with my head, my heart and my work...

"Can someone please tell me why logic, virtue, personal finance and ethics are no longer taught as..."

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 17:23:24 -0500

“Can someone please tell me why logic, virtue, personal finance and ethics are no longer taught as courses in the public school system? Seems to me this might be a key source of the problems we are now facing as a nation.”

- Me

My city - new perspective.

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 19:47:00 -0500

My city - new perspective.

Sigur Ros Live @ MoMA I still find it hard to believe that...

Thu, 24 Feb 2011 12:15:00 -0500

Sigur Ros Live @ MoMA

I still find it hard to believe that nobody in this band has any formal musical training

The Current State of the Middle East

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:22:00 -0500

In order to give you a full understanding of what is currently taking place across North Africa and the Middle East, allow me to first give a brief background on why the Middle East is politically the way it is today. The history may seem boring but stay with me and it should hopefully pay off.

It has been theorized that in order for a nation’s citizens to live at peace together they must have at least two points of commonality with each other. In the case of the United States, while we are of different races and different religions, we have a shared language and shared ideologies and values — honoring the self-made man, promoting tolerance, rooting for the underdog, a desire to right our wrongs, etc.— which has created a shared culture and makes each of us American. While I feel this is eroding and will present future problems for our country, I will have to save that for a future blog post.

In the Middle East and across much of North Africa, until roughly 1920, the vast majority was of the same religion (Islam), everybody identified themselves as part of the same nation or empire and the key differentiating factor was that of tribal and cultural differences. Suffice it to say that for the most part, everyone got along very well and the Middle East was a world power under Ottoman rule.

However, a faction of Arab (non-Turks) from what is present-day Saudi Arabia felt that they should be the rightful rulers of the Arab lands and should be autonomous. And why shouldn’t they? The Hashemite Sharifians had ruled Mecca and Medina since 1201 and the Muslim holy book, the Koran, is believed to have been divinely given to the Prophet Mohammed directly from the Angel Jibreel (Gabriel) in the Arabic language. To make the case even stronger, Sharif Hussein bin Ali who was the ruler of Mecca and Medina (the two key locations of the Muslim Hajj and thus the two biggest tourist destinations and wealthiest cities in the middle east) did not like the Ottoman’s constantly looking over his shoulder. To his credit, his bloodline had done a pretty good job keeping it under control since 1201.

So, to speed things up a bit, the Ottomans formed an alliance with the Germans during WWI and thus became an enemy of the French and the British. Sharif bin Hussein conspired with the French and British to overthrow the Empire and found very willing accomplices. In 1916, the Arab revolt began and with the help of their new found western allies was very successful. King Hussein requested a single unified Arab state and asked the French and British to help him establish it. This was not to be the case.

Fearing such a powerful unified force and desiring access to spice trading routes. The British and French divided the Middle East into the countries that exist today. When Sharif Hussein protested, the Saudi Tribal leaders were approached to plot his overthrow. He was taken out by the Saudi tribal leaders and they were given control of Mecca and Medina which has made them extremely wealthy as a result (they are now the current Saudi Royal Family).

The final loose-end for the French and British was figuring out what to do with the sons of Sharif Hussein. Their family had been the rightful rulers of those lands since 1201 and desired their father’s inheritance. So, in lieu of giving them Mecca and Medina and fighting the newly formed Saudi Royal Family, the British and French gave his sons the countries they had newly drawn up. Faisal bin Hussein bin Ali al-Hashemi became the ruler of the Arab Kingdom of Syria and later the Arab Kingdom of Iraq. Even today Hussein’s sons’ legacies can be seen in King Hussein of Jordan and the legacy of Saddam Hussein of Iraq.

So, now that we have run through that long history, what does that have to do with Egypt, Tunisia, Lybia, etc. today? The answer is a lot.

