C is for Cookie V is for Vendetta

Was chatting with Jeff tonight about having seen V for Vendetta. Good movie, even better graphic novel.

"An uncompromising vision of snack time!"

"C is for COOKIE. That's good enough for me."


/"but, but, but, what do i even DO with fruit?"

Tumbleweeds

Tumbleweeds restaurant tonight. Wedding anniversary later.

Watch Bald Eagles Online

"Everyone in the world should see this,"
"It's astounding. I've got the camera up so close to them. It's right on them. You can feel their personalities." - Globe & Mail

A pair of bald eagles in BC are about to give birth. This site shows an extremely crisp web cam set up within feet of the nest, perched high up on a tree. Visit this Eagle Cam and watch the nest. Live. With sound. Ahhh, eagles!


Join the millions. Flock here. (click the big black box)


/Thanks to microsoft for providing all the free bandwidth for this endeavor.

This is mesmerizing and fantastic at the same time. Not unlike this previous viewing opportunity blogged about, Pete's Pond, the Web Cam Africa project in Botswanna.

Local Purchasing

it seems as tho having an opinion has gotten the best of me this time. i have been actively participating in an online blog/forum medhatblog, maybe you've heard of it? i've mentioned it here before, and they've been using Google Adwords too (woot!).

One issue/comment-string in particular has been a good time. The local purchasing discussion regarding the purchasing process of our City of Medicine Hat. A conversation involving our protaganist of the moment the *insider* whom claims to be in the know (yeah, that one is kind of obvious) and the current antagonist *fat elvis*, a man who seemingly needs no introduction (tho i really did think Elvis was dead, alas, i'm sure glad he's taken such an interest in our lovely community)

/ all said in jest... ahh, just visit the thread here -> Baldville buys Toupee's, everyone wins!

Cherry Bomb Manifesto

It just might be Cherry Bomb time. Sally Hogshead writes this quirky, fun & extremely relevant manifesto: "Cherry Bomb" Download the pdf here!

This screen capture resonates with me, and as such, wanted to share!




In a world filled with the internet, and an internet filled with noise, i recomend bookmarking this site: ChangeThis (Home of countless manifesto's)

The Personal MBA

i was turned onto this discussion recently (thanks R.H.)... then i noticed Seth Godin giving the agenda *link-love*.
I've been asked by several folks to send the links, share the manifesto. Here it is.

"What is the Personal MBA?

“You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for a buck fifty in late charges at the public library.”
- Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon), Good Will Hunting

The Personal MBA (PMBA) is an experiment in educational entrepreneurism. This manifesto will show you how to substantially increase your knowledge of business on your own time and with little cost, all without setting foot inside a classroom.

The PMBA is more flexible than a traditional MBA program, doesn’t involve going into massive debt, and won’t interrupt your income stream for two years. Just set aside some dedicated reading time, pick up a good book, learn as much as you can, and go out and make great things happen.

It’s All About the Books

“If I read a book that cost me $20 and I get one good idea, I’ve gotten one of the greatest bargains of all time.” – Tom Peters

“The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.” – Jim Rohn

At the core of the PMBA is a list of 42 books and periodicals. By investing time and effort in using these resources, you will progressively develop a greater understanding of business and increase your effectiveness at work. Even if you only read a few, you’ll get a substantial return on your investment." - taken from Josh Kaufman & his bald head.

The Personal MBA: Mastering Business Without Spending a Fortune

Advertising Sheep will be Fined

This get's better and better. Now the money spent on this marketing stage is officially *well spent*. World recognition, for an online travel website. Priceless.

"the mayor isn't planning to fine for animal cruelty—actually, sheep in the area often wear protective blankets—but because there's a local ban on roadside advertising. As for who he's fining, it's not the advertiser, but the sheep (or more specifically their owners)" - Adfreak

This post is follow up to my friday post regarding Dutch sheep being used as roadside advertising panels.

Heated Ads & Lots of Copy

Ahhh, outdoor advertising. The envelope continues to be pushed. Creative.



Traffic needs to be moving *pretty slow* for this message to be read. Great statement about traffic congestion.!



Maybe we could install heaters into our Pitch Outdoor Advertising locations throughout the city of Medicine Hat. That might be better received than the photo radar installation (that is NOT happening LOL).

Thanks for the images Sandeep!

