Archive for the “insight” Category

Sometimes the best perspective doesn’t come from the most qualified candidate, it can come from someone who is actually very under qualified.

It’s happened in hockey a lot.

Wayne Gretzky is the greatest hockey player in the history of the game, but when he was hired as Coach of the Phoenix Coyotes, he had never stood behind a bench or run a practice in his life. Sure, he had been to lots of practices, and he had sat on lots of benches in front of coaches, so he understood the job, but he had no experience doing the job.

Same for Garth Snow. One day he was the 3rd string goalie for the New York Islanders, the next day he was the General Manager because the owner “”knew what he could do.” Garth had no managerial experience, but by all accounts, has done a bang up job since getting the gig.

More recently the Vancouver Canucks ownership set out to search for an experienced hockey man to be General Manager of their team. Instead of hiring any of the available and experienced GMs currently out of work, the team went the other way and hired someone from across the table - an agent. Mike Gillis had never been a GM before, but like Gretzky, he had seen how others did the job and he was involved in assessing talent from his own side of the business.

Sometimes hiring someone with no direct experience for your job opening gives you a chance to bring in fresh perspectives and ideas to your work place. If the Coyotes had hired an experienced coach, or the Islanders or Canucks an experienced GM, they would simply be re-trying tactics that, in the past, had gotten the person fired. It would be simply recycling old ideas in a new workplace.

Doing things the way they’ve always been done, or accepted to be done in an industry is not always acceptable.

When you’re trying to rebuild or reimagine a business often you’re told to “think outside the box,” perhaps hiring outside that box goes right along with it.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

The Canadian Newspaper Association is meeting in Toronto this week. To jive with the annual conference, the CNA is placing ads in their properties blowing their own horn with the following campaign and a “Know better. Newspapers.” tagline.

Okay, so 16 million Canadians a week read a newspaper. Woah -that’s a lot of paper getting used once, or twice and getting tossed - isnt it?

Enviromental concerns aside, I’ve got to think the CNA is starting to wise up to the reality that newspapers are in trouble. And they’re scared as hell.

SMALLER IS BETTER

For the record, I dont think newspapers are totally doomed. I mean, movie theatres didnt go out of business after the advent of the VCR. But just as music companies, radio stations, tv networks and other “old” media companies face new challenges in an internet world they’ve been slow to harness, newspapers are feeling the pinch.

Newspapers, especially the small dailies like 24hrs, can carve out a niche in our busy lifestyle. They fit in your pocket, and give you all the news you can read on a bus ride. Big, thick juicy newspapers that are hundreds of pages, are the ones that are really in trouble. Most of the stories are cut and pasted from news service websites, much of the content is syndicated and repeated across multiple platforms - including the internet.

WHAT DOT COM BUBBLE?

It’s the web that’s squeezing papers, just have a read of Jeff Jarvis‘ column on a weekly basis. He’s constantly ringing the death bell for large print operations.

The public is online, the new means of gathering and sharing news is online, the medium is more efficient and cheaper to run, the old business model is shot. [source]

Much of the advertising that is still in newspapers will vaporize. Much of it already has vaporized. Papers in top markets are down tens upon tens of millions of dollars each in classified revenue that has disappeared. Those former advertisers are using free or near-free substitudes to bring in and serve customers: craigslist, real estate agents’ own sites, car dealers’ own sites, and other new competitors. [source]

Those in Silicon Valley are licking their lips, waiting for the beast to die and dig in to the estimated $42B ad carcass that will be left rotting in the sun.

After another jarring 3.5% decline over the past six months, print-paper circulation will drop to about 50 million this year–the lowest level since 1946 (62 years ago). That’s during a period in which the US population has doubled, meaning that per-capita newspaper consumption has been cut in half. [source]

And internet usage, the place where people are going to get their news, and the place where the ad revenue will follow, is not slowing down, either. Here are stats from 2 1/2 years ago.

94 percent of young people access the Internet from home, with students as early as Grade 4 beginning to rely on the Internet to stay connected to friends and explore social roles. [source]

That’s a generation that in another 10 years will have as much use for a newspaper as they have for a VCR.

RADIO’S AT IT TOO

The CNA is not alone in making a useless effort to try and revitalize their industry in the eyes of the public. The National Association of Broadcasters unveiled a campaign to promote radio listening at their convention last month.

