Category Archives: Rant

AT&T says “you don’t have enough towers”

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This was too good not to immediately post this morning.

According to an article on the consumerist, AT&T is no longer selling iPhones in New York City. You know… the New York City? One of the greatest cities in the United States?

When the Consumerist went online with AT&T customer service to find out why, they were told by a rep named Daphne… “I am happy to be helping you today. Yes, this is correct the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone. You don’t have enough towers to handle the phone.”

AT&T is not even trying anymore. They actually have the unmitigated balls to tell a customer that it’s their fault there aren’t enough towers in their city. Instead of getting off their duff and fixing their network, they’re restricting sales to new, paying customers… customers who want to buy their product… because their busted-ass network is past their capacity to manage.

“You don’t have enough towers to handle the phone.”

I think AT&Ts solution to the problem will be to fire Daphne, then issue a press release to say “we’re striving to be the best and will continue to do everything we can to be the best because we are the best at talking about what’s the best… blah blah blah.”

AT&T’s pinhead managers apparently decided not to let anyone else into their network because they’re past the maximum threshold their ancient system can handle, so they’re done with that city. And by proxy, so is the iPhone.

Hey Apple / Steve Jobs. You might want to review your contract with these idiots to see if there’s something in there you can hammer them with. Because, quite frankly, if you don’t do something about this, every other cellular carrier is going to notice you don’t mind when someone walks all over you and smacks you around a bit. And think of it this way, too… do you think Microsoft (under Gates or Ballmer) would stand for a fraction of this treatment from their partners? Ask yourself, What Would Microsoft Do if this was happening to them?

Time to unleash the hounds and get some respect back.

Tactical errors in the news : part two

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Another article on Fox News talks about the recent disappearance of Susan Powell, 28, who “was last seen on Dec. 7, when her husband says he left their suburban home in West Valley City at about 12:30 a.m. to take their two boys, ages 2 and 4, camping in freezing conditions.”

Going camping in below freezing weather with two boys under 5 years old? According to the Weather Channel history for Salt Lake City, Utah, the temperature Sunday the 7th was 25 degrees as the high (-3.9 degrees Celsius) and 17 degrees as the low (-8.3 degrees Celsius). And at 12:30 a.m., right after midnight, the temperature was probably close to that 17 degree (-8.3 degree Celsius) range.

Catfish. I’m definitely smelling something along the lines of catfish around here.

The story about the missing Salt Lake City, Utah woman and the way things like this usually end up are not what I’m looking at. I’m looking at another glaring tactical error. Two, in fact.

Susan Powell’s husband, Joshua Powell, decided he needed to bust out in a rental car just under 48 hours after his wife disappeared. He drove hundreds of miles in a rental vehicle he got for a 24 hour period to head… who knows where.

Error #1 : There was no GPS in the rental vehicle. In this day and age, Joshua Powell got a rental vehicle from one of the last companies to implement GPS devices in their rental fleet. He could have driven to Canada or Mexico and the company would’ve never known what happened to their vehicle. What rental company doesn’t have a GPS in their rental vehicles?

Error #2 :The police had him pegged as a person of interest, and even had his minivan in their CSI room, but didn’t notice he was gone from the city for 48 hours? No drive by his home? No knock-knock on his door for a sweet Andy Griffith style “hey, hope you’re doing OK” checkup? No judicial order not to leave the city limits?

Since that little trip to nowhere, “His minivan has since been returned to him by police and he has not been named a suspect in his wife Susan’s disappearance.”

I still smell catfish.

It would be nice if when someone is named as a “person of interest” in any criminal proceeding, there’s an automatic judicial order for them not to leave the city limits for 72 hours without notifying the detective and/or police department doing the investigating. How hard would this be to make into a law on a state by state basis?

And hopefully the police are checking wireless phone records, ATM receipts, and gas stations along the freeways. But that’s a very tiny needle in a very big haystack at this point.

Here’s the link to the Fox News article on Susan Powell’s disappearance (iPhone format)

Tactical errors in the news : part one

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A recent article in Fox News says the attorney for Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Ft. Hood shooter, is complaining his client is having his rights violated.