Nuclear 20th Anniversary

20 years ago... do you remember? i do... vividly. Terror. Seems that terror was well placed... Nuclear NIGHTMARES contains pictures by Robert Knoth. Beyond words.

Sheep Selling Ad Space

Outdoor Advertising with Sheep. (i do love the Dutch).

"sheep carrying advertising for a hotel website,"

/Locally, now we have another option for all those Llama's we see around the City. Heh... i'll get right on that!

Dennis Baresco Honoured

Dennis Baresco was recently recognized by the Federation of Alberta Naturalists (FAN) for contributions to the preservation and conservation of the natural history of the province, and to the education of all Albertans on natural history matters.
Dennis, chief interpreter at the Interpretive centre has put in 20 years at the Interpretive centre and also served as a volunteer with the FAN was surprised when he received the Loran Goulden Memorial Award for his contributions to natural history education and preservation of southeastern Alberta. - info taken from the Medicine Hat News Online.

I've worked alongside Dennis in the past, he's a stellar individual. Congratulations Dennis... this is your year... well deserved!

Digital Scale inside Luggage

While likely over budget, this would be handy. With all of the travel that we've embarked on recently, i can see this as having some value.
Winner of the 2006 Product Innovation Award. Travel luggage that weighs itself! heh.

Brain Rain Keys

Regardless of what you do, or how you do it... this will have some value for you. You might even enjoy it, which is ok too!

Catching the brain rain - 43F "a way of setting aside a few minutes each day for firewalled creativity through idea generation and capture. This kind of habit could fit nicely into an end-of-day ritual, maybe before a quick review and daily cleanup."

/ ahhh, i do love a good abstract title for a blog post. How's this one?

GoogleTasking

Let this blog post provide date and reference... today during a table-topics exercise at our local Toastmasters meeting i riffed (ie: talked) about multitasking. 15 years ago, multitasking was pumping gas while eating a donut, or while waving to your friend across the street. Today, multitasking often looks like using your cell phone, scribbling notes on a pad, eating a bagel (craving the coffee just out of reach) while navigating heavy machinery... yeah, i mean doing ALL of that while driving your car. Safe or not, many of us find ourselves there. Overload.
Google, in its purest form means ONE HUNDRED ZERO's (yeah, it WAS a word long before google added it to our lexicon).
So, while riffing about multitasking, we looked ahead, another 10 or 15 years maybe? or possibly into the next generation entirely (when my currently unborn child is, say, 24). What will multitasking look like then? How much will their form of multitasking dwarf our sense of overload? Hence the new word googletasking. i ran a google search and got ZERO hit's... did i just make this up? Heh... not gonna patent it (it's just a word)... even if someone else somewhere else uses it, it's a great concept, and a great play on words.
/Maybe this could be my claim to fame, kind of like Al Gore reminding us that he invented the internet!

Harlem Globetrotters

Good times. A welcome distraction tonight. Quality show (and infectious tune *everyone* whistles as they leave).

Medhatblog Link Love

Link love is good. That's when someone gives you a nod from their website. Friendly attention. It's even nicer when that link creates extra traffic... new eyes for your site. Big thanks to our friends over at medhatblog.com Yeah, the Mad Hatters are scoring us some attention, and the traffic shows some new eyes... Welcome!!!

Here is the April first post you are looking for -> Photo Radar in Pitch Outdoor Advertising Cans throughout City of Medicine Hat - April Fools! Click the link, then right-click the newspaper article, so that it is large enough to read.

Odd Traffic Spike

Reviewing my traffic records for this site exposed an odd traffic spike. i don't often look at my traffic numbers, as it's merely an ego boost (or dark day, depending) but tonight i took a look. i have recently gotten a number of *hits* from two sites in particular. These hits tho, are not actual visits (just small saps of my bandwidth).
Turns out they are hotlinking to one of my images. i should be proud i guess, that this one image of mine is sooo fantastic that it gets all this attention. i don't intend to vilify the hotlinker's in question... merely an ODD choice of image. It's not like you couldn't find a better pic... alas, this pic does show up on page ONE of a google image search for a reasonable description. (lazy? or clever...)