The current populace of the Middle East desires a return to its Ottoman past, not under Ottoman rule but under one Muslim/Arab banner. They wish to have the commonality that they once had and they desire strongly for the reunification of the Middle East. [I can’t blame them. In my opinion, they deserve it as much as we deserve a unified United States. However I have to clearly and emphatically state that I do not agree with the tactics that have been used to date and I do not agree with them targeting specific ethnic or religious groups as enemies of this process. This also needs to be a slow process that respects the new state of the world and respects the rights of each nation state.] In getting back to the history, the fingerprints for this desire to be a unified Arab nation can be seen all over any major event that has taken place in the Middle East in the past 80 years: this led to the six day war in June of 1967 (a lot of Arab leaders wanted to be seen as the first to kick out who they viewed as the imperialists and thus be the leaders of the reunification), this is why Saddam Hussein attacked Iran and later Kuwait and this is the motive driving Osama bin Laden, Al Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood and countless other political groups.

The problem is that from the very beginning arbitrary country lines were drawn to create a nation of people that had already formed an identity as something else. As soon as Tunisia or Egypt or Libya was created, these people had to ask themselves: Am I Tunisian? Am I Egyptian? What is the Kingdom of Syria? What does that mean? Am I still Arab? Am I still Muslim? Am I still loyal to the Ottomans? Does my tribe matter? All of these questions become very difficult to figure out in a world that doesn’t draw the same boundary between religion, culture and politics that we do. As a result, people lost their points of connection and began quarreling. Despotic regimes took over, profited off their populations and kept their people at bay out of fear.

Enter Wiki leaks: Corrupt economies are exposed, people realize that they are poor because their government is profiting off of them, their leaders are dirty dealing and thus we have revolution.

Is this revolution good? My initial instinct would be to say yes. Yes in the sense that it may be good 100 years from now. But, is this good for their people and for the world now? I don’t think so.

The toppling of these regimes, the nostalgia for a unified Middle East and the poverty and lack of infrastructure that is to come will create a deep need for support and rule from the people in a power vacuum that will most likely be filled by the current powerful parties: Al Qaida, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. As these organizations with money, resources and a violent agenda step forward, we will not see the Middle East grow into the Intellectual light that it once was, we will see it descend into very dark times: dark times for its people and for our global economy.

In my mind this is something to be concerned about and something to be prayed about. I honestly hope we all take some time to offer up our prayers for the individuals in these countries, for the soon to be leaders of these countries and for the world’s leaders trying to make sense of a very messy situation. Let us hope that as was the case with Eastern Europe, the Orange Revolution and others that saw leaders pulled directly from their populace to work towards peace and economic renewal, we see the same thing across the Middle East and North Africa.

Sakartvelos Respublika Just found out my best-friend Bakur is...

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 14:35:00 -0500

Sakartvelos Respublika

Just found out my best-friend Bakur is getting married in Tbilisi in September. Looks like I’m finally going to make it to the Republic of Georgia! Friends, backyard wine, vodka, dumplings, lamb, music, crazy mountain gypsy hordes, traditional knife dancing… I don’t think life get’s any better. Now i just need to brush up on my Georgian.

3 Favorite YouTube Mashup DJs Mike Relm Kutiman Eclectic Method

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:06:00 -0500

3 Favorite YouTube Mashup DJs

Dropping Knowledge The things that we love tell us what we...

Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:34:00 -0500

Dropping Knowledge

The things that we love tell us what we are.

-St. Thomas Aquinas

Video & SEO: Best Practices for Effective Marketing &...

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:52:50 -0500

Video & SEO: Best Practices for Effective Marketing & PR

Just came across this video from a panel I spoke on about four months ago.

Net Neutrality Explained

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:05:00 -0500

Hey all, I posted this on the IAWTV forums in response to a question someone asked and thought it would be of use to everyone…

————————————————————

As a potential candidate for the IAWTV board and an economics minor in college, I wrote my thesis on the institution of the FCC and an economic analysis of wireless spectrum allocation. The paper landed me a job at a wealth management firm and emerging markets hedge fund right out of college. The issues learned from that study have many parallels to the current Net Neutrality debate.

As things stand, the internet pipeline is privatized (different from spectrum, wherein bandwidth is allocated for government, non-profit, private and public use). Spectrum is allocated based on frequency, which in spite of certain difficulties is easier to allocate because nobody can claim to have built a frequency as it is a scientific term that ascribes value to how radio waves operate and radio waves were eventually deemed to be a public good. Cable systems are comprised of pipeline that took decades to develop, bury, connect and maintain. Because we live in a free market system where legal entities are allowed to own property without fear of the government seizing it from them, we are now faced with an issue. The cable companies have invested billions to build out and own these pipelines. It is their property. So what we are really faced with is an issue of eminent domain.