Apparently, Hasan’s attorney, John P. Galligan, is having a problem with “police stopp[ing] a phone conversation between Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan and one of his brothers Friday because it was not in English.”

OK. I’m not worried about the potential civil violations that may or may not have happened here. I’m looking at a serious tactical error that just happened.

Why did the military police keep Hasan from talking to whoever he wanted to?

It shouldn’t have mattered at all if he was speaking in Arabic, German, Dutch, or Pig Latin. The military police should have had his entire cell wired as soon as he arrived. The military police should have had a live tap on every phone call he made as well as a digitally recorded copy. And keep one military police officer present in the room during any and all conversations.

After all the conversations Hasan makes (except the conversations with his attorney), get a translator to go back and review what he said on the recordings! And since he made any and all comments in front of a military police officer that was present in the room at the time, it should be fair game for everything he said to be admissible in a court of law.

Who knows what they missed by telling him to shut up.

Here’s the link to the Fox News article (iPhone format).

Verizon : ready for the iphone!

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Verizon says they’re ready for the iPhone, and I gotta tell you, it can’t come soon enough!

In an article on NeoWin, “According to BusinessWeek, Verizon Wireless Chief Technology Officer, Anthony Melone, said that in the event that AT&T’s exclusivity deal is broken, Verizon is ready for the iPhone. Melone confirms that Verizon has been beefing up its network to prepare for the possibility of adding the world’s most popular smartphone to their lineup. “We have put things in place already… We are prepared to support that traffic.” Melone feels that Verizon’s network and equipment would do a much better job of handling the heavy traffic load produced by the iPhone, stating, “Absolutely, I think we could handle it.””

YES!!!

In addition, Verizon is serious about keeping iPhone users happy. They’re deploying 100 trucks for their technicians to… “literally drive on roads throughout the country testing the service of their own devices as well as devices of their rivals… If techies find an area that has weak service, the company can target more investment to improve the quality of the phone call or the data download.”

As soon as the day comes, I’m bailing on AT&T. I’m almost free of their two years of crap service, and it can’t come soon enough!! Since AT&T hasn’t bothered to make any serious upgrades to their rickety network for the iPhone until late this year, the best way I can think of to say “thanks” for two years of horrible service is with my pocketbook. As soon as my contract is up with AT&T, I’m going to stay month to month until the Verizon deal is announced. Then I’m jumping to Verizon as soon as I can.

I bet we will get to watch AT&T’s bottom line sink like a brick in concrete shoes next year when all the iPhone users finally get a chance to abandon the AT&T ship. And I also predict we will get to watch some very long-overdue AT&T executive heads roll soon after.

Here’s the link to the NeoWin article.

And a link to the Business Week article.

News stories the mainstream media missed 12/19/09

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Here are some news stories from this week that I think the mainstream media completely missed out on. All links are from legitimate news sources and not the fringe / wacko sites.

* Want another example on how London is different than Texas and how the British judicial system is completely screwed up at the same time? Check this story out… a man and his wife and three kids came home from church services and were all attacked in their own home by a knife wielding burglar and two other men who were already there. The burglars tied them all up and threatened to kill them all.  The homeowner broke free of the restraints and fought with the three men. One of the kids also got free and ran next door to get the homeowners brother. The homeowner managed to hold off the three burglars until his brother arrived to help. Two of the burglars ran away while the third burglar got beat up in the homeowners front yard by the homeowner and his brother with a cricket bat and a metal pole.  The police arrived… and arrested the homeowner and brother for beating the burglar!!! The burglar that was caught? He got let go and is completely free. The two brothers were sentenced to prison for two and a half years. Judge John Reddihough said the prison term was for the homeowners and the homeowners brother’s “very violent revenge”. Judge John Reddihough whined that “If persons were permitted to take the law into their own hands and inflict their own instant and violent punishment on an apprehended offender rather than letting the criminal justice system take its course, then the rule of law and our system of criminal justice, which are hallmarks of a civilised [sic] society, would collapse.” Hey Judge John Reddihough? In Texas, defending your own home and family from burglars is perfectly legal. And Texas isn’t in any danger of collapsing from all this legal “anarchy” you’re so afraid of. People should be allowed to take whatever means necessary to defend their own family in their own home. Especially when they or their family are threatened with terminal harm in their own home. Oh, and one more thing Judge John Reddihough. You’re a complete fucking asshole. A wanker’s wanker. A bloody hairy boil on the ass of the English judicial system. Just thought you should know.  [DAILYMAIL]