Complete with retro lightning bolts, it was mostly laughed at.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

Here’s the deal - instead of wasting dollars promoting your current broken business models, spend some time and energy to figure out new ways to do things.

Add more content to your websites. Turn yourdailynewspaper.com into THE portal for local news.

Give me updates throughout the day, don’t make me wait to read a cut and paste syndicated piece the next morning.

While you’re at it, lighten the load of your paper, toss the classifieds and stock quotes, and give me something I can read cover-to-cover in 20 minutes.

Want to take it one step further? Stop printing your paper altogether and just put it on the web. That’s what a newspaper in Wisconsin did.

Cmon newspapers, you should “know better.”

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I like that Home Depot has free classes to show you how to do things. Install a toilet, build an interior wall, roof a shed. The slogan is “You Can Do It, We Can Help” and they live up to it.

They’ve got all the gear, they want to show you how to do stuff so you can buy the gear there.

With the weather turning, and our mud pit of a backyard starting to dry up, Jen and I are rolling up our sleeves and getting it fixed up this spring. New lawn, new plants, new gardens, new deck.

Guess what Home Depot has in their big flyer this weekend? Decking materials on sale, and classes on how to use said decking material.

We’re going to the Build a Deck class on Saturday morning at 9. Check out the site for a calendar of other classes being offered.

This type of marketing is brilliant. You have a product, you educate people, for free, on how to use it. You gain some good will and they come back to buy their supplies from you with their new confidence and knowledge.

Imagine if grocery stores did the same thing. They have all the supplies, why not have free cooking classes?

Computer stores could do it too. How many people know how to get the most from their computer or software? Why not offer free, simple, basic classes?

Arm your customers with education and they’ll know more to be able to buy more.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I’m listening to a presentation from Mark Ramsey right now. He’s talking about the challenges radio faces in a digital age, the way advertising is going to change and how radio needs to rethink.

He just dropped one of the best lines ever: “Radio is like smoking, you’ve got to start them young.”

It’s true. So many people ignore the 12-18 demo. Top 40 radio gets ‘em “for free,” the whole while trying to target adults. You never want to be seen as a “kid station,” because the lucrative adult market will tune out.

But guess what? Those teens grow up and become 18-24, then 25-34… That’s how Z became a big fat beast of a radio station back in the day. That’s how I’ve managed to stay on 95.3 for nearly 15 years. I’ve grown as the radio station has grown. We were an energetic Top 40 station in the beginning, and we still are, but with an adult focus and a demographic people who have grown in life right alongside me.

When you look at overall tuning numbers for radio, teen listening is down. They’re listening to online radio, iPods, or playing video games.

So, in the future, that means adult listening will be down. In order to survive, radio needs to get younger. It needs to be able to quickly adapt to technology and the demand of an audience to have what it wants when it wants it.

It’s a big challenge. If you’re a radio nerd, check out the presentation.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I’ve gotten some interesting emails since I started writing about BPA and how it’s in many of the products we use to feed our children and ourselves.

Playtex’s PR people sent me a presser trying to say nothing was wrong.

I didn’t mention it, cause I don’t believe it.

Today, I got one from Sollight with a clever pitch to have you recycle your nasty Nalgene bpa bottles.

The last thing this planet needs is any more plastic in the landfills. But what do you do with your old polycarbonate water bottle (Nalgene or similar) that you don’t want to use any more? Don’t throw it away! With the incredibly handy LightCap200 you can turn your old (or new) bottle into the coolest home, deck, boat or camping lantern anywhere!

Just pull off the old cap and replace it with a safe, bright, environmentally-friendly solar-powered LED LightCap200 and you’ll have light anywhere you want without wasteful batteries, dangerous, toxic fuel, or electric cords.

The built-in light sensor automatically turns the light on whenever it gets dark, and off when there’s enough light for charging. Or you can click the water-tight switch and turn it off manually. It weights only 2.6oz and you can even use it as a flashlight. The four super-bright, white LEDs provide lots of light without giving off any heat or danger of chemicals in your water.

These lights have been around for a while. Jen got one for Christmas. My sister-in-law gave it to her as something she could use to easily find her water bottle when playing soccer at night.

Now they’re pitching them with a clever and topical marketing twist. Nice work guys.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

… sort of…

One of the things I’m excited about is the way old media can use new technology to better serve their audiences. I’ve been critical of the way print does it in the past, I’ve celebrated the way television has moved to adapt, and today half-kudos to the print gang.

