Spark Minute » Uncategorized

We’re covering IndyCar Racing!

David Spark — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 21:11:20 +0000

Chalk this up as one Spark Media Solutions’ coolest assignments. Thanks to a partnership of one of our clients, Ortsbo, a real-time chat translation tool, we’re covering IndyCar racing.

I just got back from Kentucky where I was reporting alongside sports journalist Patrick Mauro the most recent IndyCar race at the Kentucky Speedway. The Kentucky Indy 300 was an exciting race with the winner, Ed Carpenter, winning by .0098 of a second! That was his first ever IndyCar win.

We already have dozens of articles including video and pictures available at the site Social Racing Grid. Please check it out. If English is not your native language and you’d like to read the site in your native language, click the “Translate” button on the top of the page and have the entire site translated.

There’s one more race left in the season on Sunday, October 16th in Las Vegas. This is the national championships and it will determine who is the winner for the entire season. The points leader, Dario Franchitti is 18 points ahead of Will Power who was the leader going into the Kentucky race. If you’re a racing fan and eager for us to interview someone or some story, please let me know and we’ll try to get the story for you.

To check out our video coverage from the event, check out the Indy Social Racing Grid YouTube channel, and all our photos can be found at the Indy Social Racing Grid Flickr channel. But I’ve put all 150 photos from the race weekend below for you to see.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

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Some great advice and a really bad idea from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos

David Spark — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 16:30:15 +0000

(I’m reporting all this week at the Techonomy conference in Lake Tahoe, California. For more coverage, check out the Techonomy blog.)

During the dinner of the first night of the conference, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos got up to answer a question from John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Doerr asked Bezos what it takes to create an Internet treasure. Doerr rattled off a few answers as to what it took for Amazon to succeed.

At the end of the video, Bezos asked Doerr and Dean Kamen to announced two amendments to the Constitution he’d like to make. They didn’t answer publicly, but later, holding court with Dean Kamen, John Doerr, and a few other Techonomists, Bezos said that if he had the power, the amendment he’d like to make is the following:

Every year, 10 percent of the Senate would have to leave the Senate and they could never run for office again.

Wow Bezos. What an astonishingly bad idea. Who’s going to pick the 10 percent? Is it going to be like Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”? Why not stone them to death or hire Logan from “Logan’s Run” to hunt them down when their hand starts flashing red. I’m assuming Bezos would want to fire the bottom 10 percent performing senators. Will we get to vote for that?

Did Bezos do this at Amazon? Firing your underperforming employees is common, but should you fire them and then never let them apply for a job at your company or any of your competitors? It’s such an obviously bad idea for any company, why would it would work well for the government?

Jeff, you know ecommerce. Keep at it. Glad you have no power to enact Constitutional law.

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Blogging should be a core responsibility of a CEO

David Spark — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:08:45 +0000

Paul Levy is the CEO and President of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and author of the blog, “Running a Hospital.”

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Summary of my interview with Paul Levy:

Paul Levy knew nothing about health care, medicine, or running a hospital, yet he still found it fascinating. So he decided to start writing a blog.
Paul Levy posts real time data of operations at BIDMC to brag about their success, but also to expose issues that need improvement.
Blogging has inspiring clinicians to do better because they know their results will be seen by the public.
Blogging should be a core part of a CEO’s duties to promote his/her organization.

Listen to or download my interview with Paul Levy [17:50 m].

Full Paul Levy Article:

Paul Levy is the CEO and President of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, Massachusetts, which also happens to be the hospital where my father, Dr. Richard F. Spark has worked for more than 40 years as an endocrinologist. Levy has made a name for himself and his hospital by being very proactive in social media and authoring a blog entitled, “Running a Hospital,” where he talks about improving the operations at the BIDMC, reducing errors, keeping people healthy, and the overall state of health care in the United States.

: Paul Levy, CEO Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center

No experience? No problem. Just expose what you learn.

When Levy came on as CEO of the BIDMC, he had no previous experience running a hospital although his previous jobs (the state’s water and sewage system, Mass Water Resource Authority (MWRA), and the Boston Harbor Cleanup) did involve health issues.

Even though he knew nothing about health care or medicine, Levy found it rather fascinating and thought others might think so as well. So he decided to just start writing the blog. He didn’t ask anyone for permission. “It was the usual narcissistic approach to starting a blog. You think you have something interesting for the world to read and then you wonder if anybody’s going to show up and read it,” said Levy.

When Levy started there was surprisingly very little information out there about running a hospital. He went out of his way to post real time data about the BIDMC. In multiple cases, Levy’s written about issues of infections and hand washing. It became a very hotly contested topic and in some cases Levy had to admit that the hospital wasn’t doing the best job it could, but he talked about it openly and he spelled out what the hospital was doing to improve the issue.

