An Early DOCSIS Memoir: Roads Taken and Not
Most engineers have other things to do than write. Those who have the time and skill to draft their own conference papers or help marketing with white papers are rare finds. Fewer still are able – or willing – to shift from tech writing to historical narrative. But that’s what we see in Robert Cruickshank’s self-published e-book, The Souls of DOCSIS. Part industry history and part personal memoir, this PDF document came out in 2015, roughly two decades after the events it narrates. Associated with a Cable Center initiative that celebrates the...
read moreNAB 2017: UHD, IP and Workflows
The week after my trip to San Diego, I flew west again. Once in Las Vegas, I checked in to Circus Circus. Cheap and within walking distance of the Convention Center. And not without some aging charm. From my window, I had a good view of the dome that caps the hotel’s amusement park. A few days is long enough to take the pulse of an industry. It was also enough time to catch up with clients, both my own and those I serve through a partner firm, Xpresso Communications. As for big themes at NAB 2017, no surprises. I sensed momentum and...
read moreSales, San Diego and a Hat Tip to Zig Ziglar
Credentialed professionals tend to disdain those in sales. (Having grown up in an academic family, I’m somewhat familiar with this syndrome.) Salespersons often defend their role by talking about how everyone sells something. A lot rides on the terms. I like how one old sales pro defined them. “I have always said that everyone is in sales,” wrote motivational speaker and celebrated sales trainer Zig Ziglar. “Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend,...
read moreThe Mind-Mapping Writer
On occasion, I write about writing. In this post from late 2015, I focused Scrivener, a powerful “content-generation tool,” which is part of how I research and create every first draft. A related tool is mind mapping. I first learned about this technique from David Allen, who discusses it in chapter 3 of his 2001 book Getting Things Done. (See here for a podcast on GTD and mind mapping.) But it was not until I encountered writing coach Daphne Gray-Grant that I really grasped how well it applies to writing. Her little e-book on the...
read moreDon’t Just Score – The Clemson Win Applied to Business
“When they scored, I just looked at the clock, it was 2:01 & I smiled & told myself, they left too much time on the clock.” – Deshaun Watson Having lived in Clemson until I was 15, I can’t help but comment on the Tigers’ win in the NCAA championship game earlier this month. After all, I found something to say last year when they lost. Let’s start with Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson and his thoughts after Alabama’s go-ahead touchdown in the late fourth quarter. (See above, as tweeted by ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy.)...
read moreFrom T-1s to Cable Modems
Last month, I discussed Andy Kessler’s idea that we are all billionaires now. His point relates to the exponential rise in the power of technologies, as measured in terms of capability-per-dollar. One of his examples relates to T-1s. Up until the late 1990s and before the cable modem, if you needed anything more than the 56 kilobits per second (Kbps) available through telephone dial-up, T-1s were your only option. Developed in the early 1960s to deliver several dozen voice calls over copper wire, the T-1 later referred more generally to...
read moreHow to Be a Tech Billionaire
One billion: that big number that uses three commas to separate nine zeros. Billionaire: someone who can flaunt three commas. Celebrity investor Marc Cuban has taken up the “three commas” mantra. In 2015, he co-launched a brand of the same name, selling t-shirts bearing these punctuation marks. Interesting business, this “aspirational brand.” Even if you include billionaire wannabes with the few, like Cuban, who have that much wealth, the market seems very limited. Or is there another way to look at it? There’s a billion in...
read moreHire a Freelance Writer, Sell More, Get Acquired
Why hire a freelance writer? The immediate reason is to complete a task. A marketing department needs a white paper or a solution brief or a series of blog articles, and no one internally is available. So they look outside for someone who can get it done. That answers the question, but only so far. Why does a company need that content in the first place? One big goal is to increase sales, or a suitable proxy, such as sales leads. For some kinds of content, that link is more obvious than for others. Take white papers. No matter how persuasive...
read moreTrip to Philly and Cable-Tec Expo
This year’s trip to Cable-Tec Expo required no planes, only trains and automobiles. Trip summary: Car ride to/from the Amtrak station, trains between Richmond and Philly, and uber to/from the hotel. There for less than 48 hours, I still had enough time to connect with friends and clients and make some new connections. The floor included not only booths, but also (much in the style of the newly defunct INTX event) meeting rooms and an “Innovation Theatre” – the latter MC’ed by PR pro Brian Baumley, who seemed very much at home on...
read moreAd Blocking: Containment or Rollback?
In US foreign policy, a classic debate has been over whether to force change in or simply prevent the expansion of an enemy state. The choice is between “rollback” or “containment.” A similar debate is surfacing in the ongoing ad blocking “wars” between advertisers and consumers. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), an online media and marketing industry group, thinks you can do both. In a report released last week, the IAB said not only that “ad blocking is a problem that can be contained,” but also that “two-thirds of consumers using...
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