Listening to a song from Owl City (Adam Young)'s latest CD, I was wondering if there's a newer one on the way. What better way to find out than ask on Twitter (I'm @DaveTaylor)? So I sent out:

I figured the best thing to do was link to an MP3 so I did a quick Google search and saw amazon.com listed. I clicked thru to the Amazon.com downloadable MP3 of "Fireflies", Adam's biggest hit so far. A link to that page in a responding tweet and I'd shared the meme:

It was only a click or two to preview some of their tracks and ascertain that, yes, The Postal Service is pretty similar to Owl City.

The result? I just bought a new CD in a very 21st Century version of musical discovery. Cool.

Actually, Jim sent me a copy a week or two ago, and it is pretty darn fascinating reading. His subtitle sort of says it all: This Book Will Make You Money: How to Use Attention-Getting Online Marketing to Increase Your Revenue.

What's cool is that Jim's offering up two signed copies of the book for free to you, my readers and online community!

If you'd like to be in the running, leave a comment by Aug 31st. Instead of just saying "me! me!", however, I encourage you to share an anecdote or story about you buying a service or product based purely on your learning about it through social networks or the online world.

For me, it's a daily occurrence. I'm a film reviewer (see Dave On Film for my reviews) and need to take notes in the dark theater, so I am constantly searching for low-illumination light-up pens. Inevitably, my search starts not with Amazon.com but with Google, and if I read testimonials from people I'm sold. How do some companies get this level of customer attention while others don't? That's exactly what Jim addresses in his book.

As Jim Kukral explains in the marketing material for the book: "In three parts, you'll discover everything you need to know to get off the ground and thrive in the social media sphere, including: The tools, techniques and tricks to get attention online and turn that attention into profit; The theory behind the importance of making your mark on the Internet; and How other businesses and individuals made money from online marketing."

It's a good read. And you can have a copy for free. Just leave a comment...

Mark Papermaster was the head of the iPhone and iPod division at Apple and therefore the man responsible for a lot of shenanigans that transpired in the last few months (think "stolen iPhone prototype", for example, or "missing white iPhone 4") culminating in the PR disaster of so-called "antennagate", the media frenzy over antenna problems in the popular device.

As an aside, I have an iPhone 4 and don't have any particular problems with my antenna, but it does drop calls left and right, as all my previous iPhones have also done. The iPhone 4 is a great portable computer but a mediocre phone. At best.

Meanwhile, over at my former alma-mater Hewlett-Packard (I worked there for five years, then did consulting work with Walter Hewlett afterwards), the long-slow burn of executives continues. First it was Carly Fiorina, who I've written about more than once on this blog, and now it's Hurd, the guy who was brought in to "rescue" HP from the post-Fiorina doldrums. To be fair, Hurd has done a good job and HP's prospects are good, but he also continued the evolutionary change that Fiorina started, the dismantling of the mythic HP Way that Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard had always made a core value of the company.

I don't want to rehash it all this many years later, but will just say that it's a long time since HP had a consumer hit and that discarding the "Next Bench" philosophy (e.g., "build things you'd want to buy") might have not been such a bright move after all. Still, the company has good financials and is a significant player in the corporate space (though I'll cynically suggest that's due to the long, slow death of Sun Microsystems).

Hurd forgot that being CEO doesn't make you immune to the requirement for ethical behavior and when he realized the Board of Directors was going to find out about his dalliance with HP contractor Jodie Fisher (the NYT coyly says "Mr. Hurd, who is married, has settled the matter with Ms. Fisher for an undisclosed sum."), he knew he was in trouble. Instead of resigning, though, the HP Board of Directors had to give him the boot, which at this level translates into them telling him to resign.

When your boss has to apologize for your division's design flaws, it's never good.

I'm not alone in this interpretation of Hurd's mistakes. Alex Dobuzinskis at Reuters says almost the same thing about Fiorina and Hurd nailing closed the coffin of the HP Way in his piece "Fiorina, Hurd: No practitioners of the HP Way", and Ben Worthen at the Journal also writes about how "Hurd Neglected to Follow HP Way".

Curious about Mark Papermaster's story? The SF Chronicle reports that it was a cultural difference with Apple vs. Papermaster's previous employer, IBM: "At the end of the day, it might have been that he didn't have enough t-shirts and blue jeans in his closet", an angle echoed by MacRumors, but that's bogus. Almost always, "cultural differences" is a cover for unacceptable performance and I can't think of a worse example of corporate embarrassment than fabled Apple's iPhone 4 release.

