Tim.McGuinn.es/s

Just spell it out

Ivy Sports Symposium

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Ivy Sports Symposium

The Future of Sports Television panel

I had the opportunity to attend the Ivy Sports Symposium at Harvard Law School earlier today.

The panel speakers were top shelf, including CEO/President levels from leading sports brands around the globe.

The Future of Sports Television panel  (above) included Tracy Dolgin – President/CEO of YES Network, Larry Jones – EVP of Fox Sports Media, Mark Silverman – President of Big Ten Network and David Preschlack – EVP, ESPN/Disney.

Ivy Symposium

If they offer a picture with a backdrop, then take it.

The event targets recent and upcoming graduates, but it is open to the public.  Thanks to my membership with Sports Networker and the fact that we had planned a trip to visit family this weekend on Cape Cod, I was able to attend.

I went there to learn and get some insights from true insiders, but it was also great to cross paths with people that I have worked with in the past, including: Rich Gotham – President of the Celtics; Jimmy Lynn, currently teaching and consulting in DC, and Tom Richardson – Founder/CEO of Talent League.

 

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First Dome Visit

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First Dome Visit

She’s calling for the red dog.

We had an opportunity to make our first family visit to the Carrier Dome this weekend to see SU play Wake Forrest.

I was looking to make this trip for the last two season’s, but it’s difficult to plan ahead when your window is for early afternoon starts and game times aren’t announced until a week before.

Thanks to a fortunate lunch outing earlier in the week where I ran into Angela and Sonny Spera, friends going way back and SU grads, we were able to join their group and see the game.  It all worked out very well; it also happened to be Family Day so we were also able to enjoy the SU Marching Band and bouncy houses on The Quad.

Also, it’s still difficult to see where SU is going to fit into the ACC, but on this day the Orange gave us an impressive 13-0 win.

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Meeting Mr. Tony

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Today was my first day at the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open where I volunteer each year in the media room — and sometimes I see golf.  Since today was Pro-Am day, I looked down the list of amateurs to see if I knew anyone playing in case I go for a walk.

About half way down the list, I see “Tony Kornheiser.” Mr. Tony is in Endicott and I don’t know this? This is the same town that advertised a Roy White appearance for a month. Can’t be Tony from PTI.

His playing partner: Harvey Stenger. The President at Binghamton University.  I guess that was Mr. Tony.

If you follow this blog, you may remember how I had my letter read on Tony’s show, and the premise of that note was that they would send me a “TK” sticker that I would then pass along to President Stenger.

So I ran out and found them on the 5th hole. After they finished the hole, I introduced myself and told them the story.  Now I have President Stenger AND Tony, but the sticker was at home. They were both very nice and laughed at how this worked out.

The best line: I told Tony I don’t have know what to do between 10 am – noon since I can’t listen while he’s off for the summer. His response: “Now I’m here in person.”

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The Big Data Role

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Big DataI had an interesting meeting today with the Sr. VP of a marketing and data processing services company (being vague to protect future interests). They are sitting on years of data and generating more each day, so they are vetting ideas on how to improve their offerings based on this data, starting with plans to hire two executives focusing on “big data” and digital strategy.

Of course, for full disclosure, I was trying to get myself hired. However, the real challenge was getting hired into roles that are fairly undefined at this point. I won’t bury the suspense, it’s not going to happen for me this week, but it’s more of a “It’s not you, it’s me” thing, since it was apparent after a while that he was looking for a Data Scientist for his “data” role, so I would have to take up the data strategy role with an organization that he did not manage.

As we talked through the roles it become more clear where my technology and marketing background offers the most value — as usual it is in hybrid role. Let’s look at a three possible job roles in the digital data cycle:

Product Manager >> Generates & Consumes Data

  • Traditional digital product owner where a carve out of their role relates to data generation and usage, such as a mobile app that has its design and application requirements, but also generates and uses location-based data.Could this be me >> YES! No surprise since it’s a role I’ve held before.

Big Data Manager >> Owns data strategy and implementation — along with evangelism.

  • Responsible for owning the carrying out the organization’s data strategy. This is a cross-product role in a way since the BDPM needs to make sure all the traditional products are on plan for generating data to help the organization and standard data access is available to support products.Could this be me >> YES! Excited by this opportunity, since it is a great blend of using my tech experience and applying the output to building and supporting business cases.

Data Scientist >> Builds data systems and crunches the numbers.

  • Could this be me >> No.  I’ll have this person on speed dial. Earlier this week I was reading my newest Big Data (http://www.manning.com/marz/) book, and was excited by the applications and business opportunities around monetizing data.  Then I hit chapter 2 where the discussion turned to data tools and structures, and my brain started melting — a natural sign that I was over my head.

The outcome: I have to find the Big Data Manager type of role where I am responsible for finding the business opportunities, maybe get my hands a little dirty by working with the engineers, and then hand it off for the data scientists to make the magic.

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Gov. Cuomo Announces Moreland Commission at Binghamton U.

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GovCuomo

Gov Cuomo speaking today at Binghamton University

 

“Government is us . . . I believe in us.”

I had a special opportunity to see public politics in action at Binghamton University where Gov Cuomo announced the formation of a Moreland Commission.

I’m not going to try to come across as political wonk, but it as always it is important to take advantage of opportunities to attend events such as this when you get a chance.

The Moreland Commission is being formed to investigate corruption in NYS government following recent arrests in Albany and around the state of elected officials.

The goal of the commission as stated by Gov. Cuomo (and paraphrased like crazy by me) is to identify any wrong doers in government, but also vindicate those that are doing good for the people and are unjustly lumped into the ill will created by a few bad apples.