The New York Times, when it first came online, had a subscription model. You had to pay to get the content. It didnt work.

Vivian Schiller, Senior VP and General Manager of the NYTimes.com attributes a significant part of the increase to the end of the subscription model called Times Select. Fueling the growth, she also cites popular multimedia features, blogs and a successful search maximization strategy. Way ahead as destination for newspapers, Schiller says the paper is heading to compete with news portals and cable television sites. [source]

Recently they have opened up their entire paper to the internet and you can scan stories and archives for free. They’ve also taken the power of the web and used it to enhance their print content. Often you will see stories in the paper and then given a chance to watch or listen to complete interviews that were used to write the story. The paper also produces unique content you can only find on the web. The Times has grown beyond being a “newspaper” to becoming a full and complete multimedia company using all their resources to seed content online.

It’s a bold and brilliant step.

Other newspapers have seen the success and are making strides to do the same. The Vancouver Sun, for example, now has an RSS feed not only linking to stories, but giving you a rundown of the events of the day and other articles coming in the days ahead. The feed is impossible to find on their front page, so just type “vancouver sun” into Google Reader to get it.

They’ve also taken the leap of adding multimedia on their site, but you’ll have to do some work to find it. Here’s a direct cut and paste from today’s RSS Feed.

Today @ vancouversun.com
Vancouver Sun
Published: Saturday, April 26, 2008

Read Iain MacIntyre’s take on new Canucks GM Mike Gillis and hear excerpts from his interview under “Editor’s Picks.”

See a video and a narrated slide show of Sun writer Ian Walker’s botched bid to become a jockey.

Hear Christy Clark interview Landcor Data Corp.’s Rudy Nielsen about myths and realities in B.C.’s real estate market.

Hear Westcoast Homes editor Mike Sasges narrate a slide show on Morningstar Homes. [source]

Not one hyper link in the bunch. They simply took the text from the paper and put it in their template, nothing to make it web friendly at all. That’s the rub. I’m on the website and would like to see the slide show of Ian Walker. Instantly. Instead, I have to hunt and peck through the disastrous number of menus surrounding the page to find the link.

The Sun gets marks for trying. They’re just not quite there - yet.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

I’ve been on the BPA Bandwagon big for the past two weeks. Funny how having a baby changes your perspective.

When Mountain Equipment Co-Op was pulling the bottles from their shelves last year, I was aware of what was going on, but I didnt make the connection between sport drinking bottles and our son’s bottles. Now I’m a BPA Nazi.

And not everyone is hearing the message.

Earlier this week Starbucks was serving up free coffee to anyone who swung through with a portable coffee mug. Guess what most of them were probably made of? BPA. Have a look. If your mug is plastic and has a 7 on the bottom, it’s, most likely, made of the nastiness. A colleague of mine was in Starbucks downtown checking out the mugs and you have to actually remove the price tag (you know the one that still doesnt accurately reflect exchange rates) to see the recycle number. Clever.

I do my groceries at Save-On-Foods and had to swing through the baby aisle to pick up some teething cookies for Z. Guess what their entire section of baby bottles consisted of? Avent. It’s a GREAT bottle, it’s what we used. It’s also one of the worst offenders when it comes to BPA.

Here’s what’s on the Avent BPA FAQ site this week (which, for the record, is different than last week):

Do Philips AVENT baby bottles contain Bisphenol A (BPA)?

Philips AVENT reusable bottles, such as the AirFlex, are made from polycarbonate plastic. Polycarbonate plastic is approved for use and lawful for sale in every country where Philips AVENT products are sold, including in North America and Europe. [source]

They never did answer the question. Do they contain BPA? Yes. But they won’t admit to it. Instead, they throw up another misdirecting question.

Do ALL Philips AVENT feeding products contain Bisphenol A (BPA)?

No. Our range of baby feeding products also includes products made from materials other than polycarbonate, hence not containing BPA. The Philips AVENT Via Feeding System, Tempo Liners and Magic range (Cups and Sportster) are made from polypropylene or polyethylene, neither of which contains BPA. [source]

Okay, ALL Avent bottles may not have BPA, but guess what? The ones that most of us are using DO contain BPA and the company refuses to fess up to it.