What interests me about both of these situations is that in both cases the executives felt that they were immune to the consequences of their actions. Papermaster presumably watched the flame-out of the popular but flawed iPhone 4 as the media lambasted Apple for its shortcomings, secure that it wasn't his fault, really. Hurd was dating Fisher -- and putting their rendezvous on the corporate expense account -- without even a second thought too. Mark, you make millions of dollars, you couldn't spring for dinner at Il Fornaio or similar out of your own wallet?

I am glad both of these guys were fired, actually. Not for their careers, but because it reaffirms that all of us, whether a lowly assembly line worker or a senior executive, are responsible for our actions and need to make the smartest and most ethical decisions we can make, and that we have to live with the consequences of these actions. It's also not a surprise that both guys were fired rather than realizing their error and resigning.

Life gives us challenges. The test is how you deal with them.

And here's what's weird: it's sure not from lack of trying. Sony has some of the very best designers and researchers in the world and every year they wow people at the Consumer Electronics Show and elsewhere. But somehow their brand has long since stopped being synonymous with cool, hip, state-of-the-art.

The latest experiment from Sony is with its new high-end "ES" ("Elevated Standard") (no, really, that's what it stands for) series of audio/visual receivers and Blu-ray players. Based on a report in TWICE, Sony is going to limit sales of these product lines to custom installers and A/V specialty retailers while prohibiting sales over the Internet, including through Sony's own SonyStyle.com online store.

Now these aren't $10,000 ultra-high-end home theater components for the richest of the very rich, they're multizone receivers in the $1000-$2000 price range. The Blu-ray players sound even more interesting, with a $399 suggested retail price entry device, the ES Blu-ray players will all have built-in wi-fi, iphone/ipod app and Quick Start startup, along with IR input and 3D compatibility and built-in Netflix, Pandora, YouTube and Crackle software for streaming directly onto your TV.

Given that online retail outlets like Amazon.com have Blu-ray players that range from ridiculously cheap up to thousands of dollars, include the $1400 Sony Blu-ray "mega changer" and $1500 Sony (BDP-S5000ES) Blu-ray Disc Player. To explain the latter's appearance on Amazon, I believe it's because it's a 2009 model year ES player: it's the 2010 ES lineup that will be unavailable online.

Still, I find this baffling. A Blu-ray player is a plug-and-play commodity component, why wouldn't Sony want to maximize its sales by making it as widely available as possible?

TWICE explains:

"The ES distribution change "will help reinvigorate" the specialty and custom channels, reward those installers and specialists "who have been loyal to Sony for many years," and provide an opportunity for ES to expand its custom/specialty dealer base, said Brian Siegel, VP of Sony's home A/V group.

"ES has been for the past few years essentially widely distributed" and available through "many national accounts" and Internet sellers, Siegel said. A/V specialists and installers, he continued, have said ES offers great products and programs but that the previous distribution strategy "made it easier to do business with other manufacturers."

"Sony ES "should be the No. 1 AVR brand in the specialty channel, and this [distribution strategy] is a way to do that," Siegel asserted."

I haven't stepped foot in a specialty or custom channel store in years. I have done my research online and purchased my TV, Blu-ray player, iPod docks, computers, and just about every other piece of consumer electronics from online vendors. How about you?

Btw, I am definitely interested in learning more about the new ES Blu-ray player line, so I'll keep my eye out for more information. I'm just afraid that without subscribing to a high end audio/video magazine I'll never see anything now...

Now they've introduced their new privacy settings and have a "Recommended" option. But check it out...

First, here's my default privacy setting with the new fancy grid display:

I'm pretty public, but you can see that on Facebook I really like to limit my information to friends or friends-of-friends, rather than everyone. The only info I share with the world at large -- the 500 million Facebook users -- is my bio and favorite quotations.

Click on "Recommended", however, and check out what it suggests:

Yup, Facebook believes that "privacy" = "share most everything with everyone on the service", including all your status updates, photos, and even notes that you leave (which for many people means their blog posts, with the RSS feed tracked by Facebook). Really?

if you want recommended settings, choose Friends of Friends instead, at least:

That's a bit better, though with the multiplication of the social graph your 500 friends could mean that 25,000 people are seeing your status updates, etc., which might not be what you want either.

Oh, and while you're at it, find and check this area out too:

And Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of teh Facebook team, can you please just encourage people towards more privacy rather than less? That's kinda what we're upset about, after all...

Here's what I'll be covering:

"In this one-of-a-kind program you will be immersed into the world of web marketing from one of the smartest and most experienced expert in the industry! In one week you'll be introduced to proven strategies for growing your online audience with qualified traffic. You'll learn the fundamental principals and insider tips for search engine optimization, pay-for-placement advertising, social media marketing and other more. This program will give you the knowledge and skills necessary to provide these immensely valuable and in-demand services for all organizations who need to grow their online audiences - all in one week and one place."