Visit this link from my site to see the image in question ->

Then visit hotlinker one here ->

And hotlinker two is here ->

It is amusing tho, i started blogging about this ORP phenom back in November 2005... nothing like being ahead of the curve i guess. LOL

24 Addict Comments

i knew i wasn't the only one... but this sums it up great:

"I Didn't get to see any NBA over the weekend. My TV was occupied with the DVDs from season 1 of 24 that Lang lent me. Wow, I know I'm 5 years late, but WOW!!!!! I'm all for going outside and doing stuff, and we did have the nicest weather in a minute, but I was MIA. I watched all 24 hours, leaving a bar on Saturday night to start the final four episodes at 2 A.M. Until you’ve started drinking coffee at 2 A.M., you haven’t really lived. The most fun part about forcing yourself not to sleep and watching a show loaded with conspiracies and agency speak is the effect that takes over your brain the next day. For example, I found myself saying things to my girlfriend like “You do the driving, I’ll do the thinking.” Yes, it was a great weekend." - Sam Rubenstein - Links - SLAMonline

Until you’ve started drinking coffee at 2 A.M., you haven’t really lived. - That comment is SOOOO good we needed to read it again. Heh.

Click Here to Pay your Fines

i used one particular online service for the first time today. Photo radar tickets can be paid online... so i did. Meh. it doens't feel any better, but it's nice to not have to go out of my way today to get this taken care of. it's done.
Want to try it for yourself? Enter the cash-cow online... here -> Click here to pay your fines!

Common Sense Outdoor Advertising

This is one issue that, with Pitch Outdoor Advertising (for whom i am currently employed), we guarantee you will not have to deal with. That is because we do not put advertisments from competing industries on the same location. For example... Broadway Dental is a customer of ours... so we won't put up a Gaslight Dental poster on any location that currently shows a Broadway Dental poster. Even tho Gaslight is a good customer of ours as well. Simple enough.
Unfortunately, it appears that Pitch Inc might be one of the very few in our industry that take this into account when arranging our customers ad rotations.
Heh... makes our slogan even more sublime... "With Pitch, we will make your pitch perfect!"





"... laziness in advertising. It appears outdoor companies are unable to or unwilling to provide even the lest bit of common sense when it comes to competitive ad placement. First, Viacon placed two vodka ads next to each other. Next, two beer brands appear next to each other on busses. And now, Van Wagner has two airlines right next to each other. Hello? Media buyers? Sales reps? Do you care what happens after you send/receive the IO?"
- Adrants

ORP project

Kyle MacDonald's kitschy PR behemouth continues to engulf all who stand in its way. So, don't just stand in it's way... get involved. Get excited. Spend a year, rent free, in Phoenix.
Back in November of 2005 i posted a brief commentary of the One Red Paperclip project, found here! I also talked about the concept and progress at our local Toastmasters meeting.

It's been a few months now... and Globe and Mail is givin' the love. Enjoy!

"If you say you're going to do something and you start to do it, and people enjoy it or respect it or are entertained by it, people will step up and help you."

He is Risen

He is risen indeed!

Pics of my Africa trip

As i've no doubt mentioned to friends and family alike... i do NOT travel with a camera. So, it takes a little longer for me to share pictures, as i'm waiting for others to share them first with me. Here are a couple...

pictures from jace's AIA trip February / March 2006 in Africa.

That is merely a small first taste as far as pic volume goes... just enough to whet the appetite (for me) and likely already more than you'll likely want to see (if you even click the link).

IF you were on this trip with me, and you have pics... feel free to send a couple my way... it won't hurt. I love you guys, and gal... what a great team we travelled with!

People in the World

There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't.

Heh.

G-word in Canada today

"There is, however, a third and final reason why Prime Minister Harper's most diminutive of prayers is already known to you, unless you happen to have been in a coma since 1980. It is this:

God keep our land glorious and free!

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

If Stephen Harper has offended our constitutional law, so too has every red-blooded Canadian above the age of five. God bless us, every one!"
- Warren Kinsella, A joy to read.

/above quote taken from the article "Oh No! Harper said the G-word" - National Post

It IS good to see that refference to God is bipartisan in Canada today.
God bless!

Christian Mandate

"Mandatum is where we get our English word mandate. The Christian mandate is love. Love is the distillation of our faith. There is nothing else. Why is it so hard for us to get this right?

God help us..." - Stephen Berg - Hope Mission Connection - Edmonton Alberta.

Dilbert Advertising-ism Truth

When words fail you... Dilbert is there. Or, in this case, Dilbert is right here (jaceanderson.com in case you hadn't noticed):


Click the dilbert cartoon to see it FULL size!


