Big Agency Changes
My agency lost a big client today. Not just a big client, but the client that I spent about 75% of my time working on.
Fortunately, my supervisor came around to reassure me that I still have a place in the agency–I’ll be picking up work on a fairly new client who needs a lot of work. It’ll be a weird transition, though–I’ll be moving from a big technology company to a company that makes products for babies and mothers. (Particularly strange for those of you who know my feelings on the subject of babies.) But hey, that’s the fun of being an account planner: you get to learn about so many different things.
The word around the agency is that we got fired through no fault of our own. We did very well for this client, including hugely increasing their market share in the product they consider to be most important. But there’s a new management team at the company, and they want to be seen to be making big changes, and firing the agency is often the “big change” in these situations. This is why Burger King has had so many different, completely incompatible ad campaigns over the last decade or so: they have revolving door management, and each time the agency goes out as well. (I’m not saying that’s true of this client–we had the brand for 25 years.) It’s just part of the business.
Work | Comment (0)Stupid Microsoft Interface
Stupid Microsoft Interface of the Day:
Why the hell does Microsoft Powerpoint need to insert a bunch of bogus rows and columns every time you create a new chart? Why not just give me a blank table? I have to go through and delete the “North/South/East/West” nonsense every time.
Does anyone know if there’s a way to turn that off? I’m creating a lot of charts in Powerpoint today, and it’s a royal pain.
Geek | Comment (0)Old Game Flaws
Hope all of my devoted readers had a happy Thanksgiving! (Those whos celebrate it, anyway.)
I recently pulled out an old favorite game of mine, ActRaiser for the SNES. I loved this game when I was a kid. Now, don’t get me wrong–it’s still a great game. The blend of an action game and a god sim is interesting and well-handled. But playing it again now reminds me of some flaws that most old video games suffered from, flaws that were so fundamentally built into the assumptions of how video games played back then that I don’t think it even occurred to me to question them:
- If any part of the hero’s body touches any part of a monster’s body, even if it’s the hero’s boot hitting the monster’s head, the hero gets injured and the monster does not.
- Similarly, touching any part of a dangerous object–even the shaft of a spear, for instance, or the barrel of a cannon–injures the hero.
- Falling any distance doesn’t hurt the hero…
- …but touching water means instant death.
- Anything that would happen off screen doesn’t happen–for instance, if you shoot an arrow at an off-screen enemy, the enemy doesn’t get hurt.
- Similarly, if you move forward and then back, any enemies that spawned in the re-revealed section spawn again, as if you’d never killed them.
Public Speaking
Okay, just to prove I can post about something other than geeky TV stuff: The whole account planning department where I work has been working on this presentation on the state of motherhood today and a new way of advertising to mothers. We’ve been working on it on and off since about February. The department (I should explain) consists of the head of planning, three senior planners, and three planners, and it’s the three planners (myself included) who have been writing the bulk of the presentation.
Anyway, we finally presented it to an audience today–a bunch of account management people who work on brands that advertise to mothers. The presentation went really well–they got out of it what we wanted them to get out of it, and had some interesting suggestions.
I presented the first portion of the presentation, about trends in motherhood today. It’s funny–I’m a shy guy, really, but I have no fear of public speaking. I can’t remember whether I’ve ever had such a fear, but if I ever did, it was a long time ago. Furthermore, I have no fear of extemporaneous or near-extemporaneous public speaking. When I have to give a presentation, I don’t write out exactly what I’m going to say or rehearse it extensively. I review the slides, make sure I know the order and the basic points I need to hit, and then I basically just stand up and talk. I *don’t* just read the text off of the slides–I hate it when presenters do that. Rather, I take them as a rough framework for what I’m going to say, then say it in my own words. If I give the same presentation twice, it’s likely to come out quite differently.
So I wouldn’t class myself as a good public speaker, necessarily, but I’m certainly a confident one, and I think I avoid a lot of the mistakes that other presenters make. Now, if only I could break myself of the habit of talking with my hands…
Work | Comment (0)Struggling with MythTv
Let me tell you, this MythTV stuff is not for the faint of heart. You have to have not only a fair level of computer skills, but also a fearlessness about computers, a willingness to just try stuff and hope it works. I keep telling myself that the worst I can do is scramble my software, and since it’s all on a CD, all that will happen if I screw stuff up is that I’ll have to reinstall everything.
Anyway, I’ve finally got output to the TV working. You’d think that would be easier than getting it to download program guides and record TV shows, wouldn’t you? After all, it’s just a matter of running a cable to the TV set, right? No, as it turns out. But it’s working. Next step is the remote control.
Unfortunately, the whole project will have to be stopped for Thanksgiving. I’m going up to Ithaca to spend the holiday with my parents. My grandparents will be there, too which will be great–I don’t get to see them enough. Christmas is spending Thanksgiving with her parents, but she’ll be back in Ithaca on Saturday, so I’ll get to see a little of her before I have to leave.
Geek, TV | Comment (0)Next Steps for MythTV
I’m making progress on the media computer/TiVo replacement. Last night I got the software installed, downloaded the schedule information and got it to record a TV episode (”Frasier”). Next steps:
- Get it to display on my TV (it’s using a computer monitor right now)
- Get the remote control working
- Figure out how to get video off of it, onto my computer
- Install a much bigger hard drive (I’m thinking 200 GB)
- Put some games, music and other media on there
- Sit back and enjoy
New Spin on a Dog’s Nose
Dude:My dog has no nose.
Guy:Oh? Does he still have an olfactory sense, and if so, what organ does he use for it?
Dude:(Long pause) Awful!