I am posting some updates to census stats since, as I said before, the data is there, it’s public and people should be exposed to it without ads or “interpretations” in the middle.
So, here you go:
Feedback: The Greatest Movie Evert sold
I just saw Morgan Spurlocks “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”
The tight contracts, partner rejections, pitch meetings, cold calls, partnership management, moments of loss of control, brand push back, product placement challenges, and managing the selling of ones sole is depicted with more real reality in this movie than all reality shows on TV today.
I wanted to post this as a blog because I wanted to get your take on it. I feel that Morgan has yet again done a public service by exposing a hidden world in a creative and digestible way.
Here is a wiki on it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POM_Wonderful_Presents:_The_Greatest_Movie_Ever_Sold Check it out. For those that don’t know it actually is a pretty transparent view of what raising money, pitching ideas, and getting rejected really feels like. (As apposed to the faux “reality” TV shows trying to recreate reality)
Rotten tomatoes 73% fresh
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/pom_wonderful_presents_the_greatest_movie_ever_sold/
IMDB
Efficiently Inefficient: Processes that can improve quality and quantity of life
For our latest project at Socialize Isaac and I are going to increase the release cycle even further and go from a few releases per group per week, to a few releases per day. I find moving more efficiently and quickly over the years always takes a few non-intuitive jarring mental steps. (If they didn’t we would have been way more efficient as a society way earlier on in history).
Here are a couple things that always seem to be the foundation of inching your way up the efficiency hill.
1) Get to a point at which you truly trust your results, not just feel good or secure about them, but quantitative based results that have a quantitative “I trust this” number. This is what I call the “don’t look over your shoulder moment”, because if you’re looking over your shoulder to make sure nothing has gone wrong, you are not looking forward to make sure new things go right. This accomplished with unit/itests tests, or in our everyday lives marking your calendar or adding a reminder. Even at managing people in the office, time and time again setting up employees to be trusted and autonomous, with a simple audit system to make you aware only if something is wrong, has proven time and time again to produce happier, more creative, more productive employees in a company that can scale. Basically every one wins big when you make sure you create process that handles things that are set to let you know if you need to take action, and quite %100 otherwise.
2) Really reconsider what you’re are willing to bare in mistakes. This is usually a major brain switch moment. Sometimes people can work 100x more efficiently and productively if they just allow themselves to be wrong for a totally fixable 1 minute per year. Yes your server may go down once a year, but instead of working hard to make sure that never happens (which is impossible), work hard to make sure systems are in place to recover super quickly. The funny thing is when you accomplish #1 above, mixed with this #2 item, you start performing better than you could have imagined.
3) Remove process that is there to support the more intuitive faux “warm and fuzzy” feelings that keep 1 and 2 from happening.
4) Always push yourself, and those around you, to test process that offer efficiency gains even if you don’t feel comfortable at first. Comfort is often the foundation of slowness, and trying new things even against your “better judgement” are the only ways to break free.
For you nerds out there, here is the article from github Isaac passed on to me that sparked our latest evolution in product releases. Although this post and its sentiment are, in my book, universal throughout life and business and not code.
There is no better quote to reference then your own, made from the source:Not the facts, just the data
Do not trust or love politics, love your people, peers, country, and family.
Politicians will use data for their agenda. If you get wrapped up in it, and start believing what you are *told*, through sound bites and ads, you will be misinformed 100% of the time. More information isn’t tantamount to a depth of information.
This is why I have learned not to trust politics, they bet on people not reading the full story (as wel only have so much time in the day) and try to create anger and conflict to make people mad enough to vote how they want. It feels like THAT is what has gotten worst over the years, not so much what is happening in the world, just the way its agenda is given to us. China does it by cutting off information, the US does it by overloading its people with one sided information.
The good news is that with the advent of the Internet it is now so easy to get the data and documents from the source, and fight back as a citizen saying “don’t use me for your agenda”. No need to go to the library and send letters requesting data that may take days or weeks; it is available now if you are willing to read it.
As my methods to get to the data evolve, I try and follow some procedures to navigate past the political propaganda.