In order for the government to give us a free internet, they basically have to seize the cable companies rights to their property if not their property outright. Herein lies the problem. This is against the general ethos of the American people and capitalism itself (though, i don’t know if I can honestly state that the American people operate from a capitalist ethos any longer, there is still a substantial segment of the population that understands the value in protecting ones right to property). In addition, The cable lobby is huge. Independent content creators are not. Finally, cable is soon to lose money as TV transitions to the internet. It knows it will lose money from the programmers and subscriptions and it plans to increase revenue from the internet or from charging premiums for bandwidth (To be completely transparent, I did PR for a technology company that enabled cable companies to allocate bandwidth from the head-end back in 2003 - so I understood this issue, before it became an issue). This is why the cable companies are currently hedging their bets. Comcast purchased NBC and through that has a stake in Hulu. Canoe (some of the top minds in the industry) are working behind the scenes to make sure this all works out in cable’s favor. So, it goes without saying that cable is investing substantial amounts of money to make sure that they maintain control of this revenue stream. Needless to say, the cards are stacked against independent Web creators.

If you are an independent content creator, get educated! Wearing ribbons helps but needs to be more focused in supporting a free internet. As a board member, I would suggest we establish an open internet working group. The goals of this working group will be two fold. First: education (panels with economists, cable execs, and web creators) - This is something we can get substantial PR around. Second: tactical plans for getting the word out. We need to educate not just web creators but tax payers as well. In the end it is the tax payers who will have to pay the billions of dollars to tell the cable companies what to do with their property and we need them to understand the expense they may have to stand behind.

Anyway, that is my two cents on this. And, in light of everything, the goal should be education and evangelization towards an equitable solution that serves the greater public good.

I just realized I can reach 22 M people at the click of a...

Fri, 07 Jan 2011 13:40:00 -0500

I just realized I can reach 22 M people at the click of a button…

Cristiano Ronaldo Connects with Fans Globally: Launches Social...

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:06:36 -0400

Cristiano Ronaldo Connects with Fans Globally: Launches Social Web Presence

Day one:

-52,000 Twitter Followers

-Trends within the top 5 global topics on Twitter

-100,000 additional Facebook Fans

-647,171 total YouTube views

-ESPN, USA Today, Perez Hilton, CrunchGear…

TV Academy Foundation's Rising Professionals is a Go!

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:22:00 -0500

It’s official. After months of hard work, Gabriel del Rio, Jacob Rhodes and myself have seen the fruits of our labor pay off. Through the development of the TV Academy Foundation’s Rising Professional Committee, we hope to enhance access to the Academy for the wide spectrum of television professionals by opening new in-roads to members through mentorship opportunities and mixers as well as a series of hosted panels.

On the evening of March 17, we will be hosting the inaugural launch event. In addition to revealing the calendar of events and formally introducing committee staff, the night will identify a crowd-sourced pilot that will serve as a central theme to each of the four panels planned for 2010. Each panel will represent a pilot’s life cycle and will provide insight to the entire television programming experience.

Event Details:

Date: Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Time: 6:30pm - 8:00pm

Location: Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Headquarters

Street: 5220 Lankershim Blvd.

City/Town: North Hollywood, CA

Please RSVP’s via Facebook: http://bit.ly/drXqwI

Dropping Knowledge Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. To...

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:23:00 -0500

Dropping Knowledge

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. To build a tower that will pierce the clouds, you must lay first a deep foundation of humility.

- St. Augustine of Hippo

Feed Your Ears

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:44:44 -0500

Feed Your Ears

Will Digital Adoption Erase our Historical Records? I just...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:58:00 -0500

Will Digital Adoption Erase our Historical Records?

