was dry and relentlessly stubborn. It took three tries for me to get the packed dirt to break up enough so I could stick the wire in the ground. He walked out in a bathrobe without his signature fedora. I think that’s the first time I’ve even seen him without a hat.

Me: I brought your sign, Mr. Jimmy.

Mr. Jimmy: That’s good. That’s damned good. (He gave me the thumbs up and promptly turned around going back into his small duplex.)

A thumbs up from Mr. Jimmy guys is not a bad thing in the least.

From the Wall Street Journal article, “Google Agonizes on Privacy as Ad World Vaults Ahead“:

“For years, the strongest companies on the Internet were the ones with the most visitor traffic. Today, the power resides with those that have the richest data and are the savviest about using it.

If what you do for a living has anything to do with online marketing or media, I suggest you memorize those two sentences. (Although in the second sentence, it should be those “who” have, not those “that” have.)

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When I read this CJR.com article about Forbes.com launching a new True/Slant-DNA’d blog approach, all I could think about was that five-year-old cover-story in Forbes magazine that started out, “Web logs are the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective. Their potent allies in this pursuit include Google and Yahoo.”

Another irony: That 2005 article was written by a Forbes writer who would later become one of the most famous bloggers ever, for writing a fake blog that, at times, spews plenty of invective.

Sidenote: Visiting Forbes.com for the first time in a long time, I noticed the cluttered design, page-view-inflating gimmicks and numerous other user-hating approaches of Forbes.com seem to be undergoing a transformation into something that might work when their competitors throw up pay walls.

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A few months ago, I shared how Google used “good old fashioned” paper-based direct-mail advertising delivered via the U.S. Postal Service in its “marketing mix.” Yes, Google, the web-advertising juggernaut actually uses “non-internet” advertising approaches to build its brand and help sell its services. (And, unlike some people believe, they also have a huge army of sales people.)

That post was written when Google ran its first Superbowl ad (quick, you remember that ad, don’t you?) and to augment the comprehensive retrospective of Google’s past use of traditional advertising written by Danny Sullivan. The point, of course: Great marketers like Google don’t limit themselves to one form of media or one channel.

Since I posted those earlier Google direct mailings, I thought I should also take some photos (with my iPhone 4 for those who care about such details) of a mailing our company received yesterday from Yahoo! promoting its advertising solutions for businesses.

As with Google’s efforts, this isn’t a review. I don’t think either company changed any behavior on our part.

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Way, way back in 2003 on this blog, I started using the term Dejazine to describe defunct print magazines that, at the time, were being resurrected as websites.

So, when I saw the news that the defunct Benneton customer magazine, Colors, has come back to life (yet again) as an iPad App, I decided it was also time to bring “dejazine” back to life as “deja-app.”)

But unlike the website dejazine, the iPad version is something I find promising — and not for the reasons most early magazine apps have implied are what magazine apps should be. (My thoughts on the future of magazine apps are for a long-promised series of future posts.)

I’m hoping — indeed boosting — this is a trend: The iPad come-back of formerly thriving and popular print magazines that collapsed under their owner’s heavy overhead or mis-directed strategy.

Or even better, the customer magazines that were once very popular and effective, but that got axed because some new marketing director (who inevitably got fired six months later) wanted to “head in another direction” by killing the magazine and building an island on Second Life, now have a chance to be resurrected on the iPad and other “slate” devices.

This is the kind of stuff that makes me all verklempt.

[The following is as close as this blog ever gets to solicitation.]

I sure hope so, as that’s something Hammock Inc. is ready to help our clients accomplish.

In fact, if you own the rights and archives to a formerly thriving magazine — say, a corporate-owned magazine your customers used to love but some former employee whose name you can’t remember killed it — email me at rexhammock@gmail.com.

Let’s Lazarus it.

Later: Thanks (several people) for reminding me that Gourmet is a “deja-app” now also.

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