I was rejected by AdAge

Originally published at DogWalkBlog

I received an email from Charlie Moran yesterday, stating that my blog was just not good enough for them to care about at AdAge. Here is his email.

Thanks for submitting your blog to the Power 150. Unfortunately, because of high demand, we can only accept applicants who score at least 20 total objective points, that is, before a Todd Score is added into your total. Here is your point breakdown:

Yahoo InLinks (1 to 30): 1
Technorati Ranking (1 to 20): 1
Technorati Authority (1 to 20): 1
Technorati InLinks (1 to 20): 1
Alexa Points (1 to 15): 2
Bloglines Subscribers (1 to 10): 1
Google PageRank (0 to 10): 4
Collective Intellect (0 to 10): 0
TOTAL: 11

You are welcome to resubmit your blog once you’ve built up some more links and influence, although we ask that you wait at least three months before doing so. Hopefully, you’ll make it in next time, and, if not, there’s no limit to the amount of times you can reapply, as long as they’re three months apart.

If you have any questions about this policy, please check out my blog post about it and/or drop me an email, and I’ll be glad to help.

Thanks,
Charlie Moran

It is hard to argue about the in-coming links and Technorati stuff, even though I have been blogging here since 2005. See the first blog, started appropriately enough, with an end.

But, to score a 0 on Collective Intellect? Why doesn’t Mr. Moran just take a big ol’ bag of salt and just start pouring. Then, after that, he just wind up and take a big kick to my ribs.

What Mr. Moran missed when he rejected my blog was a chance to connect with a user of the marketing technology, not just a prophet of the technology whose use of the technology feeds into the validation of the prophesy. What Mr. Moran missed was that even small dogs can be big. What Mr. Moran missed was that he was just as guilty of using “big media” metrics to rank the “new media” as the new media guys rail against. Interestingly ironic.

Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. As more people are joining the social media movement, there seem to be just as many who work double-time to keep them out. Very much like a high school clique.

I’m not as popular as Seth Godin or as enamored with Web 2.0 stuff as Chris Brogan, but for the few people who read me faithfully when I share my thoughts, I like to think I am in their Top 150.

And worth every minute they spend with me, for which I am unconditionally grateful as only a puppy can be.

PS: From now on, I’m just going to focus on communities who recognize even small dogs are worth paying attention to, like Guy Kawasaki and Neenz at Alltop.com who welcomed me with open paws.

How the US Postal Service blows its brand every December

USPS Santa Letter Box at Englewood OH 45322

Every December, Santa hands the US Postal Service a shiny new opportunity to rebrand itself as a lovable, caring organization that is an integral part of all 43,000+ Zip Codes it services. Every year, the USPS blows it terribly.

I found myself in the Englewood OH 45322 Post Office last Friday about 4:00pm. Ironically enough, I had forgotten it was Christmas and there might be a line. There was. But that was a good thing because it gave me an opportunity to look around, read all the signs on the walls, thumb through the FBI wanted sheets, straighten the certified mail postcards and Priority Mail envelopes and stickers. And then, I noticed a wrapped box on top of the glass case.

It was a box so kids can drop in their letters to Santa Claus. In truth, it was a spare box somebody found in the back. Perhaps another employee went to Big Lots and bought the cheapest wrapping paper they could find with Santa faces all over it, wrapped it hastily, punched a hole in the top and wrote “Santa Letters” on a card and glued it to the top.

What it should be is an opportunity that comes once a year that every postal employee is excited to be a part of.

What it should be is a old-tyme mail box, encrusted with candy canes and icicles, covered in snow with reindeer prints leading up to it.

What it should be is a production for every kid in the Zip Code area to go to their local Post Office to drop their one and only Santa letter into the magical mail box that only comes out the Friday after Thanksgiving and goes away when the post office closes the day before Christmas Eve.

What it should be is a tradition that kids mark on their calendar like an Easter egg hunt, their birthday and Santa coming down the chimney on Christmas Eve.

The US Post Office — in Englewood, Oh anyway — has taken an opportunity to market itself for free and turned the Santa drop into an obligatory wrapped box, stuck on a glass counter, too high for most kids to reach and too nondescript for them to care about.

Don’t worry, Postmaster General John E. Potter, this little pesky holiday will be over in eleven days and all your postal workers can get back to work and quit worrying about kids coming in wanting to mail their letters to Santa Claus.

What are the little brats doing running around a post office anyways. Don’t they know there are lines to stand in, postal standards to adhere to and stupid questions about perishable or hazardous materials to answer?

Bonus Material:
This is some bonus material that was knocking around my brain, was kinda related, too much for a tweet and not enough for another blog post, so here goes.

Other unfriendly stuff I saw while waiting in line: FBI wanted sheets, sign that said: passports by appointment only! Hours: 10am-2pm, no Fridays, sign that said in all caps NO DOGS! (presumably cats are ok), a long list of crap we can’t mail, the rules of standing in line, including no cell phones… and the ever ubiquitous, but entirely unnecessary barking when it is your turn… “NEXT!!!!!!!!!!!!” *sigh*

Originally posted at DogWalkBlog.com

You suck! Your comment sucks!

You write a blog post and post it. Someone comes onto your blog and has an alternative point of view. But, instead of engaging this commenter in a logical argument, you lash out at him, belittling his point of view and then using sarcastic remarks in subsequent comments. Is that smart?

