LaLunaBlanca

Last week, Apple’s Tim Cook announced that one of their products would be exclusively produced in the United States. I was more than surprised at this news and deem it lip service on a number of fronts.

Rather than toss-out a bunch of middle-ground supposition on potential options, I’ll go for the extreme:

Apple should move all its product line to Made in USA. Better yet, Detroit, Michigan. Detroit has a heritage of assembly and innovation. Not only should Apple make this move, but it should also encourage it’s competitors to do the same. Not only does Apple have the financial wherewithal to make this manufacturing move, but it can also actively effect education and its emphasis on innovation. Furthermore, Apple already has a “premium” cost structure that’d support the (at this point, marginal) increase in labor costs.

Apple could essentially lead the charge on one of the greatest revitalization stories ever told.

Facebook is a neurological snack of dopamine, and Facebook knows this like a crack-dealer. The situation is entirely similar to the monkey who has reached into the jar, grabbed the banana and now cannot free itself of the jar since it won’t let go of the banana. If the monkey could talk, we might hear how much it despises the jar because of its trickery and for entrapping it. Ultimately, bananas have a shelf life and monkeys will learn.

Though neuroscience has proven we exhibit primitive and irrational behavior, business has a tremendous obligation to refrain from leveraging this behavior to the point of customer regret.

The Facebook Walk-of-Shame is becoming a parade. As it does, we get to walk AND keep our bananas.

Facebook provided me with a user-survey this morning. Here’s my response in the “Additional Comments” section:

1. The timeline may have nice layout qualities, but it’s entirely frustrating to go back and find things I have posted and especially things I’ve posted on friend’s or business’s walls.

2. I continue to have problems uploading photos from my phone unless I have a very strong signal.

3. When typing a post, one wrong move with the backspace key and the time I just spent typing (and I do think about what I post before I write it) is gone. I may or may not have time to retype.

4. The Interests function is completely out of touch with your users’ needs. You’re, yet again, pushing unrequested content at me and removing content that I’ve explicitly requested

5. As a business owner and marketer, many of my friends are business owners, and I used to highly encourage Facebook for their business. Now, I recommend it as a reluctant necessity since it’s usually still the largest, single-most opportunity to connect with their customers. However, I also share that since Facebook use is declining in frequency and duration, that business owners also spend more time finding out what other platforms (if any, see #6) their customers are turning to and consider a presence their.

6. Facebook has essentially breached an unwritten contract with its users. The notion that users get Facebook for free is hogwash. User pay with the currency of their attention and their data which is far more valuable. For some people, Facebook has been the only social media experience, and many have shut the door (in frustration or disgust) on the entire notion of online social networking altogether (and as you know some return).

I shoot a fair amount of video at LunaWeb and home. A friend recently in the market for an all around workhorse video camera asked what he should get.  Between the two of us, we narrowed things down to Sony (of course) HDR CX760V and HDR PJ710V.

For the price difference, with the HDR-CX760V you get

• 3x the harddrive space (and so just over 3x the recording capacity
• a viewfinder
• no projector
• fractionally better battery life (uses less power when recording)

I combed over these other specs and found them to be identical or practically identical:

• Display size
• Light sensitivity
• Macro & telephoto options
• Sony SD card storage
• Flash
• Lens

I’ve never seen the projector in action so I can’t speak for that at all. It seems like it’s one more (gimmicky) way to run your battery down. However if you’re really into nifty gizmos, this is surely one.

The biggie for me is the storage space.  At full blown resolution the PJ710v will give you 2hrs and 20mins. While this sounds ample for events like graduations, weddings (not including the rehearsal), it’s probably definitely not enough for vacation type footage where you’re recording multiple days of memorable events.  Not impossible, but to manage it, you’d need to download the video off the camera nightly. Which means your toting a notebook with plenty of storage space (or external drive). If not, you find yourself with an “out of memory”  error and forced to stop recording, or quickly find something you’d like to delete to free up the space (been there, no fun).

Winner?
It’s a personal preference/need fit. If this were just for around the office for relatively short shoots, go with the PJ710v.

I struggle to convey how inspiration is a great part of my life.  I’m surrounded by it and attempt to recognize it wherever I can in people and what they share. Find the inspiration in everyone (even though it’s not always positive… people can inspire you not to do also).

Though I’m far from cracking the code on inspiration, I’m compelled to share this actual example which recounts some origins on BarCamp Memphis, TechCamp Memphis, and {GEEKmemphis}

Back in 2007, I was inspired by my wife to go to a conference in Seattle about Facebook called Community Building in the Age of Facebook. The inspiration I gleaned from that conference changed my professional inclinations forever. It was like the breakfast club of the social media revolution with folks like Jeremiah Owyang, Connie Bensen, Jake McKee, Nick O’Neil, Dave McClure, Baratunde Thurston, and more awesome people that I still talk with today. The conference was also my first exposure to an “unconference” where (pre-facebook fame) Mari Smith and I pitched a session on Facebook for B2B Business and it was picked! The same conference is also where I was inspired by Eric Weaver to attend my first SxSw four months later (and I’ve been every year since).

I was so engaged with the whole unconference concept, that when Dave Delaney mentioned PodCamp Nashville (2008), my wife and I went. I was very inspired by how Dave Delaney and Marcus Whitney pulled together local subject matter experts to share, mix, and exchange ideas with attendees in a casual setting. That experience is what inspired me to start BarCamp Memphis.

Fast forward past eight Memphis camps that I chaired with local support & inspiration and having attended and/or spoken at more unconference camps in Austin, Seattle, Mountain View, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Jonesboro, and Nashville, I’ve developed an addiction of sorts.  But, I’ve discovered inspiration at all those events from interacting with the people at them.  People who, for the most part are recognized as being a quieter introverted lot (they have the most awesome ideas & concepts to share).

Add the most recent inspiration at SxSW 2012 (and the drive back with Steve Phipps) to start GEEKMemphis with awesome founders and position myself to be out of the lead seat in a year so that there’s freshness and distributed responsibility/fun with organizing/inspiring, and we get to “why” I initially started this post in the first place: TechCamp Memphis.

In proof, illustrating the value of a board, Liz Jostes (who is the lead with Joe Spake on the Marketing/PR/Media committee for what yesterday was termed “ContentCamp Memphis”) was hashing through some preliminary work on lighting a fire under getting the word out with Joe, Beth Sanders, and myself. During a series of many Facebook group posts, Liz wanted to consolidate websites and URL’s to make it easier to setup these unconference camps twice a year. We wound-up talking on the phone to hash through things before I had to mow. We checked out TechCampMemphis.com and it was available and we snagged it.  While mowing and listening to a SxSW session podcast by Bryan Person the notion of a one titled conference with two themes jumped into my mind. I floated the idea back by Liz, Beth, and Joe. Poof and now that’s what we’re doing.

If you’re ever talking with me and I seem to “glaze over”, you probably just said something that triggered my imagination to some expeditionary tangent. I have a tough time calling some things my own ideas when really they’re the products of so many different people and experiences.

More often than not, I connect tons of dots (inspirational concepts/notions) and add a little sauce. None of these ideas I come up with would be worth anything without great execution. To gain the confidence of enthusiastic and inspiring people that contribute and “execute” is one of the greatest treasures I’ve ever been dealt. It’s where collaboration makes an addictive magic, and I’m hooked.