Shots Fired at School Board Meeting

Just when I thought I had seen and heard it all, a man is caught on tape firing shots at school board members in Panama City, FL.

The gunman, Clay Duke sat through much of the Bay Districts Schools board meeting quietly. It was only towards the end of that meeting when citizens were able to bring up issues that he approached the bench and spray painted a large circle with the letter "V" in the center on the wall. He then pulled a gun and ordered everyone out except six school board members.  Duke stood at close range of the superintendent and the other board members to rant about his anger over the firing of his wife, a former school teacher and taxes.

Here it is, caught on tape from CNN.com.




I am amazed at the bravery of the school board member Ginger Littleton who tried to knock the gun from Duke's hand as well as the composure of all the board members.
Thank goodness Duke was not a good shot and the chief of security, Mike Jones was able to take him down by firing shots at him.

Duke was definitely right. He said "someone is gonna die" and it ended up being him.

Hulu and London

Sigh! I used to REALLY love Hulu.com but it is slowly morphing itself into a commercialized pay site. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Hook a bunch of users with your streamlined interface then slowly start adding more commercials to the programs, then tack on a fee to see the full length versions to 5 star programs. I guess I wouldn't mind if I could get EVERY program I ever wanted. But even Hulu has it's limits. (for now anyway) Right now I'm in a fight with DirectTV about the price for our programming. I ask for little but pay a lot for basics and I'm tired of it!

Then there's the uprising in London over the college tuition rates going up triple! Those people are mad as hell. So when are we going to have our uprising? I'm not talking about passive aggressive demonstrations over taxes but a REAL hoe down over corporate America and overall inequalities? Right now I'm simmering...keeping myself from the boiling point by prayer and meditation but even folks like me have a cracking point.  I'm hoping it doesn't come to that in our country to get change accomplished.




Sir Richard Branson's "Project"


Billionaire and founder of the famous Virgin brand, Sir Richard Branson has a new venture. He will be publishing a new magazine called "Project" that will be 100% digital available for the iPad and in the future available for other tablet platforms.

I truly feel that tablets are the future of print because of it's ability to better engage the reader using video and sound.  Print may not totally go away but we are just at the tip of the iceberg with this technology.  As more and more companies make these devices, pricing will go down and they will be more widely available.  



Augmented Reality


Augmented Reality or AR is the application of computer-generated imagery in live-video streams expanding on the real world.

If you have ever tried on clothing virtually via your computer then you have had a taste of what AR is. But it has evolved to so much more and is increasingly being implemented into our daily lives through gaming, TV, and in the promotion of products and services.  Although it is still in it's infancy stages we now have the ability to point our wireless devices such as cell phones or iPads at points of interest and expanded graphic details or 3-D diagrams instantly appear on-screen. These graphics enhance our knowledge of the object being viewed and entertainment or promotional information is instantly received.

Ford Motor Co. implemented an AR campaign promoting the Ford Ka to get the attention of the hard-to-reach 20-somethings demographic.
Check it out here: http://wn01.com/awards/2009/BIMA/ka/crossmedia/
and in the video below.



Check out a few more examples of how the AR platform is changing the way we see reality.













Eminem Augmented Reality Screencast from Outside Line on Vimeo.







Advertising on the Edge



An increasing challenge for the advertising industry is it's competition for consumers' attention and time. Technology from DVRs, to wireless devices, to iPods have given consumers more choices and control over what they tune in or tune out.  Consumers have become really good at mentally zoning out advertising. You can't presume that because advertising is all over the place that it's actually reaching everyone.
"Consumers encounter from 3,500 to 5,000 marketing messages per day, vs. 500 to 2,000 in the 1970s," says J. Walker Smith, president of consumer and marketing watcher Yankelovich.  "There are so many ads out there that consumers actively avoid commercials today to an extent never before realized," says Dan Howard, professor of advertising and consumer behavior at Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business. "No matter how many more ads we put out there, it's not going to work ... because it's not registering."

So what are businesses to do to grab attention?  Well some have gone to great lengths to be ultra creative.  In fact, some are downright edgy!  Take a look at these ads and tell me, wouldn't these make you sit up and take notice?

Samsung MP3 Player



Just Liquid Soap                                                  Panasonic Nose Trimmer

  

                                                                 HypeGallery.com

 

To view more edgy ads visit Web Urbanist



Time Traveler Caught on Film

I am a big fan of science fiction and as you may know, much of what has been written about or made in movies has eventually become reality like flip cell phones, space travel, etc. Check out this video and let me know what you think. Is the lady in the 1928 Charlie Chaplin film "The Circus" holding a cell phone? Could this be proof of a time traveler?