In a nutshell, my plan is to have a very hands-on intensive week of teaching you how to really work the modern Web to promote your business and services, all within the context of best practices and completely ethical techniques.

What we won't work on is "how to get a ton of followers" or "how to game search engines" but instead to focus on how to build your brand, gain trust and authority, and create an online community of fans that are ready and eager to purchase what you're selling.

I've taught a ton of workshops, seminars and even offered keynote talks to a wide variety of groups, but this is the first time in a very long time that I'm offering a week-long hands-on event. If you've wanted to work with me in the past, this is a splendid opportunity to come out and enjoy beautiful Boulder, Colorado and gain a ton of practical, actionable ideas and techniques to help grow your business.

More details, signup, etc: Web Marketing and Social Media Certificate Program.

I hope to see you there. Oh, and no, we won't be videotaping it or streaming it live on the Internet. This is a hands-on workshop where you'll want to be working with me for the week to ensure you gain the maximum benefit possible.

Turns out his background is as fascinating as he is. Here's an interview we did so you can learn more about Vincent too. I'm honored to consider him a friend.

Q: Let's start by you sharing some of your early background. You were in the US Army band, right? Didja get sick of playing Hail to the Chief? Do you still play?

A. Never got sick of Hail to the Chief but, there were one or two dirges I could do without listening to for the remainder of my life! :-) By the way: I still play but not for outside performances... just for the pure love of the saxophone. Loved it my whole life...always will. (Adolph Sax did a wonderful job in inventing it for us.)

Q: You left the Army and became an IT recruiter for Fortune 500 companies. Tell us about that transition? What do you think you brought from your military experience and musical experience to the task?

A. Actually, I became a Computer Programmer before becoming an IT Recruiter. (I like to tease that after someone saw some of my COBOL source code, they suggested that I'd be a much better Recruiter of IT professionals than to actually be one myself! (I was always an enthusiastic lover of computers but, never was that good at programming them! :-) )

A bit more seriously: As computers were being explained to us at the Aetna Institute for Corporate Education back in the early 1980's, I think that the concepts of discipline from the Army as well as being comfortable with abstract thinking from music helped Aetna choose to give me a chance to be a Computer Programmer.

Q: Finding a job and/or finding an ideal candidate has definitely changed over the last decade with the rise of LinkedIn, Facebook, Monster.com, and many other online tools. How did you see that affect your own efforts in the IT and executive recruitment space?

A. Though corporations have the same access to them as we do, the advent of Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, and other such social media tools is a great benefit to those Recruiters who use them the right way. The right way is not using tricks but, rather, interacting with professionals who see you as a human being and not as a trickster... Professionals get to KNOW their doctors, barbers, hairdressers, etc. so, I like for professionals to get to KNOW ME...Both on the candidate AND client side, those who are comfortable with me as a person, quite often will turn to me as a professional to help them with them employment needs... I encourage other recruiters to consider this approach, as well.

Q: Do you still help companies with their recruitment activities? Can you sketch for us how you approach finding a great candidate for a position nowadays?

A. I still help companies with their recruitment activities and enjoy it tremendously. Based on a concept I call "C.I.A. or Confluence, Influence, Affluence, the process of finding a great candidate is fairly straightforward for me. Confluence essentially means bringing together LOTS of great people. Influence means getting involved with them. Affluence, in this particular instance, is comparable to "human capital" Have you influenced enough of the right people to help position you to more quickly find and get to know the professionals you need for your client companies...

Q: Why did you create My LinkedIn Power Forum?

A. Back in 2005, I created My Linkedin Power Forum to help answer questions for the people whom I began inviting to Linkedin. Many weren't clear on what Linkedin could do for them so, I found myself answering the same questions over and over and over. Figuring that I could more effectively answer more if I proactively answered them for hundreds of professionals CONCURRENTLY, I set up My Linkedin Power Forum. (By the way: the forum now has 8,500 members and is located at www.SocialMediaConsortium.com )

Q: In your official bio, you state that you've "founded hundreds of professional discussion groups serving tens of thousands of professionals from around the world". How do you keep it all straight?

A. Well, Dave, founding those hundred of professionals discussion groups serving tens of thousands of professionals from around the world was SUPPOSED to be TEMPORARY! But, five years later, I'm just now getting a handle on reducing them to a sane number which I ultimately hope to be no more than a dozen groups in the next few months..

Q: Given your extensive experience creating and managing online professional discussion groups, what do you see is still lacking in the toolset we have from sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Ning that you wish was available?