* Better get that botox or tummy tuck done soon if you’ve been thinking about doing it. The US government is planning… “a 5% excise tax on elective cosmetic surgery, beginning Jan. 1, 2010.” In other words, a vanity tax. I predict a lot more of these “sneak taxes” coming in 2010. [USA TODAY]

* The FDA opened a branch office in Mexico. To help pre-screen food items heading into the US from Mexico. I don’t know if this is a good idea. What’s wrong with inspecting food once it’s securely on our side of the border? [FOODBUSINESS NEWS]

* Why don’t you notice the dark when you blink? Because blinking temporarily switches off parts of your brain! Science in fun. [PHYSORG]

* A recent military study links deployment to hypertension. Next study from military intelligence – getting shot is surprisingly bad for your health. [MILITARY HEALTH]

—LATE ADDITIONS

* Domino’s Pizza is changing their whole formula! New crust, new cheese and new sauce. The “New crust will have added butter, garlic and parsley, the new cheese will have shredded instead of diced mozzarella and a hint of provolone, and the new sauce will be sweeter, with a red pepper kick.” What the hell? I liked the old Domino’s because it was different! The change happens “in all U.S. stores by Dec. 27”, so enjoy the original style by Christmas before it’s gone forever. [USA TODAY]

* The headline says it all. “Obama weighs creating commission to propose tax hikes”. Didn’t I just predict “sneak taxes” a few paragraphs ago? Well now it’s serious. “The proposed [commission] panel would… vote after the midterm elections on a reform package that could include dramatic tax hikes and spending cuts.” Naturally these cowards would wait to do something after the midterm elections. Start saving and re-investing your money now, folks. [CNN]

New mega agency wants to make sure kids are eating right

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Federal Committee alert! A new mega-agency, calling themselves the “Interagency Working Group on Food Marketed to Children”, is planning on bringing the pain to a restaurant near you!

The IWGOFMTC (yikes) is a group of reps from the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture), the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), the FTC  (Federal Trade Commission), and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration). You would think when all these heavy hitters get together, it’s because something epic is about to happen. Something along the lines of a mega-disaster asteroid-covered-with-space-ebola is about to smack the earth. But noooooo.

The IWGOFMTC on December 15th “proposed tentative nutrition standards for food marketed to children… the voluntary guidelines would cover food marketed to children up to the age of 17 and place restrictions on products that contain significant amounts of sugar, sodium and saturated fat.”

Voluntary guidelines? The USDA, the CDC, the FTC and the FDA are all just going ask restaurants to change? It’s going to all be voluntary?

Their “voluntary guidelines” are pretty surprising….

“…advertised foods must not contain more than 1 gram of saturated fat per serving and not more than 15% of calories; no more than 13 grams of added sugar; no more than 200 mg of sodium (this level would be interim and over time should be reduced to 140 mg); and must be trans fat free.”

So a bunch of government based heavyweights decided to get together to fight a new “problem” and they’re doing it “for the children”. This looks and sounds a lot like the beginning of something like the Tipper Gore’s Parents Music Resource Center. You ‘member that mess? When they spent tons of money and wasted thousands of hours in congress and the end result was that CDs would need to have a “PARENTAL ADVISORY” sticker on them? You ‘member?

What’s great about all this is that they’re already specifically targeting Yum! Brands, Chuck E. Cheese and IHOP “for their lack of initiative in adhering to meaningful nutrition-based standards for foods marketed to children.” (Yum! brands would be KFC, A&W Restaurants, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut, Wing Street, and Taco Bell.)

