Pretty grim title, eh? Not really such a grim podcast — mostly reflections on how we pass along all this new info that’s not really likely to show up in our wills. Like server passwords and the like. Heck, there’s even a business in there for somebody to start.
A wonderful geek project at the farm, putting up a weather station. I recount the adventure while simultaneously whining about my back, which went out for the first time in at least a decade yesterday.
This is the GeezerCast where I am hoping to forever depart from the “howcum the polls are so out of step with the government” ploy that I’ve been using. Darn nifty election, you bet. I also recount a few farm implement adventures, which also turned out just fine.
I took a week off from GeezerCast to head off to the Targeted Traffic conference in Florida. It’s a great gang and I enjoyed myself no end, but I came away with an observation for you my unborn grandchildren. When there’s a new industry, like this one, there’s opportunity created as that industry matures. One of those opportunities, it seems to me, is to introduce the age-old notions of professional selling and sales management. I met a lot of people who either want to sell to me, or for me, at the conference and for the most part their marketing and sales techniques are pretty primitive. So I decided to devote a GeezerCast to those observations.
We (especially Marcie) spend a huge amount of time and energy restoring our farm to the native habitat that was here before settlers came. I spend a little time talking about where we get the seeds for that project along with some other prairie-farming tidbits.
Usually I read you the polls and scratch my head. This time I read the polls and express hope that maybe we can do something to change the policy direction in Washington.
We visited Richard at Northland College this weekend and I was honored to be a guest on the award-winning Tea Time at 12 radio show that he co-hosts with his friends Kevin and Dan. I realized after my guest-shot was over that Richard really wanted me to tell old-geezer stories about my community radio days. So I decided to put of few of them in this here Geezercast instead — maybe Rich can play them on WRNC some time to make up for my mistake.
Ze Frank has all us Sports Racers (check out The Show to find out more, or if you’re really into it check out his whole site — well worth the journey) mashing up a cool vocal track by a mystery guy named Ray. There are some interesting issues that have arisen now that it’s looking like Ray is an inner-city black preacher in St Louis who has trouble with Jewish people. I play the tracks I made up, and explore those issues, in this podcast.
Rich pulled a boomerang fish act and headed back to Northland College after two miserable weeks at George Washington University. I think he did the right thing and spend this Geezercast exploring the difference between a good decision and a bad outcome (along with embarrassing Richard all to heck, which is my duty as a parent). Along the way I talk about sunk costs, “Blink” and why I think sometimes we put too much emphasis on “toughing it out” when in fact you shouldn’t — a lesson that applies to business as well as personal decisions.
This is a longer-than-normal GeezerCast ’cause I’m trying to encapsulate why I’m not keen on municipal WiFi projects and I couldn’t quite fit it into the normal 10 minute slot.
One of the things that has me bugged is that these projects don’t look like they’ll ever make money. I went so far as to post a financial model out there on the ‘net. Let’s do a little open-source financial modeling here and get these numbers out into the light of day instead of in the heads of the Voodoo consultants who are making lots of money walking cities down the primrose path.
If you don’t like my (wildly unprofitable) model, fix it! I’d love to be proven wrong — but right now it looks to me like we’re not solving the digital divide, we’re distracting ourselves from the real issue of open-access networks, and we’re putting cities on the hook for some very expensive project failures down the line.