A. THE thing still lacking in the toolset for sites like Facebook, Linkedin, Ning, and Twitter which I wish were available is this: data portability. If data portability were around as I see it in my mind, I believe I would have been a far richer man! :-)

More seriously: Creating profile after profile after profile is such an archaic means. It's almost like having to get a new drivers license every time we went from one state to another in the United States of America. It also reminds me of the nightmare which Object Oriented Technology solved with the Y2K mess... (I wish someone would help develop www.ProfileOrientedTechnology.com :-) ) (And, too, NONE of the sites you mentioned are set up quite right...they're okay...they're workable...but, there's a LOT more that a site could do to add a LOT more power to the billions of people who need better control of the information via the Internet....)

Q: If we may, can you share how you generate revenue from these many discussion groups you've created, Vincent? You're clearly performing an awesome community service, but that doesn't pay the mortgage. :-)

A. The revenue I generate via my discussion groups is minimal. They actually weren't set up for revenue but, rather, for genuinely serving the members of my network... After donating between 7,5000 and 10,000 hours to help people get better acclimated to social media, I've overcome my apparent allergy to money and, thus, am looking at various ways of monetizing what I love doing: creating and managing professional discussion groups.

Q: That's great. On behalf of the many people who have been positively influenced by your efforts, let me say Thanks! So tell us, what's next? What are the cool things on your horizon?

A. Next, I'm working on www.BrandSeed.com, which is designed to help individuals and companies design, develop, and deliver a stronger brand for their products and services. The coolest thing I'm working on AFTER that is a meta-methodology I created using the hand as a metaphor. Candidly, I've spent a LARGE portion of my life loving this concept which I facetiously call: HANDSONOMY or HANDONTOLOGY

Q: Finally, give us a few URLs. Tell us about the things you've done online that you're most proud of. Oh, and perhaps a link to somewhere we can hear your sax playing too?

A. Dave, First: I'd like to thank you for honoring me with an opportunity to be interviewed by one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE authors.

Second: Here are a few of my favorite URL's via which I'm happy to have spent time helping thousands of professionals:
1. http://MyLinkingPowerForum.ning.com
2. http://MyFacebookPowerForum.com
3. http://SocialMediaConsortium.com
4. http://LinkingVentureCapital.com
5. http://MyJobTIGER.com

Thanks again for this terrific interview, Vincent. Readers, I encourage you to check out some of what he's doing to really push the envelope on social networking with his passion and enthusiasm!

If you've been to any seminars, workshops or professional conferences, you know just what I'm talking about. Speakers like to use Powerpoint or equivalent tools -- I certainly do! -- but incredibly few have even half a clue about what works when it's projected on a screen in front of an audience and it's a problem.

I'm not going to publish a screed saying that no speakers should use Powerpoint because that's an extreme position that I don't support. In fact, being able to have your key point, illustration or demonstration on screen while talking is a gift to your audience. But making it comprehensible? That's what I want to talk about instead.

Rule One: Use High-Contrast Colors and Simple Designs

Presentation tools have tons of cool themes that look really good on your screen when you're building your presentation. Yup, those flaming letters and that complicated background photo look wicked when you preview it, but when it's projected onto a large screen it's confusing, detracts from the information on the slide, and can render an entire presentation unreadable.

Simple solution: pick simple, high-contrast color schemes. This means, for example, that black text on a strong red background (as the speaker used a few days ago) are terrible and should be avoided. Black on a very faint pink background? Maybe. If you experiment with a projector, however, you'll find that light text on a dark background is typically easier to read than vice-versa, depending on room conditions.

Here's an example before and after. On the left, the purple on black looked really cool on screen, but will be completely unreadable when projected. On the right, same slide, with a far more contrasty, far more readable:

Ugh!	Ahhh.... better.

Just as importantly, pick a design that's simple and free of clutter. Sure, there are fun templates that make your slides look like a scrapbook or a cool computer display from a futuristic sci-fi film, but they're a distraction for the audience. If you really, really can't resist, use them for your opening or closing title slides, but the main slides should be free of distractions. Your audience will appreciate it, trust me.

Rule Two: Less Stuff, Bigger

There's no rule that is more annoying to see violated than the minimum density requirement for information shown to an audience. This proves to be true in just about every medium, not just public speaking, but seems to be most commonly violated in this setting.

Here's an easy rule of thumb: don't put lots of stuff on your slide.

Yow, that's just complicated!

When you're viewing it on your computer screen, it's also easy to sneak in an extra bullet point, one more pithy quote, or a few more lines from the example output you want to explain. Problem is, it's completely different when you're in the 17th row in an auditorium and it's projected on a screen.