Zrecs is a fantastic blog for info on BPA, they have done research on each and every baby bottle brand. They put Avent in their POOR list, the worst:

Dale Wytiaz, Avent America’s Vice President of Sales for North America, currently serves on the board of directors of the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, which has maintained an aggressive stance in favor of polycarbonate plastic in public statements made as recently as February 2008. Avent is also listed as a member of the Coalition for Consumer Choice, a pro-BPA group which promotes anti-regulatory messages on behalf of major toy, feeding product, and trade organizations.[source]

And you wonder why I think these companies are just like big tobacco?

Avent sells a microwave sterilizer for your bottles. One of the ways the BPA is leeched out of the plastic is by heating the bottles. Nothing like sterilizing your baby’s bottles with toxin. We had one, thankfully our micro was too small for it to fit.

My blog’s traffic has seen a huge spike since I’ve been writing about BPA as the message spreads. You can see it in my GoogleAds at the bottom of each post. Most of them are BPA related.

The ironic thing is that while I have continued my attack on Avent and calling them out as a BPA offender, their ads continue to show up on my site. No doubt they have AdSense seeking out their name as a keyword to attach an ad to blogs and sites.

So here I am ripping them as a producer of toxic products for babies, and they’re gladly advertising on the site. They have to pay everytime someone clicks on their ad. I just want it to be clear I am NOT profiting from this toxic manufacturer. I am taking my site revenue and donating it to Team Diabetes.

If you have these bottles in your nursery, return them to London Drugs and get a full refund. Then use the store credit to feed your children using Born Free, Green to Grow or Think Baby.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

You are about to be hammered by the eco friendly message today. It’s all about composting and recycling and using less in the news as Earth Day is marked around the world.

Many people take the environment seriously, and go HARDCORE when it comes to their actions. Rain barrels to collect rainwater to use for irrigation, composting to turn table scraps into fertilizer.. stuff like that. They’re on my radar to get done, but require some planning and hardware and I’m not quite there yet.

I’m taking small simple steps to help Mother Earth.

I already use cloth bags when I do my groceries, that’s a good change that was simple to make. I bring my own mug to the coffee joints when I sit and linger with a paper on the weekends and now I turn off my computer at night. I’ll be bringing my mug to Starbucks today as they serve up free coffee for Earth Day when you bring your mug.

I didnt normally do that. I would leave the box humming all day and night, just in case I got a brilliant blog idea in the middle of the night.

But by simply turning off or unplugging the computer at night you can save energy. Lots of it.

An average desktop computer with a 17-inch monitor needs between 150 and 350 watts of electricity while it is being activity used. If you were to leave that computer on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it would use over $200 of electricity and lead to the release of over 1.5 tons of CO2 into Earth’s atmosphere. Turning off your computer — even an inactive computer — for just 10 hours a day can lead to substantial carbon savings. [source]

By unplugging your PC each night, you will reduce your CO2 emissions by a total of 51 lbs. for the month. [source]

Notice the key part of the second quote. It says “unplugging” your computer - not just turning it off.

Did you know that many of your household electronics and appliances use electricity even when they are turned off? This is known as standby or “phantom” power. For instance, your television uses standby power so that it can be ready to instantly turn on when you click the remote control. Your computer’s printer powers down, but isn’t really off unless you turn off its power switch or unplug it. Anything you own that has a transformer plugged into a socket is probably drawing electricity all the time, even when the gadget it’s connected to is not in use. Skeptical? Touch the transformer. If it is warm to the touch, then it’s wasting electricity. [source]

That shouldn’t be too tough either, especially if you have a tangle of power bars and wires under your desk. You don’t need to unplug them all, just the one that goes to the wall.

Oh, and while you’re saving energy by turning off your computer at night, turn off the tv too. It’s Turn Off Your TV Week - so, um.. don’t forget to set the TiVo/PVR/VCR.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

Wow. Talk about good will.

London Drugs is taking back ALL bottles made with BPA. No.questions.asked. You get a gift card in amount of the FULL retail price.

A pal of mine told me about the program and Jen had heard about it too. She took ALL of our Avent bottles back, the nipples, the soothers, the microwave sterilizer. ALL OF IT. In the end, Jen walked out with a $200 store credit.

The guy at the Customer Service counter was apologizing to Jen for them having sold the stuff in the first place.