They’re going after Taco Bell for not having nutritious food for children. I rest my case.

The proposed nutrition standards that they’re working on “are expected to be published in the Federal Register in January, at which point they will be open for comment with possible implementation by the summer of 2010.” They’re also going to be looking at “foods that are advertised on children’s programming, especially on children’s cable networks.”

“Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said now is the time to act, pointing to the growth of web sites and games that are just as effective as television in reaching children. “No matter what standards we create, we’re probably not going to stop kids from liking Cheetos,” Ms. Sebelius said. “But if a kid gets diabetes when he’s 18 partly because when he was younger he only ate the foods he saw everyday on TV and the Internet, that’s not his fault. It’s our fault.”

Um… actually, according to the little Oompa Loompa yelling into my ear, that’s the parent’s fault if the kid grows up chubby and can’t fit into his pants. Mom and Dad need to tell porky pig jr to cut back on the food or the little ADD ankle biters on the playground will make his life a living hell. Government shouldn’t have anything to do with that.

Here’s the link to the Food Business News Article about the IWGOFMTC.

A 5 gigabyte bandwidth limit? Completely unrealistic.

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This post is for the wireless division at Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. Specifically, those people in the wireless division who came up with the idea to limit online use to 5gb before charging “extra” for “excessive use”.

I don’t think they’ve used the internet in a long while.

The first thing I’ll start with is system updates. This isn’t an extravagance of any sort. You must update your system to keep your computer safe and secure from new problems and exploits that appear online. I’ll start off with a basic install of Snow Leopard on the Mac as an example.

The current updates for a fresh install of Snow Leopard with iWork and iLife installed are 1.04 GB. This is to update iMovie, iPhoto, Mac OS X, iTunes, iWork, Remote Desktop Client, Xcode and a HP printer. A secondary update of Java, Safari and AirPort Client after the initial upgrade is just 125.7 mb (which using convertunits is .12 gb). Even if we assume only one single system update like this per month, we’ve already blown 1.16 gb out of our 5 gb monthly limit.

Now let’s download some free media. Not much… just what’s available in the “free” section on itunes every week. At this time, there’s a free copy of the TV series “The Cleveland Show” and “Phineas and Ferb” and the free music is from The Bravery, Augusten Burroughs, Zeri, Joe and David Archuleta. The total for two TV shows and five music files is 236.4 mb. Assuming the selections are consistently this size per week, 236.4 mb times four weeks is 945.6 mb, which converts to another .92 gb per month.

.92 gb plus 1.16 gb makes our current total 2.08 gb used.

Now let’s talk about YouTube. You tube videos are fun to watch, and everyone has been on the site a few times a week. So let’s ballpark only three videos per day and we only visit YouTube 5 days out of the week. That’s a perfectly reasonable 15 videos per week. Assuming the videos are around five minutes a piece and are watched in HD, that’s a ballpark of 22.9 MB per video. 22.9 times 15 is 343.5 mb per week. 343.5 mb times four weeks is 1,374 mb, which converts to 1.34 gb.

1.34 gb added to 2.08 gb takes us to 3.42 gb used so far.  Only 1.58 gb remains.

Attachments in email is next up on the list. I’m talking about powerpoint files and slides that are 2 to 5 mb that you need to send to business partners or just friends you would like to see a presentation. Lets say you only send two attachments a day four days out of the week. And that each attachment is 5mb. 8 attachments per week times 5 MB a piece is 40 mb. 40 mb per week times four weeks is 160 mb, which converts to .16 gb.

Add .16 gb to 3.42 gb and we’re at 3.58 gb used.

And finally let’s look at movie previews. Looking at a movie preview in quicktime at 720p (midrange high def) is around 100 mb each. There were around 60 movie previews in November alone on the Apple Movie Preview site, but let’s say I only viewed 1/3 of them: 20 movie previews per month at 100 mb. Thats 2,000 mb which converts to 1.95gb.

1.95gb + 3.58gb = 5.53 gb

And that’s how you can go right through a 5 gb limit.