Here's an easy way to remember this: if you have text that's smaller than about 24 point, it's probably too small. I endeavor to never get below 36 point on my slides, personally, but sometimes I let smaller text creep in (and typically regret it later).

Rule Three: More Slides, Less Stuff Per Slide

Another rule that the speaker violated in the talk was that they thought they'd be efficient by having supporting material for multiple concepts on a single slide. You know what I'm talking about, it's the slide with the financial results presented as three separate graphs, it's the montage of products or users, it's busy, busy, busy and ultimately confusing.

The best presentations have a single concept per slide and no more.

Heck, Tom Peters, the guy I studied to learn how to become a better public speaker, typically has one-word slides. Nothing else, just a single word. Awesome.

A typical Tom Peters slide

If you want to make more than one point, have more than one slide. It's okay. There are no rules that say thou shalt not have more than 10 slides!

This also means that if you are finding that you have so much information that you need to choose a smaller typeface (remember rule two?) then what you need to do instead is spread it across multiple slides. It's okay. In fact, your audience will appreciate it!

Trust me, background graphics can be distracting...

Rule Four: Don't Read Your Slides

This isn't really a rule for creating presentations but more of a public speaking tip, but you'll cut me some slack, right? With precious few exceptions, you should never have full sentences on your slides and you should certainly never face the screen and read them. Heck, everyone in the audience is looking at the slides anyway, so unless you're auditioning for a new voiceover job, you'll do better to give them a few seconds to absorb the content if you must have full sentences or paragraphs of material, then proceed with your presentation.

It's also boring to see/hear a speaker read their slide to me. I can read, thanks, and I read way faster than you are going to read it to me. Instead, I want to know why: why did you use this material, what's profound about it, why should I care about what you're showing me?

Rule Five: Sexy Transitions are a Distraction

Yeah, the latest generation of presentation tools (notably Apple's Keynote) have some super-cool transitions that make for really great demos on your computer screen, but when you're in front of a crowd, the reality is that the more attractive the transition, the more that's what they'll remember. Do you want to be "that guy who had the cool slides" or "the guy who made some superb points and knows his stuff"?

Powerpoint 2010 transition options, ready to derail you

Resist the siren song of shiny - SQUIRREL! - and stick with the basic transitions for your presentations. I suggest this rule for the same reason I encourage you to skip complex slide designs: you want people to focus on you and what you're saying, not your slides and their appearance.

Better Slides = Simplify

Let me summarize all of these points up for you, dear reader: simplify, simplify, simplify.

That's really what makes great slides and a dynamic, compelling public presentation. It's about the ideas, it's about your charisma and ability to engage your audience, it's not about your slides. Ever.

I hope this is helpful. Want to learn more? Turns out there are some pretty darn good books on the market about how to create compelling presentations, and it's time well spent learning from the pros. Just search Amazon.com for "powerpoint presentations" or similar.

"I had been to ur site, its very useful information u have provided on this site, i want to know if in the interview if they ask u "tell me about you, & your strengths & weakness, how to answer them. pls suggest some tips or examples."

The question itself is an interesting one because it points to a dilemma that people have when they're on a job interview: if someone asks you about your strengths and weaknesses, do you be straightforward and honest, risking sounding like a high risk as a potential employee, or do you tweak your response to come across as honest but still aware that you're on an interview?

I'm reminded of when a casual friend asks "How ya doing?" because it's the same dilemma. if you're not doing well, do you start sharing your troubles with them, or are they really just saying "hi" but aren't actually interested in what's going on, just being polite?

Obviously, saying "weakness? I have no weaknesses!" isn't going to go over well, even if you're interviewing to join a band of superheroes. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and masking it just makes you see a bit dim. Oh, and a weakness like "I work too much" or "I have no life outside of work and love what I do" can come across a bit sycophantic.

To get more input, I asked a group of colleagues on LinkedIn how they'd address the situation, and here are their answers:

INTERVIEWER: So, Dave, tell me about yourself.
YOU: I'd love to. Only thing, I don't want to keep you here until midnight. Okay if I ask you a couple of questions, to tailor my remarks?
INTERVIEWER: Shoot.
YOU: I see that you guys got $5M in funding - congratulations on that, by the way -- and so I'd imagine that your life is all about getting your first product to market fast, these days. Is that in the ballpark?
INTERVIEWER: Definitely.
YOU: So, I'm thinking that what's critical for the Office Manager you hire is for that person to be able to support the product developers, meanwhile managing your execs' schedules, setting up some business processes that won't slow the business down, and generally serving as the air traffic controller to keep you guys humming. Is that what you're thinking also?
INTERVIEWER: I'd have to say dead bullseye.
YOU: In that case, it's probably most relevant for me to tell you about my experience at Acme Dynamite. When I started there, there were six of us, and Acme had just launched the first rocket-propelled dynamite sled that's effective against roadrunners. It was absolute chaos, in a good way of course, and so I.....