First, If I find a “fact” that I am researching on any news site, I look for the citation for the “fact” so I know where it came from, and then look that fact up from it source to read it myself. If there is not citation, I start over. A citation does not make it data, it just helps you get a path to the source. Secondly, if I find the source I read it, if I cannot find the source I look for the source directly. At this stage in the evolution of my process I have deemed .gov sites and non-profit census bureaus as a final source. In some situation you can never be sure unless you count the numbers yourself, but I have found the most consistency at that level. Yes I know that even the government stats, non profits, and census bureaus can lie but if I can find some consitancy at that level I am pleased.
Lastly, how to spot a fact with skeletons in its closet that should trigger an investigation like the one above before having the debate.
Well, the main thing that triggers a fact check to me are statistics, and references to bill being voted on. Why? Well, over the years I have found that stats have a high potential to be screwed. Or example, what constitutes “1 year” – Fiscal year or calendar year etc. Another example is is the stats extrapolated from previous data or data that has already happened. Another read flag is the use of tag lines, sound bits and general words like “taxes”, and “everyone”, and “higher” — higher then when and what for whom? Also, the reference to bills, are tough to believe from something like “he voted to….” After living in DC and working on capitol hill with you realize that both sides of the fence will quote the same document at different parts and come up with completely different conclusion. It is impossible for both are either to be entirely right, but both sides would never realize that they both *think* they are 100% right. As my readers and friends know by now, one of my big rules of thumb is: If experts disagree it is time to make your own decisions. A bill is written by many people with many agendas for their state. They are stiuffed, written and re-written over and over to try to get as much as they each want to get in it, and keep out as much as they don’t. They do this hours and hours everyday to come to a final document that is then voted on by all parties. It is very important to remember that time line, for no document has one message, and if it passed their is a big chance that both parties voted yes on it (unless there was a big split with few deciding votes). Point being, much could have gone into a document and so much more history to that document then any sound bite could articulate.
So, one of the bills that was brought as a point of contention was based on a sound bites saying “Obama voted on late term abortion”, and it was said that the bill was made to let mothers have the right to kill a baby after it is born alive. Well, personal, I did not know about that bill first hand, and that I promised to look it up. Speaking from my own perspectives I don’t like the sound of it, but I want the source and document first before my personal conclusions on that vote are spoken.
This is one of the actual bills voted on for Illinois referenced. It only took a few minutes to bring up. It was indeed named “Partial-birth Abortion Ban Act”, so that is a true data point. As it turns out was voted on 44-7 (almost everyone agreed in both parties, that decided to attend). Also there were 5 present votes. What does a present vote mean?
The “present” vote is in effect a “no” vote, but it is a “no” vote that sends a message. The “present” vote is used by lawmakers in situations where they agree with a bill in
spirit, however the current version of the bill is not good enough to vote “yes;”
The bill, in my first hand summary, would be this: A bill for late term abortion *if* it will kill the mother to have the baby, but still says it is illegal otherwise. But please, do not take my word for it! Read it here:
So it is important for me to see just how complex a bill can be, in addition to how complex it is to create, finalize,vote on and pass, on it.
Another topic was immigration. Stats are the hardest data to really find concrete numbers. There isn’t a list of people that are counted ever. It is def not as easy to get to the bottom of as a document being references. Old census bureus that have been around and referenced over time by both parties is, to me, a better place to start than from a news site, network, or politician.
So here is census data from the Pew Foundation on immigration stats, highest in 2007, and leveled off down by a million the following years.
It is important to note that data usually doesn’t come with a “should”, “good”, “bad”, or “won’t” list of words around it. Why did it go up? That is as complex as why did it go down? And as you will see that once why is added to statistics rarely does a group of experts agree. There are so many variables, and that is where debates and politics I suppose have a place. But I would implore you all out there to start the debate after the data is presented, and be sure not to find yourself repeating an ad or politicians claim that a statistic is “up” or “down” until you read it for yourself from the source.
I think my new strategy will be to make sure that before I argue on big issues like this, especially in DC where the ads and politics are so ripe with contention, I will just say show me the document we are arguing over before getting involved. If we do, maybe the citizens of this country can take back their right to be informed, and to make decisions without political agenda being the force that drives them.