“London Drugs has been educating customers about the dangers of BPA since
January,” said Wynne Powell, president of London Drugs. “When we learned of
the possible risks from BPA, we immediately started purchasing BPA-free
products and providing customers with information to help them make an
informed choice when purchasing products like plastic baby bottles and sippy
cups. As concern continued to mount around BPA earlier this week, we
immediately removed all baby bottles, sippy cups, pacifiers, and select food
containers and water bottles containing BPA from our store shelves. Our
customer service specialists in our stores and at our head office in Richmond
are available to answer our customers’ questions and provide information on
these BPA alternatives.” [source]

We didnt buy our bottles from London Drugs, they were given as gifts at showers etc, but LD took them back.

They’ll also take back your stanky Nalgene bottles too.

Amazing. Congratulations. Way to go.

BTW, London Drugs sells BornFree, a brand of plastic bottles made WITHOUT BPA. We switched Z over to them this week and he has had no issues with the new nipples etc. Guess what we’re getting with our $200 gift card from London Drugs??

Thank you London Drugs. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?

The Globe and Mail has been ALL OVER the BPA story this week. Again today, they have more revelations, and more evidence that BPA is harmful.

Bisphenol A… has the ability to alter the activity of genes in normal breast cells in ways that resemble what is found in extremely dangerous breast cancers, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by researchers in California and published this month in the journal Cancer Research, found that many genes in non-cancerous breast cells exposed to trace amounts of bisphenol A began acting in a way that closely resembled the gene activity in highly aggressive breast tumours that led to an increased likelihood that women would die of the disease.

The link “is highly supportive of the concept that overexposure to BPA and/or similar compounds could be an underlying factor in the aggressiveness, if not in the causality” of breast cancers, said Shanaz Dairkee, lead author of the study and senior scientist at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, in an e-mail.[source]

With that ammunition, the Canadian government took action today to deem BPA a dangerous substance.

“Canada has been the first country in the world to conduct risk assessments on a number of chemicals of concern, as a result of a new initiative announced by the Prime Minister on December 8, 2006 known as the Chemicals Management Plan,” said Minister Clement. “We have immediately taken action on bisphenol A, because we believe it is our responsibility to ensure families, Canadians and our environment are not exposed to a potentially harmful chemical.”[source]

It’s not enough to have it banned, but enough to scare retailers across the country to get the stuff off their shelves. Some manufacturers are also getting the message.

Nalge Nunc International, a division of Waltham, Mass.-based Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., said Friday it will substitute its Nalgene Outdoor line of polycarbonate plastic containers with BPA-free alternatives. [source]

But some aren’t. Check out the headlines at bisphenol-a.org

Are the Myths About Polycarbonate Bottles True? New Information Supports the Safe Use of Polycarbonate Bottles - February 5, 2008

Polycarbonate Bottles Are Still Safe For Use – In Spite of the Latest Scare Story - January 31, 2008

New Data from CDC Confirms Human Exposure to Bisphenol A in the United States is Far Below Safe Limits - November 1, 2007

Sound Science Prevails in Review of Bisphenol A - August 8, 2007

Myths? Scare tactics? Safe?

Like I said yesterday, these arguments sound a lot like those that came from big tobacco in the 80s and 90s.

I’ve been most concerned about baby bottles and soothers and dishes with this news. But sports bottles and home water coolers are also affected. Yes, home water cooler jugs. The big ones where you get home delivery? Look at the number on the bottom.

A key to whether a bottle contains BPA can be found in the recycling number at the bottom of the bottle or on a label. Most drink containers sold in stores have the number “1″, recommended for one-time use only. Containers considered toxin-free include number “2″ high-density polyethylene (HDPE), number “4″ low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and number “5″ polypropylene (PP).

However, baby bottles, many drinking cups and polycarbonate bottles marked with recycle number “7″ contain BPA. Many oversized bottles used for home and office water coolers — including those from Canadian Springs — are made of the “7″ variety.

Calls to a half-dozen water companies that deliver to B.C. homes and offices, including Canadian Springs, were not returned Thursday. [source]

But not all water cooler jugs are bad, a Winnipeg company makes them BPA free, and theyve seen a boom in sales this year.

If you’re not willing to take chances with your life, or the life of your children, have a read of this earlier posting to find out companies that produce BPA free products and other steps you can take to be safe.

The Blog According to Buzz. Spread the word, ya heard?