1] Be prepared on what you are going to tell about this question i.e. be real, be original, irrespective of job type and just go for it. For this you need to understand yourself, study yourself.

2] Study what is the requirement / job u are getting interviewed on. If you are very much sure about soft skills related to that position cover them in your answer, along with your original skills. No need to be honest always and everywhere, provided you are able to justify it.

I use Apple's Keynote for presentations and it's terrific at working with a projector, where the slide is shown on the screen, but on the computer you see a thumbnail of the slide, a smaller thumbnail of the next slide and a timer.

I copied my presentation onto the iPad and made sure I had Keynote ready to go. Some glitches with typefaces and layout, but nothing I couldn't fix in a few minutes of fiddling on the iPad itself. Ready to go!

And then I found out that while the device did a splendid job of driving a projector using the VGA connector ($29 from Apple), what it didn't do was offer anything at all useful on the iPad display itself:

Very disappointing. Even if it didn't show the slides, at least a timer would be useful. It's startling lame actually, and I expect it'll be one of the first things that will change in the first rev of Keynote for iPad.

Another thing I quickly learned is that if you have app notifications turned on, every time you get a notification alert it kills the presentation, drops you back into Keynote edit mode, and makes the projected screen go blank. You confirm receipt of the alert and restart the preso so it's not a nightmare, but, really, can't Keynote pop up "I notice you have Alerts enabled. I recommend you disable them for a presentation. Disable now? Yes / No" or similar?

Since I had the iPad hooked up to a second display, I took advantage of the opportunity to try running different apps and seeing what was second-display aware. Turns out almost nothing is. Netflix? Nope. ABC shows? Nope. Safari? Nope. What did work with the second monitor was iTunes video. Sweet!

I plugged in external speakers and we were enjoying Buckaroo Banzai -- which I had previous ripped from my DVD and copied onto the iPad via iTunes -- on a big, crisp screen. Very nice. The iPad screen was blank during this time, however, which was a bit weird. Why not have it show pause/play controls, volume, etc?

Then I tried to play a bit of Inglorious Basterds, a film I'd bought on the iTunes store, just to bump into this:

Ah, so there are DRM limitations here too.

Anyway, that's a summary of my experience. Not that great, and certainly Keynote worked, but it was surprisingly crude and simplistic compared to the great experience of a two-monitor setup for Keynote on the Mac itself.

What are other people's experiences with the iPad VGA out connector? Any other apps you've found that can utilize it? Is it part of the API and accessible to iPad developers?

That's why I was so impressed when I heard about the latest campaign from Levi Strauss & Co. (ya know, the jeans folk), the "care tag for our planet". Next time you buy a pair of Levi's jeans (well, depending on how quickly it spreads through their channels), your tag might well look like this:

Can you see the bottom lines? It's "DONATE TO GOODWILL WHEN NO LONGER NEEDED AND CARE FOR OUR PLANET".

The campaign is managed by Denver-based PR agency Johnston-Wells and they told me that "the goal of the tag program is not only to divert billions of pounds of unwanted clothing from landfills each year by giving them new use through donations, but also to help those who need affordable, gently used clothing or the services Goodwill provides from the revenue raised at its retail stores."

Next time your jeans are worn out or have mysteriously shrunk to the point where they don't comfortably fit, have a look at the tag, it might just encourage you to drop 'em off at the local Goodwill box.

Here's the wording I was going to use:

Anything I get from you is considered a legal work for hire submission under prevailing US copyright law, which means that you give up ownership of the article, you don't retain copyright, and if we have a falling out down the road (which I, of course, hope doesn't happen) that the article remains my property and I can choose to leave it on the site. If you want to retain copyright, be able to publish it elsewhere, whatever, no worries, glad we hit this now: you won't be able to write for my site and I wish you terrific luck wherever you do end up publishing online. No hard feelings at all.

I asked him for more details, and here's what he generously explained:

Although the general rule is that the person who creates a work is the author of that work, there is an exception to this principle for works called "works made for hire." If a work is "made for hire," the employer, and not the employee, is considered the author.
Section 101(1) of the Copyright Act expressly defines a "work made for hire" as a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment, so, if an individual is considered employee under copyright law, the employer will be the "author" of the work and therefore, the employer will own all of the copyright rights in the work and be entitled to the rights of authors under copyright law.