This isn’t taking into account any antivirus updates, downloading any torrents or posting any twitter, facebook or personal blog entries. This doesn’t take into account reading through and downloading images from any photo-intensive websites or uploading your own videos to YouTube. This doesn’t take into account watching full streaming videos from Netflix or playing online with your Xbox, Wii or PS3.

And this ballpark calculation doesn’t even touch on downloading music or movies that has been purchased from Amazon or iTunes or updating the other applications that are installed on the computer.

Using Email, YouTube, watching movie previews, updating your system software and getting free and legal music may sound like a lot of bandwidth to those companies that grew up in the punchcard era,  but people do a lot more than just send email and SMS texts nowadays.

It’s not constant 24 hour use that chews through 5gb of data. It’s just simple, modern use of the internet.

The problem is that the only way I see this outdated 5 gb cap changing is if one of the big wireless companies realizes there is a big market if they move their baseline upward, and takes a bold move to expand their 5 gb cap to at least 10 gb or more.

Barring that, it’s going to take a company with some very serious capital to push the existing wireless companies aside to start a new high-cap wireless service. That’s pretty much going to have to be Telmex or Google at this point.

In the meantime, the only other option is to hunt down a free wi-fi spot and pull up a chair.

Oh, and before I forget, here’s the current list of updates required for a clean Windows 7 install with Office 2007 also installed. I’m in the process of calculating exactly how big the total download update is, but I’m pretty sure it’s a little less than the 1.04 GB of mac updates but much more than 500 mb.

——————-

Definition Update for Microsoft Security Essentials – KB972696 (Definition 1.71.735.0)
The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Update for Microsoft Search Enhancement Pack
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB969679)
Security Update for Microsoft Office Excel 2007 (KB969682)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB969613)
Security Update for Microsoft Office Visio Viewer 2007 (KB973709)
Security Update for Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 (KB957789)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB972581)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB969559)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB974234)
Security Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (KB969604)
Update for Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 Help (KB963670)
Windows Live Essentials
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB954326)
Security Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (KB956358)
Microsoft Silverlight (KB974331)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB951944)
Update for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 Help (KB963669)
Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System Help for Common Features (KB963673)
Spanish Language Pack – Windows 7 (KB972813)
Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 Help (KB963665)
Security Update for Microsoft Office 2007 (KB951550)
Security Update for Microsoft Office Excel 2007 (KB959997)
Security Update for Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 (KB951338)
Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB967642)
Update for Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Help (KB963678)
2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 1 (SP1)
Security Update for Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 (KB950130)
Security Update for 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB960003)
Office Live add-in 1.4
Update for Microsoft Script Editor Help (KB963671)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB936514)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB956828)
Definition Update for Microsoft Security Essentials – KB972696 (Definition 1.69.725.0)
Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows 7 (KB976749)
Update for Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility View List for Windows 7 (KB975364)
Security Update for Windows 7 (KB975467)
Update for Windows 7 (KB974332)
Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool – October 2009 (KB890830)
Security Update for Windows 7 (KB974571)
Definition Update for Windows Defender – KB915597 (Definition 1.69.725.0)
Update for Windows 7 (KB974431)
Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows 7 (KB974455)
Security Update for ActiveX Killbits for Windows 7 (KB973525)
Security Update for Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package (KB973923)
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 8 for Windows 7 (KB976325)
Update for Windows 7 (KB976098)
Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool – December 2009 (KB890830)
Office Genuine Advantage Notifications (KB949810)
Security Update for Microsoft Office Excel 2007 (KB973593)
Security Update for the 2007 Microsoft Office System (KB973704)
Update for Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 (KB976416)
Update for Microsoft Office Word 2007 (KB974561)

AT&T planning on going after those “unlimited” iPhone users

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Ralph de la Vega, head of AT&T’s wireless division, said AT&T is planning on going after the “small percentages” of iPhone users who have the nerve to steam video and music over their piss-poor network to “reduce or modify their usage so they don’t crowd out the other customers in those same cell sites.”