I suppose the only way that we could prove that this film wasn't doctored is to go out and buy a copy of the movie ourselves to see if the lady is there. It's an interesting piece for sure. So what do you think? Do you believe that people from the future live and move amongst us?

As the Tribune Turns




This is a complete re-post of an article published by the New York Times


At Sam Zell's Tribune, Tales of a Bankrupt Culture
By DAVID CARR

In January 2008, soon after the venerable Tribune Company was sold for $8.2 billion, Randy Michaels, a new top executive, ran into several other senior colleagues at the InterContinental Hotel next to the Tribune Tower in Chicago.

Mr. Michaels, a former radio executive and disc jockey, had been handpicked by Sam Zell, a billionaire who was the new controlling shareholder, to run much of the media company's vast collection of properties, including The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, WGN America and The Chicago Cubs.

After Mr. Michaels arrived, according to two people at the bar that night, he sat down and said, "watch this," and offered the waitress $100 to show him her breasts. The group sat dumbfounded.

"Here was this guy, who was responsible for all these people, getting drunk in front of senior people and saying this to a waitress who many of us knew," said one of the Tribune executives present, who declined to be identified because he had left the company and did not want to be quoted criticizing a former employer. "I have never seen anything like it."

Mr. Michaels, who otherwise declined to be interviewed, said through a spokesman, "I never made the comment allegedly attributed to me in January 2008 to a waitress at the InterContinental Hotel, and anyone who said I did so is either lying or mistaken."

It was a preview of what would become a rugged ride under the new ownership. Mr. Zell and Mr. Michaels, who was promoted to chief executive of the Tribune Company in December 2009, arrived with much fanfare, suggesting they were going to breathe innovation and reinvention into the conservative company.


By all accounts, the reinvention did not go well. At a time when the media industry has struggled, the debt-ridden Tribune Company has done even worse. Less than a year after Mr. Zell bought the company, it tipped into bankruptcy, listing $7.6 billion in assets against a debt of $13 billion, making it the largest bankruptcy in the history of the American media industry. More than 4,200 people have lost jobs since the purchase, while resources for the Tribune newspapers and television stations have been slashed.

The new management did transform the work culture, however. Based on interviews with more than 20 employees and former employees of Tribune, Mr. Michaels's and his executives' use of sexual innuendo, poisonous workplace banter and profane invective shocked and offended people throughout the company. Tribune Tower, the architectural symbol of the staid company, came to resemble a frat house, complete with poker parties, juke boxes and pervasive sex talk.

The company said Mr. Michaels had the support of the board.

"Randy is a tremendous motivator, very charismatic, but he is very nontraditional," said Frank Wood, a member of the Tribune board. "He has the kind of approach that motivates many people and offends others, but we think he's done a great job."

The company is now frozen in what seems to be an endless effort to emerge from bankruptcy. (The case entered mediation in September after negotiations failed, and a new agreement between two primary lenders was recently announced.) But even as the company foundered, the tight circle of executives, many with longtime ties to Mr. Michaels, received tens of millions of dollars in bonuses.

Behind the collapse of the Tribune deal and the bankruptcy is a classic example of financial hubris. Mr. Zell, a hard-charging real estate mogul with virtually no experience in the newspaper business, decided that a deal financed with heavy borrowing and followed with aggressive cost-cutting could succeed where the longtime Tribune executives he derided as bureaucrats had failed.

And while many media companies tried cost-cutting and new tactics in the last few years, Tribune was particularly aggressive in planning publicity stunts and in mixing advertising with editorial material. Those efforts alienated longtime employees and audiences in the communities its newspapers served.

"They threw out what Tribune had stood for, quality journalism and a real brand integrity, and in just a year, pushed it down into mud and bankruptcy," said Ken Doctor, a newspaper analyst with Outsell Inc., a consulting firm. "And it's been wallowing there for the last 20 months with no end in sight."

Mr. Zell has acknowledged that the deal has not turned out how he hoped. But noting a recent upturn in results, he said through a spokesman, "Tribune has made significant strides in becoming a current, competitive and sustainable media company. The measure of management's performance is reflected in the increased profitability of Tribune's media properties."

The Purchase An Innovative Deal for Little Cash

When Mr. Zell purchased the Tribune Company in December 2007, he bought into an industry desperately in need of new ideas. And Mr. Zell, a consummate deal maker, had a barrelful. 