“Part of the exposing was bragging about what we were doing,” said Levy, “I think most people in the hospital felt some pride in the fact that I was writing about that. I think it made a number of people a little bit nervous that I was publicizing things that normally aren’t talked about. But there is an underlying ethic to the BIDMC that people really want to improve the quality of care that we give and other hospitals give. And to the extent that stories about how we’re trying to do that are made public and might help the industry and the like, I think we’re well received.”

Public blogging actually inspiring clinicians

When asked if the blog is making a difference at the hospital, Levy definitely has seen evidence. With regard to issues of central line infections and ventilator related pneumonia, Levy said he saw internal emails where clinicians were reminding themselves that Levy would be posting their numbers. “They were already trying pretty hard to do well, [the blog gave] them the initial impetus to do better because the numbers would be there for the world to see. So I think those kinds of transparencies has its value in terms of creating or establishing a kind of creative tension for an organization to help it do better. So I think it makes a difference in that regard,” Levy said.

Blogging should be part of a CEO’s promotional duties

Levy is a very active blogger, writing one to two posts every day. Some of those posts have to do with the Red Sox (Fenway Park is just a few blocks from the BIDMC), but most have to do with the hospital. The writing of the posts is not what takes the time. The real time sink, said Levy, is keeping up with other people’s blogs which is really the same kind of research and time he would spend reading medical trade journals.

When I asked Levy about balancing his CEO duties with blogging, he didn’t think there shouldn’t be a distinction between the two. “If one of your jobs as CEO of an organization is to represent that organization before the public. With traditional venues being newspapers, speeches, lectures, and the like. Then use of social media is a logical extension of that corporate responsibility of the CEO. The outreach potential is excellent plus you can express your point of view not being filtered by reporters, or editors, or whatever,” Levy said.

Getting caught making a blogging faux pas

Levy, like other social media superstars, didn’t achieve success without making a few mistakes along the way. He admits to making the error of pasting an article, in whole, on his blog. A journalist caught the mistake and chided him for copyright infringement. He quickly corrected the error by amending the post and just pasting in excerpts which he realized made the post a lot more interesting as well.

With the continuing popularity of his blog, Levy realizes that there are a lot of people out there who are hungry and thirsty for ideas on how to improve the health care system. While he’s worked in public service before, Levy said running a hospital is the ultimate public service organization. Talking publicly about operations is one service he’s happy to provide his community and his hospital.

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WABC Radio: Facebook addiction, cybersecurity, and Google Me

David Spark — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 22:24:15 +0000

Thursday night I made an appearance on the nationally syndicated Curtis Sliwa Show (WABC Radio in NYC) and we discussed a mishmash of different tech related issues: cybersecurity, Facebook addiction, and Google Me. (Time: 15:10). Download or stream.

VIDEO: President Bill Clinton unwittingly develops Shai Agassi's business model

David Spark — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:31:34 +0000

Shai Agassi, founder and CEO of a Better Place (site), has become an international rage with his company’s development and vision to create an oil independent transportation network. While so much has been written and said about Agassi and his company, I wanted to know what he’s learned over the past year from others that have helped him in the development of his company. He admitted that the most revealing conversation he’s had over the past year was with President Bill Clinton to whom Agassi credits for developing Better Place’s business model.

Make sure you also read my write up on Agassi’s full presentation, “How to develop an oil independent transportation system, the Shai Agassi way.”

Sites, tools, and tips for saving money

David Spark — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 23:07:21 +0000

The economy is hitting everyone hard. And while we all fight for money, often chasing the same dollars, there’s one thing we can all collaborate on, and that’s saving money. Here are a few recommended sites, tools, and tips for saving money.

Be a gourmet for a budget – While the top site for recipes is epicurious, some blogs are going out of their way to deliver you the best dinners on a budget. I recommend you check out Frugal Cuisine, and just launched last week, the Broke Ass Gourmet, which promises that all its recipes for two cost less than $20.

Know when to refinance your mortgage – Finance rates are dropping, or they were. They just bounced back up. But there’s talk of lobbying the government to drop them down to 4% to stimulate the economy. And when the bank rate hits that rock bottom point, it’s definitely time to refinance. Just follow Bankrate.com to see up to the minute mortgage rates.

Gadgets that save money – Simple Dollar has put together a great list of the 25 gadgets that will save you money. For each gadget they give you the cost savings it offers and the time it will take for you to break even on your investment. Love the advice about getting the game “Dance, Dance, Revolution” to replace your cardio workout. Assuming $25/month gym membership fee, they calculate you’ll break even in 8 months.