If an individual who is not considered an employee under copyright law creates a copyrightable work, that individual will be considered the author of the work and, therefore, the owner of that work. However, if that individual is hired to create the work or content contributions created by that individual are accepted online, under Section 101(2) of the Copyright Act, there is an exception this author principle that can make a copyrightable work created by a non-employee a "work made for hire." A non-employee created work can only be a work made for hire if both of the following two conditions are met. First, there needs to be a written agreement signed by both parties that states that the parties expressly agree that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. Second, the work must specially commissioned for use within specified categories. These categories are described in Section 101(2) as follows: "a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a "supplementary work" is a work prepared for a publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes; and an "instructional text" is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities."

If you can't make a strong argument that the created content falls within the categories described above, that content should not be considered a work made for hire under copyright law. If it's not a work made for hire by law, you, the person that hired the individual to create the work, won't be the "author" of the work, and therefore, you won't own the work.

What should you do to make sure you own the work? For any non-employee created work, you should have the author agree to assign all of his or her rights in the work created to you. You won't be the "author" for copyright purposes, but you will own all of the copyright rights in the work. A typical assignment provision may look like this:
You agree that all content that you provide to me will be my sole and exclusive property. You hereby irrevocably and unconditionally assigns to me all right, title, and interest worldwide in and to such content and all intellectual property rights to such content.
There are other terms that should be included in any copyright assignment, so you should contact your attorney for assistance in drafting any such agreement.

You will often see a "work made for hire" provision included in agreements with non-employee contractors. It should not be used in place of an assignment provision, but it can be used in addition to an assignment provision as a "belt and suspenders" option. However, if the contractor is an individual, it is possible that characterizing content as a work made for hire could have adverse consequences for you because it is possible that the contractor may be characterized as an employee for purposes of unemployment insurance and workers' compensation obligations (as a result of the relationship being treated as an employer-employee relationship). You and your attorney should analyze and determine the risk of including work made for hire language in any contract that you have with an individual.

See Circular 9 [PDF] on the Copyright Office web site for more information.

So instead I've been working on creating a content submission agreement that's focused on granting a license that offers the protections I seek. When I've nailed down the wording, I'll add it to this blog posting, but in the meantime, if you're considering hiring people to write for your blog or other site and have been categorizing them as works for hire, this should give you pause.

And thanks again to Ben Oelsner of Kendall, Koenig & Oelsner PC for his invaluable insight into this nuanced situation.

I thought that my response might be of interest to others, so I'm publishing it here too...

Hi Dave. I am currently taking Blogging 2.0 at [[major university]] and need to research Business Blogs. I am doing my "analysis of a Blog" on your blog and wanted to ask you two questions and have them answered by tomorrow midday if possible. (My assignment is due tomorrow evening.)

Great. I look forward to reading your assignment when you're done. Hopefully you'll have some insight and suggestions on ways I can improve things!

First, It seems like you do quite a bit of advertising for different companies. Is it free or are you compensated?

All advertising involves a financial relationship, whether it's free products for ads or money changing hands. Most all of my ads are through an advertising network run by Google called AdSense. You can learn more about it at http://www.google.com/adsense if you'd like.

Other ads are typically performance based: I don't get paid to run the ad, but if someone clicks on it and buys the merchant's product, I receive a small commission on the sale.

My blog Ask Dave Taylor is a business venture: I have put thousands of hours of my time into creating and maintaining the site and it's supported by advertising and adjunct revenue sources. It pays my mortgage and lets me feed my kids, so that's all good.

Secondly, If I were to consider advertising on my blog what would be the best and easiest way to start. (The blog was also created for school but I'd like to continue after the class ends.

The first thing to realize is that it's really darn hard to earn more than a few dollars/month on a blog. You have to work at it for years, produce good content, and write about something interesting to an audience that is also likely to buy related products or services. In other words, if your blog is "money saving tips" it's not going to make as much off ad revenue as "best high-end fashion purses". Make sense?

Having said that, I am a big fan of AdSense, as mentioned earlier. If you have good content and put the ads front and center, hopefully you can make a bit of money and get enthused to push further.

Good luck!

My topics: Are bloggers a meaningful part of the journalism landscape and how do bloggers make money blogging? I came prepared to discuss both topics, based on advance input and what I think are topics that should be important to students about to be pushed out into the bleak, unforgiving world of modern journalism.

I didn't expect a particularly warm welcome from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, though, because as I have learned from a number of students and community members, many people in the department are convinced that they're the last bastion of true journalism and that the entire online world is worthless and that we're going to hell in a handbasket as democracy dies in lockstep with journalism dying.