Tribune, home to some of the most important newspapers in the country - The Baltimore Sun, The Hartford Courant and The Orlando Sentinel as well as The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times - had been battered by big drops in advertising and circulation. According to Mr. Zell, the company was also suffering from stodgy thinking and what he called "journalistic arrogance."

"There's a new sheriff in town," he said, in speeches that were peppered with expletives, as he toured the Tribune's offices.

It was a message that some within the company initially welcomed.

"Sam Zell was sort of a rock star when he went around and toured the various properties," said Ann Marie Lipinski, the former editor of The Chicago Tribune who left less than a year after the takeover. "People had been living with uncertainty for so long and they hoped something good would come from an owner with a proven track record of success in other businesses."

Mr. Zell's first innovation was the deal itself. He used debt in combination with an employee stock ownership plan, called an ESOP, to buy the company, while contributing only $315 million of his own money. Under the plan, the company's discretionary matching contributions to the 401(k) retirement plan for nonunionized Tribune employees were diverted into an ownership stake. The structure of the deal allowed the Tribune to become an S corporation, which pays no federal taxes, making taxpayers essentially silent partners in the deal.

The $8 billion in new loans used to finance the deal left the company with $13.8 billion in debt. But Mr. Zell was convinced that by quickly selling the Chicago Cubs and other assets while improving operating margins, the company could emerge as a valuable property. It was typical Zell: a risky approach to gain control over a large, distressed asset while minimizing his own exposure, something he acknowledged in a company newsletter:

"I've said repeatedly that no matter what happens in this transaction, my lifestyle won't change," he wrote to his combination employees/shareholders. "Yours, on the other hand, could change dramatically if we get this right."

His second innovation was bringing in a new management team, largely from the radio business, that, like Mr. Zell, had little newspaper experience, which constituted more than 70 percent of the company's business.

Mr. Michaels, who was initially in charge of Tribune's broadcasting and interactive businesses as well as six newspapers, was a former shock jock who made a name for himself - and a lot of money for Mr. Zell - by scooping up radio stations while at the Zell-controlled Jacor Communications. Jacor was later sold to Clear Channel Communications for $4.4 billion.

In turn, Mr. Michaels remade Tribune's management, installing in major positions more than 20 former associates from the radio business - people he knew from his time running Jacor and Clear Channel - a practice that came to be known as "friends and family" at the company.

One of their first priorities was rewriting the employee handbook.

"Working at Tribune means accepting that you might hear a word that you, personally, might not use," the new handbook warned. "You might experience an attitude you don't share. You might hear a joke that you don't consider funny. That is because a loose, fun, nonlinear atmosphere is important to the creative process." It then added, "This should be understood, should not be a surprise and not considered harassment."

The new permissive ethos was quickly on display. When Kim Johnson, who had worked with Mr. Michaels as an executive at Clear Channel, was hired as senior vice president of local sales on June 16, 2008, the news release said she was "a former waitress at Knockers - the Place for Hot Racks and Cold Brews," a jocular reference to a fictitious restaurant chain.

 A woman who used to work at the Tribune Company in a senior position, but did not want to be identified because she now worked at another media company in Chicago, said that Mr. Michaels and Marc Chase, who was brought in to run Tribune Interactive, had a loud conversation on an open balcony above a work area about the sexual suitability of various employees.

"The conversation just wafted down on all of the people who were sitting there." She also said that she was present at a meeting where a female executive jovially offered to bring in her assistant to perform a sexual act on someone in a meeting who seemed to be in a bad mood.

Staff members who had concerns did not have many options, given the state of the media business in Chicago, the woman said. "Not many people could afford to leave. The people who could leave, did. But it was not in my best interest to have my name connected to an E.E.O.C. suit," she said, referring to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (Indeed, there are no current E.E.O.C. complaints against the Tribune Company.)

There have been complaints about Mr. Michaels in the past, however. In 1995, Mr. Michaels and Jacor settled a suit brought by Liz Richards, a former talk show host in Florida who filed an E.E.O.C. complaint and a civil suit, saying she had been bitten on the neck by Mr. Michaels and that he walked through the office wearing a sexual device around his neck.

"They were like 14-year-old boys - no boundaries at all - but with money and power," Ms. Richards said in an interview.