I just finished watching this video on the future of magazines, which caused me to think about something that has concerned me for awhile. Despite the fact that the future magazine concept displayed by this video is visually stunning, useful, and all around cool; I am concerned that the digitizing of media will result in the dissolution of public historical records and open the door for censorship. Now, I know this may sound crazy and it is entirely theoretical, but bare with me and you’ll see what I’m saying.

We are already seeing this take place in our news now that the majority of our news resides on the web. Currently, if a reporter files a story with an error, and the error is brought to the reporter or editor’s attention, the publication will just change it in real time with no record of this change available to the reader. This is great for changing errors, but what happens when people start changing past articles to incorporate new facts and bias; or even worse, what happens when people start deleting articles entirely? Where do we go to find them — I can guarantee they wont be on microfiche at our local libraries.

Now, you are probably thinking that this could never happen, but in July of 2009, Amazon deleted copies of 1984 from its customer’s Kindles without warning (story here.) While Bezos issued an apology after the fact, the fact of the matter is Amazon initially thought this was a permissible course of action. It is also important to note that what Amazon did was not illegal, just poor customer service. What this tells us is we have no control over the digital files we purchase. Check out your iTunes agreement, these files are generally licensed to us not sold to us, therefore we do not own them.

This means that these files can be changed or edited at anytime without our knowledge and for the most part, we wont even notice. If you think this isn’t going to happen, just remember what George Lucas did to the original Star Wars movies. Sure, we can still access the originals without any of the extra scenes but only because fans bought them before Lucas made changes. Try buying the original versions on DVD or Blu-ray. You can’t. And, what if this happened 5 years from now when all files are digital? Lucas Film would just replace our downloaded copies with new copies and we would never know the difference.

Where this really scares me is Apple’s plan to revolutionize education through making textbooks available in the Apple marketplace for viewing on the iPad. What happens when we have no historical record of the information we, as a society, are being taught? I can see how it will play out now, every textbook we buy will automatically be replaced by Textbook version 2.0, 3.0 and so forth with no record of the original book we downloaded. In the future, we will be forced to upgrade our knowledge base.

I don’t like the idea of our media (which encompasses our art, news, expression, history, etc.) sitting in the hands of a few companies: Google, Amazon, Apple. For the first time in human history, all the information regarding our history is going to reside in digital formats. As we transition further and further away from analog and become digital consumers, what will happen to our historical record? Who will own it? I can guarantee the individual wont, and do you trust the entities that will?

Anyway, all food for thought. Don’t throw out your history books just yet.

TV Writers: SEO Your Scripts!

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:16:00 -0500

By: Matt Meeks

published: February 24, 2010 5:17 pm

One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that anybody can now market themselves and their content in exciting new ways; and, many are doing a great job of it. One look at Felicia Day’s work over the past three years will tell you that there is something to this whole Internet business. She has built a solid brand for herself, leveraged that into film, television and video game voice-over work and made some money in the process.

We all know that digital marketing is nothing new, but one of the earliest online marketing tools, search engine optimization, can now be used to put Web video content in front of new audiences. While SEO has been around for a long time, Web television is still in its infancy. Today, script optimization presents a huge opportunity for content creators to promote video content; and as far as I have seen, few people are openly taking advantage of it.

Recently, Hulu announced that they have enabled closed caption search, which means that you can now insert popular search terms into your scripts to help shows index. In addition to Hulu, YouTube and Google have been doing this for even longer. If you don’t believe me, check out the following video to see closed captioning SEO in action: http://bit.ly/11G2ic

Optimizing YouTube is easy, because a little something called AdWords exists to tell you what people are searching for in Google. Due to the fact that Google owns YouTube, this is probably a good place to start.

Unfortunately, there is no Hulu “AdWords,” so when optimizing a video for Hulu I would stick to what Hulu’s audience is looking for. First, I would look at the Hulu homepage. Outside of that, Hulu users are searching for timely news items and top network television shows.

So, my advice to content creators is this: become a news source. Host a weekly video series discussing the top news or a roundup of network television shows and what you, as independent writers, think about them. Doing this may just land you a coveted spot on Hulu, somewhere between a clip of Peter Griffin fighting a chicken and that Shy Ronnie SNL skit.