/Not talking about MY working arrangement... Pitch is great. As an industry tho... hehe. the truth is funny (or it hurts).

Magnetic Paper outdoor exposure

i like this. i like this a lot!

"Chicago Agency Hadrian's Wall has created an interesting campaign for its client Magnecote paper. Rather than simply advertise the product to its target, agency creatives and production people who can use the stuff to make magnetic posters, Hadrian's Wall took a different approach. They chose a public service cause, World Bicycle Relief, enlisted seven other agencies to create PSAs for WBR. Magnecote agreed to produce the campaign, WBT agreed to run it, the campaign had to use Magnecote paper and each campaign would be voted upon by the public. Now isn't that a whole lot more interesting that just placing a few boring ads in Creativity for a product as boring as magnetic paper?" - Adrants

Clever utilization of the Canada Post bins too... did i mention that i like this?

Online Newspaper Future Now

i remember, years ago, i used to make a few dollars a week delivering newspapers. You remember them of course... they *are* still around.
Fact of the matter is tho, that usership, or in this case, readership has changed. With me anyways. And don't even get me started on advertising value (which is there, just not for the majority of business that USE the paper - good money after bad IMHO).
So... what do you rely on for news and updates? (besides blogs of course, this is not intended to boost my ego).
Oh, i still read papers... i just don't read papers! Make any sense? Of course it does... you're internet savvy... you know, like i do, that *most* papers are available in one form or another... online.
So... what papers do you read? without actually holding newsprint in your hands?

Here are a few of the current internet companies i read: (yes, they all publish newsprint editions, but that may not last...)

Globe & Mail
Calgary Sun
Medicine Hat News

/ i just noticed a now obvious trend... heh... all three links provide a sense of *localized* content, in an ever expanding distance. Maybe i notice too much.

Edwin Markam said (in 1905) that Genius was the power to take a hint. He may have been talking about this: "In this week’s New York Magazine, James J. Cramer proposes that the New York Times disband as we know it and go online to challenge Google." - link courtesy of ADPulp

Market Like a Boxer

That is the advice we find within the local newspaper this Friday.
Summed up: do NOT throw a punch and then, bounce around before throwing another punch! (d'uh)

DO throw a combination of punches (ie: marketing/advertising mediums and message variations)





Click the above image to see a scan of the entire article... we'll worth the read.
Steve Wilkinghoff CA, partner at MNP takes the time to explain his advocacy for a more complete marketing approach... one that will achieve the results you want (otherwise, why would you spend the money on advertising).

Shameless self promotion: After reading the article, and seeing the inherant wisdom in the message, call me at 1.403.504.7332. Pitch Outdoor Advertising is my business, and together, we can make YOUR Pitch perfect!

Pitch & Photo-Radar

Again over lunch i received feedback regarding the April 1st newspaper article mentioned previously regarding our photo-radar cameras being added to our Pitch Outdoor Advertising cans. (This was an aprils fools joke - it is NOT real)
This has tricked lots of people, lots of bright people. A testimony to how likely and believable it is i suppose.

i did not hear on our local FM stations (maybe you did?) but apparently the morning crew had quite a hammed up debate about the fact that it was real, or sounded real, or something. Like i said, i didn't hear it, only heard ABOUT it second hand.

I'm inclined to say that "you can't buy exposure like this", but you CAN buy exposure and talking points like this (and NOT get a bill for it), it's the buisness we are in... And wow... this has the makings of a great case-study. Flowing quite nicely so far.

Stay tuned for the further adventures of this *Urban legend* as it advances!

Photo Radar in Saturday's Paper

I don't get the local paper delivered to my home every day... maybe i should. Saturday morning then, i woke up and walked to the nearest store to buy a copy (actually i bought two).



"An ingenious plan by a local business man to install dozens of photo radar cameras throughout the city..."




Did you see this article on the cover of the Saturday News? Feel free to copy the pic direct from my site if you want to get a close-up (any photo-editing software will let you close-up if you like). Yeup, according to the article, Pitch Outdoor Advertising (for whom i am currently employed) has gone over to the dark side, and made arrangement to have photo radar units inside EVERY ONE of our waste cans, throughout the city of Medicine Hat.
Do you buy it? Seem reasonable enough? April Fools... And the making of an urban legend.