 During and immediately after Mr. Michaels's tenure at Clear Channel, three lawsuits were filed contending sexual harassment at the company. One plaintiff, Karen Childress, a senior executive, said she was fired after complaining about receiving lewd e-mail from senior company executives. In her complaint, Ms. Childress also stated that women who slept with male executives at the firm were promoted. The cases were settled out of court. Clear Channel declined to comment on the lawsuits.

On Dec. 11, 2008, the Tribune board was made aware that not everyone appreciated the new cultural dynamics at the company. The board received an anonymous letter detailing a hostile work environment and a pattern of hiring based on personal relationships and suggested that the company was leaving itself open to "potential litigation risk."

The letter also suggested that a senior executive and a female employee had been discovered by a security guard engaged in a consensual sexual act on the 22nd-floor balcony. The board took the allegation seriously enough that it hired an independent law firm to investigate it. A company spokesman said the investigation found that the executive and the woman denied the incident and the inquiry could find no evidence that such an incident had occurred or that any harassment had taken place. But a person who worked in security at the time confirmed to The New York Times that a security guard reported seeing the incident. That person declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.

By September 2008, the historic Tribune Tower had someone new in charge of security: John D. Phillips, a former traffic reporter who had previously worked for Mr. Michaels. In June 2009, a party for management was held in the former office of Col. Robert R. McCormick, the newspaper baron and grandson of the founder, on the 24th floor of the Tribune Tower. Smoke detectors were covered up and poker tables were brought in. 

Mr. Phillips posted pictures of the party on his Facebook page, showing Mr. Michaels and Mr. Chase, along with Lee Abrams, a former radio programmer who had joined Tribune earlier that year, playing poker and drinking in the ornate office. The Chicago media writer Robert Feder first reported about the Facebook photographs.

"We are in the office of the guy who ran the company from the 1920s to 1955," Mr. Phillips wrote on his Facebook page. "It's normally a shrine. We pretty much desecrated it with gambling, booze and cigars."

A New Culture Staff Cutbacks and Promotions

While the new owner and managers went about changing the corporate tone at Tribune, they were also under pressure to service the enormous debt. In his initial tour of the company, Mr. Zell promised there would be no job cuts. But like other media companies caught in the downdraft of advertising revenue, the company was forced to cut staff and slash budgets. Elsewhere, the company introduced promotions that seemed to have been drawn from the radio playbook. At four of the company's television stations, an event called "CA$H GRAB," in which a viewer was led into a bank vault and allowed to scoop up dollar bills, was inserted in the middle of the station's newscasts. At WPIX-TV in New York, the viewers were cheered on by clapping Hooters waitresses, giving the station the appearance of televised shock radio.

Mr. Abrams, who describes himself as an "economic dunce," was made Tribune's chief innovation officer in March 2008. In his new role, he peppered the staff with stream-of-consciousness memos, some of which went on for 5,000 typo-ridden, idiosyncratic words that left some amused and many bewildered.

"Rock n Roll musically is behind us. NEWS & INFORMATION IS THE NEW ROCK N ROLL," he wrote in one memo, sent in 2008. He expressed surprise that The Los Angeles Times reporters covering the war in Iraq were actually there. 


James Warren, the former managing editor and Washington bureau chief of The Chicago Tribune, said: "They wheeled around here doing what they wished, showing a clear contempt for most everyone that was here and used power just because they had it. They used the notion of reinventing the newspapers simply as a cover for cost-cutting." (As a contributor to the Chicago News Cooperative, Mr. Warren writes a column that appears in the Chicago edition of The New York Times.)

In Chicago, Ms. Lipinski said, it became clear that Mr. Zell was not above using the newspaper as a tool for his other business interests. In June 2008, Mr. Zell approached her at a meeting, saying that The Chicago Tribune should be harder on Gov. Rod Blagojevich. She reminded him that the newspaper had aggressively investigated the governor and that its editorial page had already called for his resignation.

"Don't be a pussy," he told her. "You can always be harder on him."

In a news meeting later the same day, she found out that Mr. Zell was in negotiations to sell Wrigley Field to the state sports authority.

"It was hard to avoid the conclusion that he was trying to use the newspaper to put pressure on Blagojevich."

Through a spokeswoman, Terry Holt, Mr. Zell denied he used the newspaper to business ends. "From Day 1, Sam vowed never to interfere with the editorial content at any of Tribune's media properties, and he has always honored that commitment," Ms. Holt said.