Manage your money – There was a time people managed all their finances through Quicken. You can still use Quicken which has a free Web based version now, or you could use Mint to watch all your financial accounts so you can see what the status is of all your holdings.

Watch prices of products – Interested in some new product, but you just don’t want to pay the current price? Put it on a watch list at Price Protectr and you’ll get an alert when the price drops. Similarly, for air travel, you can use the service Yapta, which also offers price protection. If you buy a ticket through Yapta, it’ll alert you if the ticket price drops and you can get money back on the difference.

Be a Craigslist power user and power seller – Lifehacker has put together a great Craigslist guide for users and for sellers. Follow their tips to find the best deals and to make the best sales.

There’s almost always a coupon – My wife showed me that just before you buy any product online, to check to see if there are any available online coupons. You can almost always inevitably find at least a 10% discount for whatever you’re trying to buy at most major online retail outlets. Start by looking at Fat Wallet and RetailMeNot. You might also want to make a call out to your friends on Twitter. You’ll never know what they might have for you. Read my tale of how I saved $150 with Twitter.

This news item is for the Spark Minute week of 2/9/09 which can be heard daily on Green 960 and 910 KNEW in San Francisco, CA.

Broadcast your own video channel

David Spark — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:35:40 +0000

On this blog, whenever I want to share a video I write a blog post and embed the video. And if there’s a related video I provide a link to another blog post with that video. If I want to connect multiple videos I have to provide multiple links.

But if I put up a skateboarding video, chances are you’ll be interested in seeing another skateboarding video. So why not put those videos back to back? Such a solution is possible with both Embedr and Magnify.net. The two work in different ways.

Magnify lets you create a skateboarding page/portal (see example) where all your favorite videos reside plus additional information and pictures. Embedr lets you create a video channel, that’s embeddable on your site or blog. Below, I queued up six skateboarding videos that were sitting in my YouTube favorites. Now they’re available for anyone to watch on my blog.

This news item is for the Spark Minute week of 2/9/09 which can be heard daily on Green 960 and 910 KNEW in San Francisco, CA.

Swap books, CDs, DVDs and video games for free with Swaptree

David Spark — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 18:30:58 +0000

Before the Web, about 12 years ago, before Napster and before you could burn CDs cost effectively, there was a very active bootleg tape trading scene on Usenet. People would post lists of their audio and video tapes they wanted to trade on the message boards. Users would look at each other’s lists and send emails saying, “I’d like to have such and such from your list, what would you like from my list?” If there was anything you liked you’d copy your tapes and drop the tapes in the mail, making a 1-for-1 tape-for-tape trade.

It was a rather a niche scene and the RIAA and MPAA didn’t get too upset because nothing was being transmitted in volume, exact duplicates weren’t being made (there was degradation since it wasn’t digital), and almost all of the content were true bootleg recordings and not albums or movies being sold commercially.

Swap for free with Swaptree

Today, a service called Swaptree makes the connection for you, legally and for free. To be legal you need to swap original versions of your commercially owned content such as books, CDs, DVDs, and video games. You can’t swap copies. When you sign up for Swaptree, you enter in all the items you have that you want to swap and for each one you need to enter a UPC code or ISBN to indicate you actually own an original copy.

Next step is to enter in all the content that you want. Then Swaptree does the rest, matching people who want stuff to people who have stuff. Once it makes a match, you ship your goods to the provided addresses. You can use Swaptree’s automatic shipping label feature which will print the postage for you (usually about $2.50 for most goods) and charge your credit card. Or you can just handle the shipping yourself if you go to your local post office.

Swaptree highly encourages you to use its “search your address book” feature to find friends on Swaptree or to invite friends to Swaptree. If you have real friends on Swaptree, when it makes a match it’ll give preference to your friends (so you know your trader) and people who live in your neighborhood so you can avoid shipping and you could literally swap face to face.

Caveat emptor

Swaptree doesn’t have any kind of escrow service. There’s no middleman accepting your goods in a way station and then distributing them out to the respective parties. Because of this there is a slight risk, but that risk is mitigated by a few factors. Traders have ratings and if someone stiffs you on a trade then that person’s rating will go down and their trading days on Swaptree will be short lived. You can also make an official report and Swaptree will suspend that user’s account until they uncover what happened.

Another issue that mitigates a trade going sour is the fact that the risk factor is low. You’re getting rid of an item you don’t want anymore that probably costs less than $20. If you didn’t use Swaptree, you probably were going to try to sell that used book or CD to a book store or record store and get a fraction of its true value.

How does Swaptree make money?