The first question I had for the class, about 25 students, mixed male/female, was "how many of you have a blog?" One gal bravely raised her hand. "Okay, how many of you have a blog or write "Notes" on Facebook or otherwise write with some frequency?" Two hands went up. That's it. I was pretty darn surprised, needless to say. Journalism and mass communications students who aren't writers? And they're worried that us forward-thinking geeks are poisoning the well?

Then their instructor, Professor Dean Colby, jumped into the fray, positing that traditional, mainstream media is the heart of all journalism and that online bloggers "just aggregate but ultimately point back to traditional journalists". His position, as far as I could tell, is that since bloggers and online commentators don't have traditional journalistic training they have to piggyback on those that do, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and so on.

"Did you read the article in yesterday's New York Times about mom bloggers?" I asked. He hadn't, but two students had (extra points for them!) "That's the opposite of what you're talking about: that's a mainstream media piece written by a blogger likely without any journalistic training."

"Ah, okay, but all bloggers are commentators, not reporters." I got in response.

Okay, I can go down this rabbit hole, with some glee, truth be told, it's a favorite topic of mine and I've explored it from stage more than once...

"So can I debunk a popular myth of journalism? There is no such thing as objectivity. All journalists, all publications, all media is biased. Don't believe me? Compare the headlines in different papers for the exact same story. You can instantly see their bias. Or compare how two writers can "objectively" report on an event differently. Word choice, phrasing, how quotes are assembled, it all contributes."

And so it went. We talked about how CNN is a bastion of journalism, except it now also relies on iReport reporters who don't have any formal training, just a camera and access, and we did talk about how bloggers make money through advertising, sponsorships, and affiliate programs, using Dr. Colby's fave site Denver Stiffs (a sports site) as an example.

Ultimately, it was an interesting conversation, but it's been a while since I felt like I was in the position of defending what I see as the natural evolution of media and journalism. As I feared, my impression of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication remains that it's a dinosaur howling at the impending climate change, it's King Canute standing on the beach, commanding "Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!" even as the waves implacably roll in.

The world of information dissemination is evolving before our eyes, going from four channels of television to hundreds to thousands, from one or two major newspapers per community to dozens, and from mainstream outlets to everything being an outlet. Journalism is surely just as much about speed of dissemination as it is digging up the muck (a relatively modern invention in the journalistic world, btw), so Twitter users breaking the news of the Chilean earthquake way before any news outlets do is a harbinger of the future, not a change to be feared.

My thoughts to the students in the class are twofold. First, things change. Deal with it or be obsolete. The market determines what's important, not your professors. Second, writers write. You should be writing every single day, even if it's restaurant reviews or letters to your favorite pals. It's a muscle, exercise it and you'll thrive in a changing world of information.

And finally, to the department, this sea change in the world of news, journalism and information dissemination is way too big to deny and fear. Embrace it. Jump into the pool and see what happens. Otherwise you're failing at the core mission of the School of Journalism: to produce journalists ready for the modern world and what will come tomorrow.

But that's just an excuse. I just want one. :-)

So when I learned that pre-orders for the new iPad were going to happen at 5.30am PST on March 12, 2010, I dutifully set the alarm on my Apple iPhone to wake up at 6.25am MST and try to get to the head of the line. After all, it wouldn't be cool if my friends had one and I was still on the $#@$&# waiting list, would it?

I fired up Twitter, so I could watch the iPad chatter, and went to the Apple Store, where I got to see this:

Then, at precisely 6.30am, I saw a tweet that "Pre-orders have begun!! Whoohoo!" and refreshed one more time:

Well, heck, it's so early I'm a bit groggy, but I think I know what I want! Click on the "pre-order" button and:

Lots of options. Since I have a Verizon mifi unit, I have always just been interested in the Wi-fi version: I don't want to pay yet another cell bill to get data access through yet another device anyway. Size? Well, the smallest is inevitably going to be too small once I drop some films and my music and photo library on it (not to mention a ton of games!), and my iPhone is 16GB so... coin flip... a 32GB unit sounds nice. That's what I order.

A surprising number of accessories are included, notably a dock and a cable that lets you get VGA out of the iPad (what, no HDMI? No DVI? Interesting), but after a moments thought, I decide that the accessories will be easy to acquire later and skip 'em all on my pre-order.

$599 for the privilege of being an early adopter? Suuurrreeee....

Add $45.89 in Colorado sales tax and $12.00 shipping to get it a wee bit early and I click on the "Place Order Now" button.

Fingers crossed, hoping the Apple Store doesn't glitch, and ...

YES! SCORE!!!

Now the almost impossible wait for the product to actually ship and arrive.

Man, I am such a fanboy. But I admit it, and that's part of the solution, right? :-)