In a criminal complaint, federal authorities accused Mr. Blagojevich of trying to trade public financing of the stadium for the dismissal of some members of the Tribune's editorial board. An aide to the governor charged with pursuing the matter reported back that Mr. Zell "got the message and is very sensitive to the issue," according to a criminal complaint filed by the United States attorney's office for the Northern District of Illinois. (In August, Mr. Blagojevich was convicted on one of the 24 felony counts he faced, lying to F.B.I. agents about his involvement in campaign fund-raising.)

Ms. Lipinski said it was that episode and other conflicts with management that prompted her resignation in July 2008, just one month after Scott Smith, the paper's longtime publisher, left.

"I was plenty used to crisis, in many ways thrived on it," said Ms. Lipinski, who had joined the newspaper as an intern in 1978. "But this nonsense was a form of intentional man-made distraction that made the work impossible. I couldn't protect my staff from what they could see plainly with their own eyes."

Mr. Zell's various approaches didn't slow the company's decline. In the third quarter of 2008, the company posted a loss of $124 million, and the recession made it difficult to sell the Cubs. His purchase of Tribune became, as even he described it, "the deal from hell" and the company filed for bankruptcy on Dec. 8, 2008.

It wasn't simply the huge debt that burdened the company; the performance under new management continued to slide. While its television division has since done well in the advertising rebound - over all, the 23 stations are on track in 2010 to pass $1 billion in revenue for the first time since 2007 - Tribune's newspapers have continued to underperform the rest of the industry.

Advertising has been inserted into The Los Angeles Times in new and unsettling ways. In March, an ad mimicking the front page for Disney's "Alice in Wonderland" was wrapped around the first section and in July, a fake version of the newspaper's section for late breaking news, called LATExtra, was wrapped around the real one, promoting Universal Studios' King Kong attraction, with a lead "story" that read "Universal Studios Partially Destroyed." In April 2009, an advertisement posing as a news article about NBC's new show "Southland" appeared on the front page.

In July, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the governing body of the county of Los Angeles, sent a letter of protest, saying that the use of advertising disguised as news "makes a mockery of the newspaper's mission."

The ads do not seem to have helped. The Chicago Tribune's circulation continues to slide, with weekday circulation down 9.8 percent in the first half of 2010. The Los Angeles Times is in worse shape, having lost 14.7 percent of its weekday circulation in the period. (Over all, the industry lost 8.7 percent weekly circulation in the period.)

Radio, which was the core expertise of the management, has had a mixed record since the takeover. After bringing in many longtime associates of Mr. Michaels, WGN-AM, the company's well-known talk radio station in Chicago, lost market share in 2009. The station manager sent a note last month to Tribune managers, asking them to call in to one of the new hosts, because few actual listeners were. But a company spokesman said that ratings in the morning were up 20 percent for the month of August.

In an effort to shake up the station, the management jettisoned a sports talk show at night and installed someone with no radio experience, Jim Laski, an Illinois politician who had been convicted of a felony.


Steve Cochran, a longtime midday host who has said he was dismissed as he was walking out of the bathroom this summer, said the changes seemed aimed at destroying WGN.

"This was supposed to be their comfort zone, what they were good at, and they have ruined a radio station that has had an 80-year relationship with its listeners," he said.

"This is a collection of carnival workers who are only looking after their friends, giving jobs to their buddies. Blagojevich is on trial and you bring in a politician who has done time in jail?"

The Bankruptcy Creditors Lose, as Do Workers

More than the Tribune's creditors took a haircut: the shares that about 10,000 nonunion employees received in the ESOP deal are now worthless as a result of the bankruptcy, although at the beginning of this year, the company replaced the ESOP plan with a cash incentive contribution. But if and when the Tribune exits bankruptcy, the value of the company will be worth substantially less than when Mr. Zell bought a controlling interest. Under a proposed settlement filed recently with the court, senior lenders, including the Angelo Gordon hedge fund and Oaktree Capital Management, would receive $5.5 billion, while other lenders with less priority would receive far less. The case is in mediation.

"How can anybody say that they have done a good job?" said Henry Weinstein, a former Los Angeles Times reporter who filed a lawsuit, still pending, that contends that the use of employee pensions to finance the deal was illegal.

"Anybody can make money when you are not servicing the debt and cutting people. Zell and the people he brought in had no idea what they were doing."

And Mr. Zell? On Aug. 13, his lawyers suggested that if other junior creditors were paid, he should get his money back as well.

Until the bankruptcy is resolved, Mr. Zell's handpicked team will continue to run the company, but it is frozen out of any large strategic alliances or purchases. The issue of who will run the company will remain unsettled until the bankruptcy is resolved. Mr. Zell remains the chairman of the board and is no longer involved in the day-to-day operations of the company.

Despite the company's problems, the managers have been rewarded handsomely. From May 2009 to February 2010, a total of $57.3 million in bonuses were paid to the current management with the approval of the judge overseeing the bankruptcy. In 2009, the top 10 managers received $5.9 million at a time when cash flow was plummeting.

Mr. Wood, the board member, said, "We think they earned those bonuses. They've done a fabulous job in very difficult circumstances."

At the time, the court-appointed trustee in the bankruptcy case filed an objection, writing that while the current owners argued for "shared sacrifice," they "fail to understand what the concept means when it comes to compensating their management," and then added, "now is not the time for yet another round of bonuses."

Other proposed bonuses on the table for 2010 could bring the figure for management pay enhancements to more than $100 million, and those bonuses are heavily weighted to top management. (Earlier this week, management announced that beginning in 2011, it would begin awarding merit raises to nonunion employees of about 3 percent.)

"You have advertising wrapping around sections and being disguised as news and empty desks all around you, and then you read about these ridiculous bonuses and feathering their nests with severances, you want to scream," said Steve Lopez, a longtime columnist at The Los Angeles Times.

The creditors, which also include JPMorgan Chase and the Deutsche Bank Trust Company, have acquiesced to the lucrative bonuses in part because they fear that antagonizing management could further hold up the company's emergence from bankruptcy, according to two lawyers representing creditors who did not want to be quoted publicly during bankruptcy negotiations.

"No one is in charge there," said an adviser to one of the senior creditors, who declined to speak on the record because it was not in his business interest to be in conflict with the current board or management.

Mr. Michaels suggested in public statements that his current team was very much in charge. According to the company's monthly statements, cash flow is on the rise and the company has $1.6 billion in cash on hand, about half of it from the sale of the Cubs, which Mr. Zell eventually managed to sell. "We are just getting started," he said in the announcement.

And management still is confident that the new thinking has Tribune on the right track. The company recently announced the creation of a new local news format in which there would be no on-air anchors and few live reports. The newscasts will rely on narration over a stream of clips, a Web-centric approach that has the added benefit of requiring fewer bodies to produce.

"The TV revolution is upon us - and the new Tribune Company is leading the resistance," the announcement read. And judging from the job posting for "anti-establishment producer/editors," the company has some very strong ideas about who those revolutionaries should be: "Don't sell us on your solid newsroom experience. We don't care. Or your exclusive, breaking news coverage. We'll pass."

Sydney Ember contributed research.
Photos from www.nytimes.com








Blackberry PlayBook



Ah!  The BlackBerry PlayBook has been introduced and it looks awesome!  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a big BlackBerry fan so I was excited to hear this announcement.





I have been waiting for a tablet that has all the extra functions I need like multitasking ability, USB connectors, 2 cameras for video conferencing, HTML5, AND Full Flash!
Take a look at this video.




The BlackBerry PlayBook is said to be due out in early 2011.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Also check out: 
Meet RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook:  SLideshow
Amazon plans Kindle App for new BlackBerry PlayBook

Image via http://na.blackberry.com/



paper.li




Have you heard of paper.li?

With paper.li you can create your own digital daily newspaper for free based on Twitter content.  paper.li organizes links and feeds shared on Twitter into an easy to read e-newspaper format. These e-newspapers can be created for any Twitter user, hashtag (use of the "#" symbol in front of a word or phrase to create groupings), or list which means there can be an endless amount of daily papers.  That's a whole lot of editor-in-chiefs!

I discovered paper.li when one of my twitter buddies told me about a tweet event called #HireFriday, where companies tweet up their job offerings and twitter folks can make some valuable professional connections.  There is where I discovered their paper.li called The #HireFriday Daily.  Tags like #jobs, #TweetMyJobs, #Freelance, #resume etc., were already in use before this daily was created because they are great ways to filter and laser-target on specific topics, people, companies and conversations that have to do with employment.  But paper.li pulls all those various lists onto some very nice digital real estate that you can subscribe to and promote.

Just for fun I went ahead and signed up to generate my own daily from my twitter feed.  paper.li does all the work for you and it only took 5 minutes. 
Visit http://paper.li/newz_junkie to explore my daily newspaper in depth.

Bill Maher on Larry King Live


In my opinion this was one of Larry King's best shows.  I really enjoyed this interview and love Bill Maher for his frankness and humor.  Much of what he says I agree with.  If you missed it check it out below.








