A good analysis from Dave.

This is a solid analysis of what I’ve come to know as the cycle here in the tech world of northern California.  Yet what Mike Arrington says in his post is probably just as much about human nature as it is about the Silicon Valley pendulum.

Chris Pirillo’s excellent post on marketing in the blogosphere.  A lot of this applies to all marketing.

Why do retiring CEOs get access to public company resources after they’re gone?   For example:  if AT&T’s outgoing fearless leader is getting one of the largest bazillion-dollar pension packages ever, why doesn’t he just buy his own plane and cars?  And if AT&T can afford this package, why can’t it make sure my cellphone gets coverage everywhere from here to the Milky Way?  I’m serious.  I want to understand the thought process.  I mean, why did GE’s renowned chieftain need a dry cleaning perk in his package?  Someone help me here:  are these benefits built into retirement packages so that CEOs can compare who is the biggest George of the jungle without taking measurements in the locker room?  And don’t give me the line about how the CEO’s job is to increase shareholder value.  My measuring stick on value includes sustainability and legacy — both of which are measured only by historians who cannot re-capture any over-compensation — and whether my cellphone works when I visit my mother in far southwestern Virginia.  For more background into these deals, if you’re a subscriber to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE, go here.

If MIT — and the entire academic community, for that matter — is the collective brain trust we’re supposed to think it is, how did not one of the brains catch up with the faked resume of the dean of admissions?  Again, from WSJ:  " ‘It’s amazing that she only spent that much time in college.  She’s really smart,’ said Michael Behnke, the admissions dean at the University of Chicago and Ms. Jones’s predecessor at MIT.’ "  Mr [or is it Dr?] Behnke, there are some folks without extra degrees cleaning up in the retirement package department.  [ See previous question.]  And if pedigree is so all-fired important, why didn’t someone just pick up the phone and check references?   Is that beneath someone with multiple degrees?  Finally, sir, one of my clients [an uber-successful, single-degree professional] asks how you, as her boss for more than a decade, missed the signs that you had a single-degree interloper in your midst.  [One more example of the brilliant positioning/brainwashing by academics that parents are buying.   I’ve concluded that the higher education crowd is the new Mafia — requiring you to take a blood oath, in the form of tuition and lifelong donations, to be able to say you and your child belong to the club.]

Why do exhibitors at conferences still use under-dressed women to hawk their wares — and why won’t conference promoters just put an end to it?  Two conferences in two weeks, and this is still going on.  Granted, it’s happening a lot less, but one booth with them is one too many.  And ladies, is this the only way to make a living?  Don’t tell me about the news anchor who had to put herself through law school as a lingerie model.  Don’t buy that logic stream, either.  If you really like modeling, just say so.  That’s one thing.  It’s another when someone tries to tell me it’s the only way to pay tuition.   [See previous question.]

Signed:  A free-market capitalist who believes in graduate education and enjoys being a girl.

Today I caught the keynote panel discussions at Ad:Tech, the marketing conference dedicated to all things interactive, especially advertising.

The morning panel — "Content is King! (Again?)" — included Kourosh Karimkhany, the general manager of Wired Digital, the news site and sibling of WIRED magazine.  In addressing how content creation is changing and how the dialog established by new-era Internet companies is influencing the advertising industry, Mr Karimkhany referred to this week’s journalist-versus-blogger encounter.  Here’s the objective account on Valleywag, with links to everyone’s blogs.

WIRED editors had planned an article about the tech industry figure Michael Arrington.  The reporter asked entrepreneur and Sequoia Capital exec Jason Calacanis and the intrepid technologist Dave Winer to schedule telephone interviews.  Both agreed to participate, but only via email. 

To understand why, it’s best to visit their blogs — but as I understand it, going forward, both Calacanis and Winer want to ensure that their words are relayed in context, as they define context.  Their faith in the traditional journalistic process has diminished with their personal experiences.  So they want to ensure that no comments are lost in translation or transcription.

It’s all been sorted out, but the magazine’s initial reaction was not too positive.  However, as Mr Karimkhany pointed out this morning, the content that emerged from the ensuing conversation on all parties’ blogs has proved to be as good or better than anything the proposed article would have revealed.

At the end of the conference day, the keynote conversation took a different turn. 

Tony Perkins, a respected journalist and leader of the AlwaysOn Network, presided over a group of "old warriors" who "don’t die."  This group had come of Internet age during the 1990s with great success — interactive agency, advertising network, search engine, research organization.  They know their stuff.

Coming off the Web 2.0 conference, I was intrigued by the use of the words "broadcast" and "audience" throughout the discussion.  And having had ad industry clients in the past year, I was surprised.  My experience is that many ad professionals, whatever their age or career experience, are choosing their words more carefully.  They understand, whether we all like it or not, that the advent of user-generated content and distribution has brought about a metamorphosis in how advertisers and their various agents promote and sell.  Instead of broadcast, it’s dialog.  It’s not audience, it’s community.

As the panel discussion continued, it became clear that we were still circling around the issue.  Believe me, I understand that.  While command-and-control was never right, I have had difficulty accepting how many people use the Internet — and this marvelous device called blogging — to pontificate without portfolio.  But I’m learning that this is what happens with the advent of landmark change.  We’re in a big whirlpool right now, and the seas will calm eventually, revealing who really knows what.  Because that always happens.

Anyway, when Q&A time arrived, I had to ask the question:  did the panelists agree that we are experiencing a shift beyond the mere opening of a new communication channel — and if so, what is its impact on advertising?  One panelist had referred to the Internet as this age’s medium, just like television and radio were in their time, and said the Internet is important because it is changing everything.  But we never got to why and how, leaving his comments hanging out there as little more than lip service.

So I referred to what Mr Karimkhany of Wired Digital had said that morning — of Calacanis and Winer wanting to participate in the interview on their terms.  To my mind, it’s an example of the change we are witnessing in how information is uncovered and shared.  I wanted to know what the panelists think this means to the advertising industry.

Mr Perkins’ first response, after calling me a young lady — greatly appreciated! — was to call Calacanis and Winer "chicken s@#$s" and "control freaks."  Boy, that was distracting. 

Here I thought that we’d just get a little probative insight into the Web 2.0 thing.  I almost missed the important answers of Kevin O’Connor and Jonathan Nelson, founders of Organic and DoubleClick, respectively, who made a point I had as yet not read or heard:  that a two-way, one-to-one relationship was not something every buyer wants in every purchase situation.  It depends on the product, the buyers’ perceptions of the brand and the brand strategy.  Now that’s the start of a dialog that advertising agents and web entrepreneurs ought to be having.

But I’m concerned that this will never happen.  It occurred to me that many of the subjects covered by Web 2.0 Expo ought be on the program for Ad:Tech, and vice versa.  We need to cross pollinate. 

As long as people are using labels and pigeonholes the minute they hear a particular person’s name or profession and not hearing the question because the existing filters are immutable, the true value of Internet technology will elude us.  And by value, I mean product innovation, thought leadership and profit for all.  Because if the Internet means anything, it means room for all defined by all.