Quoting from an article on Cnet, Ralph says… “what’s driving usage on the network and driving these high usage situations are things like video, or audio that keeps playing around the clock… And so we’ve got to get to those customers and have them recognize that they need to change their pattern, or there will be other things that they are going to have to do to reduce their usage.”

In other words, instead of getting up off their fat greedy butts and actually going out and spending money to improve their busted and topped-off network, they’re going to take the easy way out and charge their customers more. Those same customers who signed up on their unlimited plan because they apparently misunderstood the word “unlimited” and are actually using their iPhones in an unlimited manner!

The Cnet article also says that all the “unlimited” iPhone use is… “clogging the network, causing many iPhone users, especially in large cities such as New York and San Francisco, to experience dropped calls, slow 3G service, and issues connecting to the network at all.”

Small wonder AT&T was named in Consumer Reports magazine as “the worst carrier in the United States.” Far below Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint.

Hey AT&T! Instead of going after us “unlimited” users who like to use our iPhones as they were designed, how about fixing that no good network you have! Then maybe some of your customers won’t leave you when their contract is up and jump to Verizon when they get the iPhone in the third quarter of 2010!

As Craig Ferguson would say… “Ah! ha! ha! I made myself laugh.”

Hey Apple. If you’re paying attention, you really need to put the screws to AT&T for this. When Jim Cicconi, senior executive vice president of external and legislative affairs for AT&T says in a published article that “we will have to start telling wireless customers that they can’t do all the things they want to do with their devices”, you guys need to find a better partner to dance with.

Here’s the link to the CNET article

And here’s the link to the Consumer Reports article

12 things you need to know before your next business pitch

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I’ve been pretty lucky in my career to have always been on the executive side of the conference table when it comes to business pitches and presentations. Through the assorted jobs I’ve had, I have seen presenters make the same mistakes over and over and over, regardless of whether it’s in front of a fortune 500 company in a 30 story skyscraper or in front of a fortune 10,000 company in a one story brick building.

So today I thought I would list 12 things (off the top of my head) that I would like every presenter to know about before their next pitch…

* Have a plan B. This, by far, is the biggest problem. What happens if the presentation you burned to DVD gets broken or lost along the way? Or if the special effect filled DVD you have won’t play in the client’s old-as-dirt DVD player? What happens if your $12,000 projector blows a $20 bulb and there’s no replacement store within miles? Have a plan B! Put a copy of the original presentation on a memory stick and save another copy of it in PDF and JPEG format. Have a printout ready for at least half of the attendees (and before the presentation, ask the secretary where the copier is located for emergency purposes). Have a online backup copy saved as a draft in your gmail.com account. And check to see if you have a spare bulb for the projector. Like the old saying goes, plan for the worst, but expect the best.

* Find out what resources are available at the client site before arriving. Take a moment to talk with the tech guy or the secretary of the location you’re going to be presenting in. Just because your company has the newest Blu-Ray DVD HDMI combo players and 10 bazillion lumen projectors in every single room doesn’t mean your client’s conference room will. If you need a projector or laptop, be sure to ask for them a few days before arriving. And get detailed information from the tech people on whether or not their laptop will be able to open your specific file and if the projector is actually visible across the room. Yes, it looks much better for you if if you bring your own laptop and projector for the pitch, but most big businesses (and hotels) are pretty accommodating nowadays. Just make certain what tools you will have to use in the location you are going to be presenting in.

* Don’t present from a laptop screen to a crowd of more than 2. This is one of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen. When a presenter will ask a room full of executives to crowd around their 19 inch (or smaller!) laptop to view their presentation. It’s very uncomfortable and not everyone is going to be able to see the presentation. If you don’t have a projector, put it on a DVD to show on a TV. Or bring handouts. A laptop screen should only be used by the presenter, not the presentees.