Which Network Do You Watch For News?

I'm curious to know where my audience prefers to get their news.


Which network do you watch for news?

If your choice isn't listed above or you have multiple sources (print, online, etc.) please leave a comment and let me know your preferences.  If you use the "anonymous" option, please at least leave your initials.  Thanks!


My Wish for Education

If I could make a wish for education, it would be for more schools like the one that Steve Perry founded...
Capital Charter Prep.



and Ron Clark founder of Ron Clark Academy...





The great thing is that many educators are being invited in to learn and hopefully adopt some of their methodology.  There are many ways to learn and learning CAN be fun.  Let's hope and pray that more individuals like these step forward for the sake of our youth.

Fall TV Shows I'm Actually Anticipating



Ask anyone who knows me and they will tell you that I'm not a big TV watcher except for news, sports, or documentaries.  But this coming Fall season there are a few shows that I am actually looking forward to seeing.  So here they are:

"V"
Since I do enjoy Sci-Fi I got hooked on this show last season.  It's an update of a Sci-Fi show of the 80's that I watched as a kid.



"Undercovers"
This reminds me of the motion picture "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"". I have a healthy appetite for spy movies and romance so I'm thinking this should do the trick.



"The Apprentice"
I have watched all the seasons since the beginning and although this is considered "Reality Television" I look forward to this season since The Donald is going back to his original format of choosing everyday folks to compete to be his apprentice. The last few seasons were "Celebrity Apprentice" which were nice for a minute and I appreciated the charitable giving but got a little tired of some of the washed up so-called celebrities. I'd rather see someone who has lost their job have a chance at success.



"The Event"
I have heard this show described as a cross between "Lost" and "24". And since I have family members and friends who raved over both, I'm going to check this out.
It also doesn't hurt that Blair Underwood is cast as the President of the United States.

McRage

When I saw this story I couldn't help but think that McDonald's Chicken McNuggets must be laced with crack because when this lady couldn't get hers she went OFF!  If you haven't seen this video footage yet, take a look.  I believe this may be the third time that I have written a post on displaced anger either here or on my Changing Direction blog.  People need to get a grip!

Fed Up!



Have you ever had such a bad day at work that you were tempted to quit your job in a dramatic way? I think many have at least fantasized about doing it. Well, a flight attendant for Jet Blue recently did the ultimate "I quit!" but with expletives. Check out the video.




I think it's funny that he grabbed a couple of brewskies on his way out.
This guy is getting lots of media coverage and support and there is already a Facebook fan page set up for him as well as a Free Steven Slater page. Do you think he deserves to serve time in jail for deploying the emergency slide?  Will his 15 minutes of fame be extended into something more?  Will he get a reality show?  I'm being facetious about the reality show.  It just seems that these are the days and times where odd behavior is seemingly rewarded.  What say you?

The Sherrod Case

If you haven't heard the news story about the former USDA employee, Shirley Sherrod then you have been under a rock.
Talk about a major case of jumping to conclusions about a person! This woman lost her job because right wing blogger Andrew Breitbart edited a video of a speech she gave at an NAACP event. The edited clip appears to show that Sherrod is telling a story of her discrimination against a white farmer when the full video shows quite the contrary.  The edited video clip went viral and made it's way to Fox News and they reported it without checking into the accuracy of it.  To make things worse, the the USDA Secretary of Agriculture did not fact-check either and forced her to resign over it. There is a lot of blame to go around on this one.
Watch here:



Sherrod has now made her rounds on the media circuit and has been vindicated with apologies all around to her.  A new job at the USDA has been offered, as well as other job are being offered up to her in various other places.

I say take your time Ms. Sherrod. to figure it all out.  And definitely sue the heck out of Breitbart for his character assassination attempt!

Total "Eclipse" Tomorrow

The anticipation has been building for all the Twilight Saga fans. I'm a fan as well and have been looking forward to "Eclipse". It starts in theaters tomorrow but I won't catch it until this weekend. From what I've seen in all the trailers this one will have even more action than "New Moon" and I am all about the action! And of course I'm all into the romance. Besides, there's nothing like two hot guys desiring and fighting over you.

Missing Michael


On this day last year we lost a musical genius.  It's hard to believe that it has already been a year since we lost Michael Jackson.  I was watching a program yesterday where I learned that he was in collaboration with several artists like Will I. Am., Lenny Kravitz, and Lady Gaga prior to his death so I look forward to the music that will be released in the near future.  It's sad that Michael is no longer here to create.  I am sure that he must be in heaven singing and performing with all the other great talents that we have lost.  
Missing you Michael.







