Technology

Farmer in the DELL no joke: milk, beef gets labeled, tracked

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

The COOL standard is here. A short press release from the USDA announced that as of September 30th this year, all “covered commodities” involving beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken, fresh and frozen fruit and vegetable, peanut, pecan, ginseng and macadamia nut) will need to have Country of Origin Labeling.

The idea is to provide us consumers with more information, so we know exactly where the lettuce and the meat on a hamburger came from. Will this be TMI? Apparently 92  percent of consumers wanted this. Might customers adjust their consumption patterns because they would be armed with this information? I think it could lead to new trends in branding, where some smart farms could create the equivalent of an ‘Intel Inside’ signature for making certain menu items more desirable at certain restaurants.

Speaking of smart farms, farming went high tech many years ago, but this story is far out! A cow with an embedded chip, a programmable robotic arm that gets to the udder, and lasers used to test the milk. And you thought a refrigerator that sends you a text message when it senses you have run out of milk, is a crazy concept!

Arizona PR practitioner ‘leases’ the sun

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Fellow IABC member and PR professional, Len Gutman, is one of the first people in the Valley of the Sun  to install solar panels on his roof. It’s an interesting tale of a PR practitioner getting involved in a word-of-mouth campaign with a sustainability edge to it.

SolarCity, the company with whom the Gutman family signed up, had suggested they hold a ‘solar party’ to tell friends and neighbors about the decision. “We thought that was a great idea and so we held one a few weeks ago and more than 50 people showed up,” says Len.

Sort of like a Tupperware party for the planet.

The investment was hard to beat – zero down!  Basically the panels are leased –the Gutman’s monthly lease payment practically offsets the cost they save on their electric bill.

And here’s the kicker. So far, seven of those who attended the party have also signed with SolarCity and the hosts will get a referral fee. Is this great PR for SolarCity, or what?

What happens when the 15-year lease is up? “We have several options – we can have them removed at no cost, we can re-lease them for five more years, we can upgrade to new technology and start a new lease, or we can buy them for the residual value,” says Len. “Just like leasing a car!”

Quotes for the week ending 4 October, 2008

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“Washington Mutual went from “Whoo hoo” to “uh-oh.”

Mike Cassidy at San Jose Mercury News, in a column about the financial crisis and how angry we all are.

“Digital Marketing could well be one of the main industries that will benefit from this downturn, and when things turnaround (they always do), we can all be hopeful that Digital Marketing will lead the brand and advertising strategy.”

Mitch Joel, podcaster, marketer and soon-to-be-author, with his characteristic glass-is-half-full view of the world.

“We also believe that Americans … should be able to ‘debate the debates’ using all available tools on the internet and elsewhere, including blogs, web video services, and other means.”

John McCain campaign’s general counsel, Trevor Potter in a letter to Lawrence Lessig‘s call for open debates.

“Connected real estate.”

Padma Worrier, Chief Technology Officer at Cisco talking about its vision of smart, connected buildings that monitor themselves.

“If this thing follows the normal course, there would be calls for boycotts, protests and so on.”

Greg Sandoval or CNet on the news that the Copyright Royalty Board, and the Digital Music Association have called for a rate increase per music track.

“If there’s one sports league that could and should capitalize on social media marketing, it’s the NHL. It’s downright cultish.”

Jason Baer, on the poor use of social media by the National Hockey League.

“The stories should contain a story.”

Sarah Wurrey, or Media Bullseye, quoting Marta Karlqvist, on advice for Sarah Palin who is facing a lot of press this week.

“If you’d been blogging in 1932, would you have told people to put down the phone and pointed them to that typewriter thingy on their desks.”

Shel Holtz, to blogger Jeremy Pepper on the latter’s suggestion that PR people get off email and get on the phone.

“Having your friends sorted by battleground states is something I haven’t seen any other politician come up with before. This is a glimpse of the future of high-tech politicking.”

Declan McCullagh, chief political correspondent, CNet, on the Obama campaign using the iPhone into a recruiting tool.

The lengths people go for Google juice

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The dangerous line between SEO and tricking the algorithm to deliver more Google juice has been crossed before. People have warned about such dangerous practices.

But this one, revealed by Todd Defren stumbling onto a combination of social media and SEO practice is disheartening. Sickening, in fact. Basically it was an act of blog spam plus fake posts.

I don’t know if he is doing everyone a disservice by not revealing who the company was that resorted to this kind of fakery. Maybe Defren is bound by business constraints to not do so. I challenge someone to do some sleuth work and reveal the name of the company, if only to protect some other client from falling prey.

The innovation and value that social media and search engine optimization brings to everyone is far too important to let this one slide.

Dell’s green road trip bristling with social media

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Dell is no newbie to new media. I have been tracking them for more than two years, especially Lionel Menchaca’s parlay into social media with the hugely popular DirectToDell, its attention to the blogosphere, its presence in Second Life, the new Digital Nomads effort, and even the use of Twitter for marketing Dell Outlet,

So when I heard Dell’s latest social media effort, a 15-day, 15-city sustainability road trip with non-profit group Grist was headed to ASU and stopping right here at the Decision Theater, it sounded like a program worth writing about myself. On Friday, Todd Dwyer, Dell’s Environmental blogger, came by with Sarah van Schagen, an editor for Grist.