The summary of my rabbit hole conversation with big media company and how they see digital vs linear
Them: Linear does not easily show ROI, we are slaves to Neilson and the data isn’t even accurate. – Digital has a definite ROI we can track.
Me: Is getting digital traffic and market appeal your #1 focus then?
Them: No, we don’t drive search and discovery towards digital nearly as much as linear
Me: Why?
Them: Because digital doesn’t make good money
Me: Why?
Them: Digital doesn’t get good value on ads or have enough ad fill compared to linear so there is less money
Me: Why not?
Them: becuase advertiser don’t spend there money on digital
Me: Why not?
Them: because there isn’t enough traffic going there with the right type of viewers?
Me: Do you know why there is a difference in veiwer types or know exactly what types of veiwers are on each?
Them: No.
Me: Do you try to drive the users you do like or want to digital?
Them: No.
Me: Why not?
Them: because there isn’t money there
Me: Is there ad roll in streaming video on digital?
Them: Yes
Me: Can you track ROI and metric/conversions easily in digital?
Them: Yes
Me: What is the retention on digital for vistors to streaming and non streaming video?
Them: Very high
Me: Why don’t you push people toward digital that you have ROI metrics on that you can push?
Them: Becuase there isn’t as much money in digital…
—Start over from top
Funny thing is as I looked at them like they are on crazy pills, they looked at me the same way. I think the next big media company will be one with less to lose so they can open their eyes at taking the necessary risks needed to evolve into the new market. Maybe Yahoo studios?
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Entertainment Reprise
We are becoming part of a more generalized entertainment structure in our society. No longer is it defined by the length of time the product presents itself, the depth of interaction it offers, the star being living or made-up, the device in which the interaction takes place – or the time in between each interaction. We are now in a world where those versions of the product can be matched, bundled and even merged to create a whole new ecosystem. We are living in a world where all types of entertainment, big games and small, game shows and reality, information and news, can sit side-by-side, hand-in-hand, equally, through any channel they choose without prejudice or barriers. Your entertainment is free at last, and we are the entrepreneurs that will shepherd it into this new world, slicing through old corporate structures, and short sighted economics, to build a brighter and far more entertaining future.
Fake Response Server: Slow response time generator
Here is another quick tool built on AWS. This one is super simple, but pretty handy. Today Twitter went down, and somewhere in our system we were using the Twitter API to display one of our status feeds. Them being down became us being slow.
Well, I wanted to do some quick tests to keep this from happening again, but byt the time I got to it Twitter was responsive again. To fix it I would need to create a bad URL. The crappy thing is I wanted a slow response time, not exactly a bad response/error. Creating a 404 error is easy, just go to some url that doesn’t exists and test. But I want a slowwwww response.
I quickly searched Google for something I could use, and didn’t find one. When I realized I would have to create a fake pause endpioint somewhere I figured someone else out there might benfiift from a quick public version of this system. So, I created fake response server. The first default endpoint available sleeps for a variable time.
and add a sleep param to change the sleep time in milliseconds
https://fakeresponder.com?sleep=500
Nothing major, but why not publicize the tool incase it can help some other shmuck out there like me 🙂
Cheers.
What does coke, the bible, and good business gut all have in common?
On the car ride up from a meeting on sand hill, Daniel Odio interviews me in “the hot seat” on how process plays a pivotal role in your startup’s business success.
My first iMovie: Demoing a product
Here is a vid of the Android demo. It is my first iMovie project so it’s a bit rough around the edges, ut to be honest it was kind of fun to do.
I’m looking forward to making the iOS one, or for any feature for that matter, and taking what i’ve learned to improve.
Some tips, lessons learned that I wish I did.:
– Take you finger away from the shot after every action, it makes it way easier to cut up
– Shoot it side ways so the stage is not taller than wide
– tape the phone down and mount your camera so it doesnt move throught the shot. again, better cutting chances.
make a short movie first and play with all the transitions, and effects and themes. Cut up your movie and add each clip to the stage and add some text and transitions again. Then add some music. I would have saved allot of time on the final if I had known what I know afte the final was made, but by te end of the real movie i was to tired to go back and start over.
Sean Shadmand 