Unemployed Need Not Apply

It is in the news that there are some employers who are only hiring those who are currently employed.  Yes that's right, CURRENTLY employed.  So what does that mean for the millions of Americans who are out of work?  It's a sad reality.  Today CNN's Jack Cafferty had a segment on this very subject blowing the cover off of this practice.  According to a New Jersey human resources consultant, "employers sometimes think the unemployed have been laid off due to 'performance issues'."
That simply cannot be the case when our country is at 10 percent unemployment.  Another excuse given is that employers are weeding these applicants out due to the huge number of applicants.  Whatever the case, it is an unfair practice but yet there is no law against it.  It is indeed an employers' market where they have a huge pool of talent to choose from.  That is why it is so important to network.  It is up to each individual to do what it takes to stand out in the crowd and showcase your abilities and talents.
Keep networking and branding you!

Discovering the Future of News

Knight Foundation just recently announced the winners of the 2010 News Challenge.  This challenge funds innovative ideas that use digital technology to deliver news and information to specific geographic communities.  These ideas are essential for propelling the industry forward.  The winners will receive $2.74 million as part of the fourth round of the five-year international contest.


Knight News Challenge Winners, In Brief from Knight Foundation on Vimeo.

Oprah's Generosity Continues


At a time when many businesses are laying off, cutting pay, and not rewarding their employees, Oprah is celebrating 10 successful years of her publication O Magazine. She dropped in at Hearst Publishing today and surprised each of her employees regardless of their tenure with a check for $10,000, an iPad, and a leather iPad case personalized with each staffer's initials!   A Hearst spokeswoman confirmed the visit and gifts saying, "These were personal gifts to the staff from Oprah to thank them for their hard work and dedication to the magazine."

Oprah really knows how to reward her staff. Way to go Oprah and congrats to the employees!


Teacher Fired for Fornication



A Florida teacher was fired for having admitted to her employer, a private christian school, that she had premarital sex with her husband.  There's probably little that she can do about it but I can bet no one else at that school will ever admit to having premarital sex. 




So what do you think?  Should she have lied?

"Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone." - Jesus Christ


Is the Economy Improving?

More Employees QUIT Their Jobs As Economy Improves

One sign of better economic times is when more people start finding jobs. Another is when they feel confident enough to quit them.
More people quit their jobs in the past three months than were laid off – a sharp reversal after 15 straight months in which layoffs exceeded voluntary departures. The trend suggests the job market is finally thawing.


Some of the quitters are leaving for new jobs. Others have no firm offers. But their newfound confidence about landing work is itself evidence of more hiring and a strengthening economy.


Read the full article at HuffingtonPost.com.

Article originates from HuffingtonPost.com
Image courtesy AP

Backing Up Your Wix Website

I had to learn this the hard way when my first site suddenly disappeared.  I swear I didn't delete my site but in the middle of editing, (and I kept pressing "save" throughout the process) all min-ipages except the homepage poofed when the Wix site crashed.
I contacted the Wix team in hopes that they had a back up feature for this but here was the friendly response I received: 

Hi Sarmora ,

Thank you for contacting Wix support.

I apologize for the inconvenience, however Wix is unable to restore deleted documents of any kind.

It is not possible to retrieve a previous version of your document after you have clicked on "save". Unfortunately after an editor crash, incomplete saving transaction or simply by closing your editor without saving, it is not possible to rollback your document to a previous version.

Tip: We recommend duplicating your document so you have 2 versions of the same site. Simply click on "Save as" and name the second document however you want.

If you require any further assistance please don't hesitate to contact us.

Thanks,
Wix Team

So that "Tip" is exactly what I planned to do after rebuilding my site.  The only thing is, the way that the tip was worded wasn't completely clear to me.  Would I save from my account menu area?  Or would I open up the editor and do it from within?  And of course I was a little scared I'd mess something up with my newly rebuilt site.  I first thought of grouping all of the site's elements to copy and paste over into a new project.  But that wasn't working and to say the least it was a pain in the butt to even think of doing.

Luckily after digging deeper into the Wix forums, I found my answer with a detailed illustration! (click on the image below to see in full size)

 
So if you have a Wix website (or any website) whether it's premium or not, save yourself the headache and back it up to have peace of mind.