My advice to studios - hire some internal Internet savvy people and put them on your creative teams— put a marketer on your writing staff, not to influence the writing but to recognize material that can be used for online distribution and get writers creatively thinking about how to expand the story. Hire junior writers to take background character work and use this to strategically infiltrate the Internet with Twitter accounts, blogs, etc. Let your characters live and breathe online (Hint: all of this activity can be optimized as well).

My advice to content destination sites - provide creators with your search data. Sure, you will probably be flooded with a bunch of spam videos but tweaking your search algorithms can filter those out; and, on the up side your site traffic will go through the roof.

Anyway, just my thoughts on it all. Let the games begin.

Tiger Woods Apology: Word Cloud Version Don’t you think...

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:17:00 -0500

Tiger Woods Apology: Word Cloud Version

Don’t you think “sorry” should be a little more prominent?

(via @ChrisPerry248)

Video

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 13:18:00 -0500

Currently Reading

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 03:27:00 -0500

For those who wish to obtain power or protect themselves from those who seek it.

The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green

Never Outshine the Master
Never put too Much Trust in Friends, Learn how to use Enemies
Conceal your Intentions
Always Say Less than Necessary
So Much Depends on Reputation – Guard it with your Life
Court Attention at all Cost
Get others to do the Work for you, but Always Take the Credit
Make other People come to you – use Bait if Necessary
Win through your Actions, Never through Argument
Infection: Avoid the Unhappy and Unlucky
Learn to Keep People Dependent on You
Use Selective Honesty and Generosity to Disarm your Victim
When Asking for Help, Appeal to People’s Self-Interest, Never to their Mercy or Gratitude
Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy
Crush your Enemy Totally
Use Absence to Increase Respect and Honor
Keep Others in Suspended Terror: Cultivate an Air of Unpredictability
Do Not Build Fortresses to Protect Yourself – Isolation is Dangerous
Know Who You’re Dealing with – Do Not Offend the Wrong Person
Do Not Commit to Anyone
Play a Sucker to Catch a Sucker – Seem Dumber than your Mark
Use the Surrender Tactic: Transform Weakness into Power
Concentrate Your Forces
Play the Perfect Courtier
Re-Create Yourself
Keep Your Hands Clean
Play on People’s Need to Believe to Create a Cultlike Following
Enter Action with Boldness
Plan All the Way to the End
Make your Accomplishments Seem Effortless
Control the Options: Get Others to Play with the Cards you Deal
Play to People’s Fantasies
Discover Each Man’s Thumbscrew
Be Royal in your Own Fashion: Act like a King to be treated like one
Master the Art of Timing
Disdain Things you cannot have: Ignoring them is the best Revenge
Create Compelling Spectacles
Think as you like but Behave like others
Stir up Waters to Catch Fish
Despise the Free Lunch
Avoid Stepping into a Great Man’s Shoes
Strike the Shepherd and the Sheep will Scatter
Work on the Hearts and Minds of Others
Disarm and Infuriate with the Mirror Effect
Preach the Need for Change, but Never Reform too much at Once
Never appear too Perfect
Do not go Past the Mark you Aimed for; In Victory, Learn when to Stop
Assume Formlessness

with my head, my heart and my work...

"Can someone please tell me why logic, virtue, personal finance and ethics are no longer taught as..."

My city - new perspective.

Sigur Ros Live @ MoMA I still find it hard to believe that...

The Current State of the Middle East

Sakartvelos Respublika Just found out my best-friend Bakur is...

3 Favorite YouTube Mashup DJs Mike Relm Kutiman Eclectic Method

Dropping Knowledge The things that we love tell us what we...

Video & SEO: Best Practices for Effective Marketing &...

Net Neutrality Explained

I just realized I can reach 22 M people at the click of a...

Recommended Reading: Expatriate Act My friend Keith’s...

Cristiano Ronaldo Connects with Fans Globally: Launches Social...

TV Academy Foundation's Rising Professionals is a Go!

Dropping Knowledge Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. To...

Feed Your Ears

Will Digital Adoption Erase our Historical Records? I just...

TV Writers: SEO Your Scripts!

Tiger Woods Apology: Word Cloud Version Don’t you think...

Video

Currently Reading