* Pitch only to the client you’re visiting right now. I’ve seen this one dozens of times. A laptop is connected to a projector and the laptop’s screen is up on the wall for everyone to see. The problem is that the presenter is still looking for the presentation file to open, and as they’re going through their laptop, everyone in the room will see if a competitor’s name is on a document or folder as the presenter is searching for the file to open. And as soon as the presenter leaves, that’s the first thing everyone talks about. Not the pitch or the material…. just that the presenter is fraternizing with the “enemy”. So before you connect your laptop to the projector, have the presentation up and in full screen mode. Or better yet, keep your folders separate and use your own project number names so you won’t accidentally reveal who else you’re pitching to.

* Rehearse your pitch. Now let me preface this by saying being nervous in a pitch is one thing. As a matter of fact, most companies I worked for thought a nervous presenter was fairly trivial. I’m talking about having no clue what’s about what’s up on the screen. I’m talking about when the transition from one speaker to another, there’s a quick flurry of whispered discussion about who’s doing what. And I’ve even seen live presentations where the presenters themselves will outright argue with each other in front of us. If you can’t get it together for the big show when you’re asking for a paycheck, how will you possibly do any better if we do decide to hire you or do decide to take your product? Rehearse your pitch. Rehearse it with your team members. Get over whatever problems you’re having with each other after the pitch. And be confident in what you’re presenting.

* Put in “real” placeholders. A lot of upper level executives have zero imagination. Zero. As in none. So if you say “well in this area will be a logo that pops” or “your commercial will look like that Doritos one with the lizard”, nobody is going to remember anything but the rough and ugly diagram of what was actually on the screen. This is an in-house presentation, so don’t worry about copywright laws. You say there’s going to be a commercial like the Doritos one with the lizard? Put up that clip of Godzilla munching on Doritos! Grab some media from YouTube or from your own DVDs. Put in real live audio. Anything! Don’t leave a space where you hope your client’s imagination is as good as your own. Show a baseline of what you intend to do and give a visual example. And be sure you can follow up on it. Don’t put up the Godzilla Doritos ad if your company can barely do stop-motion animation. Show examples! And speaking of media…

* Showing poor quality video. There’s really no excuse for this one. If you are using the same video ripped from a copy of a copy of a VHS tape from 1988, that tells everyone at the table a lot about your standards and work ethic. Get a clear and quality copy of any video you plan on presenting, or don’t even bother showing it.

* Copyright your pitch. I’ve worked for some grade-a scumbags before, and these people looooved to steal ideas from presenters. I don’t mean using the occasional quote from a presentation. I mean taking a presenter’s powerpoint, re-branding it with their own company name, and then pitching the re-re-brand to their own prospective clients. Was it wrong? Yes. Was it illegal? Nope! Because the presenters didn’t have any copyright on their work. If it’s a big new idea you have, and you’re relying on that big new idea to make money, head to the online copyright website and make it your own before showing anyone else your idea. And stamp the copyright logo on the bottom of your pitch and any printouts, too.

* Test your VPN connection. More and more presentations are utilizing a company’s VPN network to access video and confidential documents as part of the presentation. That’s fine, but in my experience, about three quarters of the VPN presenters I have seen have either never tested the VPN outside their office or have no clue on how to connect to a VPN in the first place. Either way, it boils down to everyone in the meeting having to wait while the presenter tries to find a tech guy at their company who can walk them through the VPN connection. If you’re going to use a VPN as part of your presentation, test it out before coming in. Make sure you know how to connect to your VPN from a fresh bootup of your laptop. And it wouldn’t hurt to have a tech guy at your company on standby 10 minutes before and 10 minutes after your scheduled presentation in case something goes wrong.

* Plan for a full and complete catastrophe. One of the best presentations I remember seeing was one that everything went horrifically wrong for the presenters. Their projector would not focus, their laptop was stuck on a BIOS screen, and their paper printouts were doused in coffee from their flight over. None of that mattered. Because this team didn’t just have a plan B, they had a plan for a full catastrophe. One person in the team kept us entertained by specifically asking about us, talking with us about news they heard concerning our area, and generally conversing with us in a pleasant, stress free and non-business based manner. While that one person was engaging us, the other two members of the presentation team went and made new copies of the pitch and got the technical pieces up and running. When those two were done, they came up and told everyone they were ready to go. It was a smooth and fluid presentation, and even though we didn’t take their product, we did give them eight local business references for them to follow up on. If you’re presenting in a team, have a charismatic team leader who will take charge if things go horrifically bad, and have other members of the team on very specific repair duty in case things go really wrong (IE: You fix the computer. You make copies. You staple the printouts).