The reason for the visit was to look at ASU’s role in sustainability, with the School of Sustainability, and our work with the Global Institute of Sustainability.

The ReGeneration blog has some interesting features, steeped in social media. There is the grafitti wall, exploiting web 2.0 to get visitors to contribute to contribute ideas to the site. Videos are posted to Quik, and there’s a graffiti art contest with entries like the one on the left.

They have two posts, and two videos worth checking out.

The rest of the road trip is worth following, too!

Video scrutiny keeps ’em honest

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

There are lots of web sites, political groups, media folk and organizations (even the candidates’ sites) fact-checking statements politicians make, so it must be increasingly hard to face the cameras.

Some wing it, others –like Joe Biden- completely make it up as they go, only to be found out. Everyone is up for this kind of scrutiny.

Watch Jon Stewart’s approach, running side-by-side video clips that reveal the danger of double talk.

Video scrutiny like this is playing an interesting role this election season. It must force campaign managers to think hard before deploying surrogate snipers on the campaign trail

OverlayTV: television you can mashup

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I find the whole concept of OverlayTV game-changing, not just for the television industry that packages and pipes content, but to anyone looking far out enough to see where interactive media is headed.

What’s OverlayTV? It’s basically a media player that embeds video, on top of which you can add layers of product, text, a URL, coupon or graphics. Even another piece of video that works like picture-in-picture.

Sure OverlayTV is a tool, but in a malleable way that allows the end user to think of it, as the name suggests, as a layer not a piece of technology. Though initially intended for ecommerce folks, musicians, agencies and publishers, people could use it to create interesting interactive spaces.

Check this out.

Tipping points, “drill baby drill,” and journalism

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At the Sustainability Summit today, outside of the lofty discussions around  tipping points (are we there yet?), coalitions (enough tossing bombs at each other), and sustainability was the need for leadership.

As I speculated yesterday, there was an open call for those in the media to drive this train. To up the ante in a different way –explaining to consumers what the policy alternatives mean to them. To bring some clarity. Ah! Media leadership. Not exactly out of the ambit of an industry previously accused of ‘agenda setting.’

A telling quote from the session about the message we need to spread:

“Drill, baby drill” should include “change, baby change!”

Cut to the chase with visualization

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Despite what your position may be on Shell, you have to admit it invests a lot on visualizing the energy future –“more energy, less carbon dioxide”–it is grappling with, for good or ill. This is the stuff that gets churned out in white papers, and high-brow academic gatherings, but doesn’t often trickle down to the hoi polloi. We know by now that spreadsheets and PPT decks make people’s eyes glaze over..

In Shell’s 2050, post-Kyoto energy scenario, the visualization lets you pick a year from 2015 through 2050, and look at several factors that come into play in a planet that will be home to 9.5 billion in 2050; the ‘picture’ looks grim/complicated, even from within the cheerful graphics. It makes you want to do something whether it is to invest in fuel cells or reduce your carbon footprint.

Visualization is that great lens that puts data in context, and moves us to take action, even if it starts off with clicking a button. It can be as simple as being a dynamic feed. Check WorldoMeters.info. The speed at which you ‘see’ top-soil erosion taking place, and ‘dollars spent on dieting in the USA’ will give you a jolt!

We use similar, but more complex visualization tools to create scenarios like this at the Decision Theater. The most interesting one, WaterSim, lets people simulate a drought and see the effects on agriculture and lifestyle choices. The challenge is to take this complexity that works well in our immersive environment (the ‘drum’) and render it in a webified environment.

Looking around at so many data-rich web sites, I could see why many sites are begging to be rendered with more visualization. Those of us writing or designing data sheets and white papers will have to recognize some hard realities:

  • New platforms. People will use new devices and platforms to interact with our information via small screens, on high-res devices, and those capable of and hungry for animation.
  • Audience habits: Readers will demand to ‘snack’ on information, before they dig deep. Will our web pages and PDF’s cut to the chase? What’s a ‘media snack?” Check this out.
  • Time shifting. Information might be accessed (downloaded, snacked on) via one platform, consumed on another. Will the visual appeal transfer? Quality isn’t the issue, but compatibility. CNN stories watched on a high-def monitor still transfer to grainy formats on YouTube.

Visualization poses many challenges, but they are grood ones, because they force us to distil information, and give it more context.

Live streaming on BitGravity

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I am watching a live feed of a lecture we are streaming via a provider called BitGravity. It’s an amazing, out-of-the box feature.

The video is very stable, and there’s no lag time on audio.

The speaker is Jay Hakes, Dir. of the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum and former head of the Energy Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy. His book, on the same subject

The topic is fascinating: “A Declaration of Energy Independence.”

This is the link for anyone interested.