Done21

At LessConf 2009, we asked Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV fame why someone should buy his new book, Crush It! and here’s what he had to say…

I’m sure that I’m not the first to comment on this, but here it goes…

We’ve all been carefully observing the ongoing transition between traditional media and the Internet for some time now. With traditional media, the results are very consistent and the production values are very high. For example, you know that your favorite TV show is going to be on every week at the same time and you know that it’s going to be just as great as last week’s episode. Online however, the story is different. Many blogs (this one is an example), podcasts, and video blogs update their content on an unpredictable schedule, and don’t have the same levels of quality as radio and television. This isn’t always the case (Revision3 is one) but as a sweeping generalization, it can be said that traditional media is much more consistent all around than online media. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with an inconsistent schedule and inconsistent message transmission quality (video quality, writing quality, etc.), and in fact it works great for many people because it gives them a much more human element (Gary Vaynerchuk comes to mind).

What I’m saying is that consistency in content quality, and consistency in the scheduled releases of content, are typically not recognized as the powerful tools that they are.

This is unfortunate, because it means that terms like blog, blogger, podcast, and others have come to be associated with flimsy, easily discredited information or content (not with techies and new media types like us, but the general public). I think more traditional words like show, publication, or journalist more accurately describe the goals of serious content publishers. I totally understand how ridiculous this might sound to a lot of people, and I know this post is seething with hypocrisy. However, I would argue that perception counts a lot, especially when it comes to non-technical individuals that are conditioned to consuming neatly packaged content through traditional channels.

The problems go way beyond the nomenclature, but I strongly believe that great shows (that just happen to be online) have the potential to directly compete with the best television and radio. If we don’t start believing that though, it won’t ever happen.

Go ahead, release the flames. I’m ready.

This past weekend, I gave a presentation at BarCamp Tampabay about the changing media landscape, which we’ll post here sometime later.

Hopefully the attendees were able to get some value out of what I had to say, but creating the talk taught me a lesson as well: every business should be producing media and sharing knowledge. Jason Fried has said many times that the greatest byproduct of any business is knowledge, and I agree completely. The reason it’s called a “byproduct” is because it’s indeed a product, in that, it can be monetized. Even better, it can be a self-sufficient form of marketing.

The barriers to entry are low, too. People tend to forget that just 5 years ago, HD video cameras were expensive, there was much less bandwidth, and video sharing platforms like YouTube hadn’t been created yet. All that’s changed now, and the explosion of online video has made it apparent. Perhaps more profound, is the fact that any business or individual can create their own television show. Think about that for just a minute…

Anyone can make a TV show.

Jim and I have been producing Rock the Job in partnership with ADS for several months, and recently we picked up the Friday edition of the Ruby5 podcast that was started by EnvyLabs. Even though both of us have prior experience with media production, these two productions have really helped us learn a lot about the realities of actually putting together a show every week.

Now, we’re working on a new show called “Doctype” and we’re really excited about it. We’re not ready to announce its release, but if you enter your email over at Doctype.tv we’ll let you know when it’s up.

Stay tuned…

After Fabio Sasso’s awesome presentation at this year’s Front-End Design Conference, we caught up with him to find out what inspires him (which was the main focus of his talk). If you’re unfamiliar with Fabio, be sure to check out his AMAZING design blog, abduzeedo.com

Thanks for taking the time, Fabio!

In episode 7 of Rock the Job, Rob and I talk about finding your passion. This is something that’s really tricky to do, but I’m happy with the way this episode turned out. Check it!

Click here for the full Rock the Job post with links, downloads, and all.

And by the way, if you’re not a Facebook fan already… why not?
http://facebook.com/rockthejob

It’s no secret that the Ruby (programming language) community likes to put out content in video format. However, video isn’t always the easiest thing keep track of when compared to text content like blogs, so it can be tough to know where all to find all the best videos.

If you’re in Orlando and you’ve never been to an Ignite event before, here’s your chance. Ignite is a unique event in which several speakers present on a variety of topics. The catch is, they only have 5 minutes and 20 slides, and the slides auto rotate every 15 seconds. As you can probably imagine, this makes for a very interesting show!

The first Ignite Orlando in March was absolutely fantastic, so I’m very happy to say that Jim and I each have presentations at this Wednesday’s (June 24th) event. Presentations start at 6:30pm at Slingapours in Wall Street Plaza (downtown Orlando). Click here to see a map and register for the event. Registration is completely free and all are welcome, so come hang out!

Jim’s presentation is called “Robots, Kids, and the Future of Engineering” and mine is called “Things I’ve Learned About Marketing.” If you can’t make it out, we should have videos here soon after. Don’t think that’s an excuse to stay home though. Did I mention that there will be beer?

Hope to see you there!

Subway finally responded to our post about them the other day. So how’d they fair?

Well, not so great I’m afraid. I grabbed Subway’s attention on Twitter by posting the following tweet:

Subway just responded today with this:

I have to give them credit for responding, but even so, there’s roughly 36 hours between my post and theirs. Normally this isn’t bad at all, but when the community is responding faster than you are, you can’t take a break. Take a look at all these retweets from yesterday, prior to their response:

Looks like Subway still has some work to do.

In episode 3 of Rock the Job, Nick and Rob talk about how to turn yourself into a celebrity! Check it out:

When we released IE6Update, one of our motivations was our claim that most people don’t understand the difference between a browser and the Internet. Admittedly, we didn’t have any statistics to substantiate that assumption, and we were going on direct experience. Interestingly enough however, some Google employees in New York interviewed random individuals in Times Square and ask the question, “What is a browser?” Here’s what happened: