Outmoded Technologies Infect The Web And Undermine Community Identity

Ever wonder why your computer thinks you live in another city? You can thank Nielsen and/or Time Warner and now Google for that.

You see, the media still likes to think we live in huge multi-county conglomerations they call DMA’s or designated market areas like the one in the first image encompassing where I live in Durham.

Then they get frustrated with how long the official names for these designations are so they truncate them to a name where only a small percentage of the people in the designation actually live.

Seems strange that Nielsen would persist with this approach in the day and age of Internet x/y axis but even more strange that Time Warner with cable ability to reach specific homes in specific cities would revert to it and even more ridiculous that Internet giant, Google would revert to such an ancient approach.

But that’s why advertising on the Internet or sites that try to customize to my location think I live in Raleigh when I live in Durham and its why ads streaming across the top of my GMAIL inbox gleefully herald what’s available in Raleigh…even though I’M NOT IN RAALLLLEEEE!

Really weird that a company can ID where I live on a map, show me a street view or aerial of my house and yet uses outmoded market ID’s to send me ads? The purpose of the Nielsen ADA’s is supposedly to help media set ad rates, based on how far signals reach.

Using the Idaho Falls-Pocatello DMA (shown left) for example, this approach assumes someone up in Jackson Hole Wyoming or Salmon, Idaho might travel all the way to Pocatello to find a Walmart? Are you kidding?

Even the market designations for Anchorage and Spokane shown below are inconsistent with any consumer reality. And we’re to believe the entire state of Utah and part of Nevada are one place called Salt Lake City?

I’ve lived at some point in all of these so-called market areas and they have no relevance to where someone lives. Lets hope the geniuses at Google quickly swallow up this old marketing thinking and deep six it. In the meantime, if you’re an advertiser on the web, you’re just pissing people off by using these designations.

A Harley In My Archeology

When my Grandfather and Great-Grandfather first homesteaded in the Yellowstone-Teton corner of Idaho, only stagecoaches with big teams were permitted to take visitors into and through Yellowstone Park.

Several years after my Grandparents Mel Bowman and Adah Neeley were married, cars were permitted after lobbying by motor clubs and and a few years later saw the end of stagecoaches when it became too complex to keep them separated.

I learned two things from a photograph of my Grandmothers that I recently scanned along with 2,000+ others. One, I may not be the first in my family with a Harley and two, Harley’s were used for a time around the 1920’s by rangers patrolling Yellowstone.

Click on the image to above/left and it should open larger.

Harley’s as early as 1926 resembled what I can see of the one here. If my Mom isn’t able to identify “Laurence and Regis on their way to Missouri,” maybe someone who sees this blog will.

I believe I spot a “spud” cellar in the background so I assume the photo was taken in that mile-high part of Idaho along the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River which at that time was first experimenting with what became a world-wide reputation for seed potatoes, that and “Gateway to Adventure.”

The Yellowstone Park banner may indicate it was a promotional trip of some kind. All I know is it was no easy trip. Most of the roads from LA to Kansas City weren’t paved back then. The Yellowstone Trail, an association founded in South Dakota in 1912 to promote roads and travel to the Northwest was active then as well.

Half the Harley’s sold during WWI went to the US Military. In fact the first American to enter Germany after that war was on a Harley-Davidson. So sidecars were more common then than they seem to be now.

People have been teasing me to get a sidecar so my English Bulldog, Mugsy could don goggles and go out with me to see my Grandsons. As they would say, WOW – Yeah!

You can see one just like it at the American Classic Motorcycle Museum over in Asheboro , south and east of Durham.

In the meantime if anyone can give me more information on the people in my Grandmother’s photograph, or the era when Park Rangers used motorcycles, please comment on this blog.

Bull City Connector Is Unique In Scope & Leverage

Emerging from a sketch 20 years ago on a cocktail napkin, Durham’s Bull City Connector, launching this month, goes far beyond the typical complimentary downtown circulator found in many cities.  It also illustrates how local government can leverage organizations including the relevance of a Destination Marketing Organization as a community’s marketing agency.

The Bull City Connector, thanks to funding in part from Duke University will provide jump on/off connections (click on map to enlarge) to:

• A string of 8 dining and entertainment centers,
• Several medical centers, campuses, government and office centers and,
• Venues such as ballparks, theaters, festivals and outdoor markets and the Durham Convention Center and,
• North Carolina Central University (NCCU) via a connection at Durham Transit Station and DATA Route #5 (fare-free with ID for students and faculty.)

Scores of organizations and neighborhoods collaborated on the project.  As Durham’s destination marketing organization, the City and DATA engaged DCVB for marketing assistance and “overarching'” brand integration as well as other marketing services including:

• Design of the map and collateral
• Design and integrate the website
• Train drivers (new staff and uniforms, more like tour guides etc)
• Collateral distribution to 130 visitor outlets in Durham
• Promotion in all official literature and websites for visitors and newcomers
• Promotion through Durham News Service, eNews and other publicity avenues
• Development and launch of a Facebook Fan Page
• Other marketing assistance

Astute communities like Durham understand and leverage the roles, relationships and relevance of their Destination Marketing Organizations.

Can Liberals Be Christians?

You get the impression from man Conservative commentators that Liberals don’t believe in God and Conservatives do. Personally, I know they both do. It all became much more clear though in a cover to cover reading the latest edition of The Big Sort, subtitled “Why The Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart.” My edition included an afterword updating the premise through the ‘08 Presidential election. When read, the book is much more revealing than what you hear from folks who just talk about the basic premise based on reviews etc.

The authors describe one significant sort that began in the late 1800’s that distinguished “private” and “public” Protestantism. Think of the “private” approach as symbolized today by the religious right and conservative mega-churches and the rational for Republican Conservatism which has effectively purged the party of its moderate and progressive elements since the 1960’s.

Private Protestantism, according to the authors, “promoted individual salvation and promised that personal morality would be rewarded in the next life.”

Public Protestantism was on the other side of the sort in religion and forms the basis for Democratic liberalism, that “the way to God required the transformation of society.”

The authors use the views of drunkenness or alcoholism as an example and you can frequently hear this on talk shows where some callers argue it is a sin or lack of responsibility and others argue it is a disease.

Private Protestantism views alcoholism as a personal failing. Public Protestantism also known as the Social Gospel views it as a social ill. One group promoted “blue laws” as a solution and the other promoted minimum wage and eight hour work days to use just one example.

One viewpoint focuses on missionary work to convert the individual, the other focuses on societal reform. One views itself as the only true religion, the other is more open to ideas and diversity. To use a term used by conservative columnist David Brooks, one group “cocoons” with only what the book terms “people like us” and the other is more open and liberal.

To me, the two viewpoints, provide explanations about non-Christian groups as well, e.g. the liberal tradition among Jewish Americans and the unyielding nature of extremist Islam fueling terrorism across the globe.

Just one tiny example of the richness of this excellent book. Everyone needs to emerge from our respective information cocoons and read it. It won’t hurt or try to demonize one side or another, I promise.

Non-readers beware it is 300 pages not counting acknowledgements and index. But it is sprinkled with charts, very well documented and written and includes charts etc.

Duality In Problem Solving

I’d never heard of Martha Beck until this recent trip, when within hours both my Sister and Daughter separately mentioned her blog.  She was a professor at my alma mater, BYU, but a decade after me, and left as the institution became much less ideologically tolerant.

I’m thinking of sending this blog on “duality” and problem solving to a young friend who’s deep sense of right and wrong has her in self-exile with a few co-workers and neighbors.

People who have worked with me know I refer often when problem solving that seemingly “either/or” situations can often be more “both/and.”

I have one friend for instance who is very either/or.  When he wants something, you’re either on his team or you’re not. People often remark about our friendship over the years because he has typically been very quick to verbally “throw me under the bus” whenever he wants something professionally and views me as a threat because I’ll shed more light on the issue.

Yet we’re still openly friends with one another (unfortunately he’s also an example of why I only have three very close friendships that have endured over decades.)  People wonder how we could be friends and yet he would say the things he has in public situations behind my back.  Knowing myself, I’m sure my tongue was a little quick too when things were tense.

People are contradictions.  Beck does an outstanding job of making sense of how they can actually be both a friend and someone who is ruthless.

As head of various destination marketing organizations (DMO,) I was often approached or should we say put in the “cross hairs” by individuals, usually from nearby communities who either wanted special treatment and when they found out I would stick to the mission and values of both my organization and my community would then do their best to try to make me in to professional “road kill.”

Part of DMO-CEO’s job is to resist special interests but I never made it personal and tried to find things to admire about these people, even when it wasn’t reciprocated.

But once I got past the audacity of these people, I often found good solutions somewhere between saying no and hell no or being a good ole boy push over.  This takes overcoming what Beck calls “duel-ness.”

Ms. Beck does a great job of explaining all of this and how to overcome dichotomies.