* Keep your email short and professional. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen managers roll their eyes at an email address like bigbusinessbuildingmediamarketingdallas909038@aol.com. Or something silly like honkadonkey9898@yahoo.com. If you can, get your own domain name and email address. Bob@bigbusinessmarketing.com looks much more professional than anything ending in an aol.com or yahoo.com or even a gmail.com account. But if you can’t get your own domain yet, just keep it short. bob@yahoo.com or b90@gmail.com makes it easier to email you, and sometimes, a quick email is what will get you the business.

* Lunch the office. This sounds silly, but it is very effective! Don’t just take the executives out for lunch after your presentation. Ask the boss’ secretary if they want to go to lunch with you all (which I’ve consistently heard is a very smart thing to do). Ask the CFO and the check writers if they would like a free lunch. Expand the net a little further and you’ll get much more positive buzz about your company after you’ve left. And don’t worry about taking everyone to a fancy executive-level restaurant. Ask the workers what their favorite local restaurant is or where they usually go for lunch nearby. Mostly every non-executive will eat at a place that has $5-$10 lunch, so you’ll be better off taking everyone there anyhow. A BBQ place or a nice deli comes to mind. And the extra socialization after the meeting will tell you, the presenter, a lot more about the company you’re pitching to. Just be certain you stay professional and in full information-gathering mode. You’re there to learn more about them, too.

Tiger Woods and the Police

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I just saw an article on CNN about Tiger Woods. Apparently Tiger Woods got into a car crash this weekend in his neighborhood. Fortunately nobody was hurt and nobody else was involved. The only damage done in this accident is to Tiger Wood’s car and apparently a fire hydrant that was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tiger Woods gave his insurance information and license to the police, and then went back to his home and hasn’t talked to the police since.

None of this should have made it past the fifth link in the sports section, but of course, Cartoon Network News thinks this is a front page issue! And they’re actively trying to make it an issue by talking to themselves. Check out this quote from the CNN article…

“CNN: Can the police do anything about it if Woods continues to refuse to talk to them?

Toobin (Cartoon Network News’ current “senior legal analyst”): The police don’t have a lot of options. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, you as a police officer can’t do anything about it.”

Hey CNN. You need to quit talking to yourselves. Because this is exactly how it’s supposed to work! The 5th amendment. The idea someone is “innocent until proven guilty”. Moving some things through a civil court as opposed to a criminal court. Crazy country, huh?

If Tiger Woods wants to drive into his car into his swimming pool so he can learn how to scuba dive in a Lexus, he can do that. If Tiger Woods wants to roast some marshmallows on his property with a brand new BMW that’s on fire, he can do that. If he has a lawnmower that needs a 12 gauge buckshot overhaul, he can do that too. As long as no one is hurt or under threat of becoming hurt and some other person’s private property is not damaged or under threat of becoming damaged, the police don’t need to get involved.

Since this happened in a public location, though, the police had to get involved. Fortunately since no one else was hurt and no one’s personal property was damaged, the police only needed to make a traffic report. Tiger Woods submitted what he was required to under the state law for this traffic report, so that should have been the end of it. The police can now hand this over to the city and any interested insurance companies since this is no longer a criminal matter in any way. Done. End of story.

The police have thousands of better things to do than follow up on this non-criminal issue, and I hope the police chief in the area has the stones to tell the media just that. CNN is inflaming non-issues to give facetime to idiots.

Cartoon Network News’ real motivation is painfully clear with their closing statement…

“CNN: A story in last week’s National Enquirer alleged that Woods has been seeing a New York night club hostess. The woman has denied any affair with Woods to The Associated Press. She’s also apparently retained attorney Gloria Allred.”

Hey CNN. Quit that. The National Enquirer and the Globe are far better at this kind of “journalism” than you are.