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Do You Know Who I Am!?!

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That question is one of many inside jokes known to regular listeners of The Tony Kornheiser Show heard on ESPN 980 out of Washington. His show is my regular 10 am – noon listening via their website or the podcast if I’m busy.

Recently he started offering “TK” stickers, but the trick is that you can’t just ask for one; you have to work for it. Some people go as far as to record gag versions of the show’s theme song or send in gifts — I wrote a note.

Knowing that Tony went to school in Binghamton, I loaded it with Binghamton University references. The premise is that I have found myself recently attending events that BU President Harvey Stenger also attended, but I needed an excuse to speak with him.

Enter the sticker. Listen to Tony read my letter.

Please note – In my letter I’m joking when I say I left President Stenger’s speech early. Again an inside joke based on Tony’s habit of leaving dinner parties before the dinner is served.

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NY Tech Day – Quick Post

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NY Tech Day
There is no way that I have the time to sit down and do a full write up about yesterday’s NY Tech Day show at Pier 92.

I’ll start here: Big. Impressive. People. People. More People.

I’ll need all day to debrief and go through the materials that I gathered, and then will make an update.

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Bot Traffic Is Out There, But Where?

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Chameleon BotAn Adweek story from early last week about bad internet traffic caught my eye, and before I could write up a post they followed it up with a little more detail. Unfortunately the outcome is less on detail and more on “we know something is up, but can’t figure it out.”

I’ve shared this same frustration in the past where I was working on a project and we decided step was to increase traffic by buying traffic through some networks that do this sort of arbitrage work.

These stories first center around some “suspect” content networks that are being credited with millions of page views a month. Good for them? Well the issue is that they really are not very sites and the fact that they are related though a central publishing group makes you question are there really users going to the site and generating clicks.

The problem that crosses the line is when these page views generate millions of page view X multiple ad units per page. When these numbers get tallied the revenue estimates for these sites again reach into the $millions.

Here are the stories:

My personal feeling is that traffic buying strategy should be an act of last resort or only used as a primary strategy if you absolutely need to generate traffic today (even that raises concerns of finding a better plan). Our experience is that if you find the wrong vendors they can serve you up the equivalent of traffic-crack where all your traffic loves your sponsored links. From there management loves the spike in revenue, and you’re stuck with no proven strategy that will maintain that new revenue.

I remember the addition of one vendor that caused our query traffic to go through the roof for “Rolex Watches;” suddenly, the whole world wanted a Rolex, and they were clicking on the top ad link for more data. You know it can’t be true, but – Cha-ching! — management loved it and the biggest issue became swapping in a plan to ween ourselves from the purchased traffic and that provided us sustained organic traffic. We were able to pull this off, but it took 4-6 months, which is not surprising for good content and SEO to get recognized, and many “trust me, this is better notes” to the people upstairs.

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My Daily Telecommute

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telecommuteI hesitate to write this because it goes against everything I wake up for each day, but I’ve get to stick with the truth when it’s . . . the truth. Even when it hurts, but I wish it never came up.

This week Yahoo’s new CEO came out against her Yahoo people telecommuting and started to initiate steps to bring them back to the office or find somewhere else to work. This is the part that hurts, I think she is right. Mostly. The mostly part is the equivalent to the classic non-committal: “It depends.”

In this case it depends on the job role. Even the biggest cave-dwelling introvert should know that spending time around people in order to hear their daily issues or to have someone to bounce ideas off of will lead to more “aha!” moments, either for you or for someone else that may be on the brink of a big breakthrough. If you haven’t experienced this, then I would argue that you are missing your big moment

Now, here is where I need to drop in a counter-argument, but like most discussions I have – a conversation in my head, because no one else is around — Survey Says: Telecommuters Happier, Healthier, Better Balanced.

Honestly, I think this survey is all well and good, but if I were the Big Company then I would have to say: I’m glad you’re happier, healthier and better balanced, but where’s my game-changing idea.

One of my telecommuting benefits that I have been able to work into roles is that I have give my employers proximity to New York City conferences and clients that would not have been possible. This should also apply to working on projects with companies in NYC, but so far none have seen the benefit of farming out a project and letting me split time between the main office to research and collaberate and my cave where I can bear down and generate results without the daily commute and office interruptions.

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Bing It On – Working With No Budget

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Hakia Challenge

Hakia Challenge

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve seen a re-hash of Bing’s Bing It On challenge where they show side-by-side results with Google and give you one search box. They then ask you to vote on which is best.

Seems similar. Yes, back when I was at Hakia we tried a similar “Challenge” in 2007 as shown in this blog post from Profy. It appears that the Challenge page is down now.

The biggest differences in Bing’s campaign vs Hakia’s is not the search technology; in fact, the inclusion of Powerset’s semantic search technology from their acquisition in 2008 probably makes the technologies very similar. The big difference is ca$h money. Hakia never would have had the budget to promote this type of program.

The other interesting thing I saw in researching this is that there really is no best search results when you get to this level. Results are too subjective and how the user interprets them is really determined by how they search (vague vs detail) and whether they have sense of what they are searching for.

Recently in trying to set-up a WordPress test blog on my lap-top, I found myself using Google frequently for getting help with each next step. What I learned was to start extremely detailed by constructing queries that included all the key differentiators. For instance, this would be my starting point: “upload wordpress photo xampp OSX” (Google | Bing) Grade the results: Maybe even, but it is tough to answer until I read each page to see if it answers my next step.

However, if you keep is simple, like “Red Sox” (Google | Bing) then it comes down to why you searched: news, score, general website, etc. They seem about the same.