This recently happened to me. (I won’t mention the blog because that would result in more traffic.) When I first read the author’s post, I thought it was insightful, but lacking in a couple of key areas. After reading the author’s immature response to my observations, I now think the author is a bit immature, perhaps even an idiot. I won’t be back to his blog — not because I got my feeling hurt — but because there is probably not much else I can learn from someone who does not have the skills to engage in an argument without resorting to ridicule and sarcasm.

Attacking a commenter might get you some momentary traffic, but is probably unwise in the long run. A blog works best when there are contributing points of view that are different from yours. If all you want is your friends and family agreeing with you, that is probably ok on a personal journal. But, I suspect many authors want their ideas challenged by the readers who find holes in their arguments.

Any dissenting opinions? If you agree with me, please don’t post a comment. But, if you have an alternative point of view, please share it.

Originally published at: DogWalkBlog.com

The definitive metaphor for social media

There has been a rush with the social media consultant groups and evangelists about how to define this thing called “social media.” Chris Brogan defined it as cafe-shaped conversation. And many people jumped on that metaphor. Sophie Macalister defines Tiwtter “as more like hanging out in the break room than actual productive work.”

Hubspot got a bit lively when they published a video and blog post about not measuring ROI on social media. That got a lot of comments, many which attempted to define social media so it can be measured.

It seems like everyone is struggling to define this thing called Social Media and how it correctly fits into how business will be conducted. While social media may be better defined as the elephant in the room with five blind men, a perfect metaphor popped into my head this morning when I sent someone a link to MildFire and their response was, “How do you find this stuff?!?”

The real answer was I grabbed it off a Twitter stream as I was sitting and zoning between tasks. But, the answer I heard coming out of my mouth was: “It’s like this huge asteroid belt that flies by my desk all day long.. something catches my eye and I reach and grab it. Sometimes it is a shiny rock, sometimes it is a nugget of gold.”

So, the definitive metaphor — at least for Twitter — is it is an asteroid belt.

As for MildFire, I’m not sure yet if they are a nugget of gold or a shiny rock, so they go into the drawer until I have time to asses their value.

Originally published at: DogWalkBlog.com

How this financial disaster is like Catholicism

I grew up Catholic.

One of the things you learn very early on is this earthly life is a test of your faith for a reward of either heaven and eternal life or hell and eternal damnation. Life here is supposed to be hard, we are supposed to feel pain because these trials are what helps God determine what kind of person who are and what our reward should be. Yes, I know I am grossly over-simplifying this and I have a large contingent of theologian friends with whom I can argue all day long, so if you don’t agree, please just take that on face value. It will help the analogy move along much quicker.

So you go to Church every Sunday, you help the poor, you don’t commit mortal sins, you do all the things that make you a good Catholic and that in turn will make you a good person. Now, here is where faith wears thin. As you get older, temptations become stronger, specifically, wine, women and song. These things are really, really fun and they make the promise of heaven or hell — while eternal — not believable.

If there is no heaven or hell, if this life is all there is, you sure will have wasted a whole lot of good fun. But, if there is a heaven and hell, and you succumbed to the sins of the flesh, you are in deep do-do.

Moving over to your secular life, as a good citizen, you do good things as well. You live within your means by not buying a house you can’t afford, save money in a retirement plan, don’t put a 58″ plasma TV on a credit card at 28% interest, don’t buy a cherry red Hummer which is really, really yummy looking…. oh, you’re still there… forgive me reader, for I have sinned….

If you are living within your means (good Catholic) and all your neighbors who went out and got drunk on over-priced homes, televisions, cars and stocks get bailed out by the Federal Government (God) what was the point of you living within your means? What if you living within your means actually means that your house is now worth 70% of what it was, you have to spend down your savings because you lose your job and you have no TV to watch to wile away your days of unemployment? Does a great FICO score get you into heaven or is it a worthless ticket?

Are the fiscally responsible who have not been living the high-life of comfort and excess going to now be forced to live with even less because of the sins of their neighbors? Doesn’t God just punish the sinners? How is this fair?

Well it isn’t and it makes one question the value of being a “good citizen.” If I knew with absolute certainty that there is no God, no heaven and no hell, I would be having more fun in this earthly life. I would be sinning and I would care less about the other puppies on this planet. After all, this would be the only go-around I would get and to not grab all I can out of the deal would just be silly.

If I knew with absolute certainty that no matter how fiscally irresponsible I was that eventually the Federal Government would bail me out, that they would force my bank to give me a better interest rate and that I could get a new Hummer every year and a big screen TV for every room of my house, I would not care about excessive credit card debt or paying any part of the principle on my home loan. Saving for a rainy day would be just silly.

But, I am not a gambler and the odds of there actually being a God are a little higher than there not being a God. At any rate, the possibility of spending an eternity frying my tail off just doesn’t sound all that much fun. Why risk it. And, being Catholic, I can always go to confession after sinning (don’t tell God about the loophole.)

I believe that the lack of mental anxiety that comes with living within your means is worth it. Like the Vatican, I don’t believe the government cares about me personally other than I behave myself and don’t make too many waves. By keeping me in a house, family and self-inflicted poverty, they is accomplishing their goal.

I will come out of this recession more intact than my drunken neighbors. I just hope the government can figure out a way to reward the responsible citizen while also making the sinners pay.

But I know our government also believes there is a God and they are leaving the sorting of the sinners to him (or her.) That vote is just way, way too risky and there are no confessionals in Congress.

Originally published at DogWalkBlog.