As far as I can tell it’s just through advertising and that’s not much. I only saw a couple of Google ads at the top of the site and that’s far from enough to sustain a business. But there’s a rising interest in social shopping and I wouldn’t be suprised if Swaptree is building an audience of users who trust each other and then move into the moer lucrative arena of social shopping.

This news item is for the Spark Minute week of 2/2/09 which can be heard daily on Green 960 and 910 KNEW in San Francisco, CA.

How to Get Recognized at Your Next Conference

David Spark — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 23:26:35 +0000

I attend a lot of conferences, and one of the saddest things to see is a sponsor standing in his booth alone, talking to no one. When I see that all I can think is what a giant waste of time and money. With that passive attitude, they’ve set themselves up for failure. The only way someone is going to talk to them is if they happen to write some good headline copy on their booth to attract attention. Otherwise, they’re doomed.

More than a year and a half ago I began covering live events for my business, Spark Media Solutions. I primarily report for event producers, but I realized there’s no reason why a sponsor of an event can’t also cover a conference or trade show. My belief is if you come to report on an event, rather than just sponsor it, you’ll get a lot more value, attention, and connections.

Register to download a free PDF of this article here:

What are you getting out of that conference you’re attending?

I love attending live events because it’s a physical collection of smart people conversing on like-minded subjects. And while people talk about the boon of social media, nothing beats face-to-face communications. That’s how we begin and forward our relationships and our education.

Sponsoring an event is a great way to get your brand associated with an event. But after you pony up the money, it’s up to you to create the greatest value out of that. How many times have you been at a conference and you’ve experienced one if not all of the following:

Frustrated that no one was coming to your table.
Got your time monopolized by people that weren’t going to buy or write about your product.
Didn’t get any press or bloggers to come to your table or write about your company.
Few people came to your booth because they were attending sessions and talking with each other.
You’re exhausted because you can only talk to so many people in a given day.
Your booth signage didn’t attract people to come talk to you.
Boredom.

The reason for all of these negative experiences is because just sponsoring an event has its limitations. When you sponsor an event, you’re only connecting with people who walk up to your table. And even if you have a really successful booth, you still only reached all the people you could physically touch during the show.

You can’t count on press, and if you do, then you probably had to hire and pay some PR reps to wander the floor to wrangle some journalists to your booth, hoping they write about you. Big events, like CES, are swarming with journalists and they write about everything. But most events are not like CES. If you’re sponsoring a small user conference there won’t be any journalists. Smaller industry conferences may have a few trade journalists there and they’ll write one or maybe two articles about the entire event. You’ll never get a feature story about you. At most, you’ll have to settle for a line or two in that one article.

You can avoid all of these limitations, connect with key people and influencers, and be seen as a voice in your industry if you simply just report, from your company voice, at the event.

Don’t just sponsor. Report, and be seen as a voice.

Reporting at an event is not limited to just journalists and bloggers. Any organization can be a media entity that tells the story of what’s happening at the conference. Using a simple blog format, go to an event and report on the subject of the event and the people who are attending.

Your booth can only connect with a single message. By reporting, you can reach out to the interests of your audience, and show that you’re a significant member of the conversation that’s relevant to your industry.

The value of reporting at a live event

Once you establish that you’re going to take off your marketing hat and begin covering the event from an editorial viewpoint, here are all the benefits your business will experience.

Co-opt the editorial and publicity of the event – No need to do your own publicity or gather an audience. Take advantage of all the work the event producers have done to drive attention to their event.

High interest in your content - Since you’re reporting will be in line with the editorial of the event, the audience has already been pre-qualified to be interested in your reporting.

Very easy to meet influencers - It’s a lot easier to meet industry influencers and hold their attention if you first ask for their opinion. How do you think influencers become influencers? They say yes to interviews. This ego boosting exercise is a far more comfortable way to begin a relationship than trying to get them to pay attention to your product pitch.

Get access to bloggers’ audience – Give away your content to anyone who wants it. And if you happen to actually interview a blogger or write about them, let them know. In most cases they’ll repurpose the content on their own site. Also, if the event’s show page or blog is pulling in RSS feeds of related content, your articles will also appear there.

Implied endorsement of your company – By reporting at the event and interviewing key bloggers and influencers, you’re aligning your brand and reputation with theirs. Even if nothing is actually said, by physically placing the stories on each other’s sites, the relationship is implied.

Crank up your search visibility – By using the name of the event, the companies, and the people attending in your reporting, your blog entries will inevitably appear in search results as others look for content related to the event.

Lower cost to production – A live event places all the people you want to interview within an arm’s reach. That translates into enormous time and cost savings. No need to go through a series of phone calls, emails, and barriers of media relations people to get an interview. Instead, just walk up to the person at the conference and ask a question. The reason they’re there is to meet people and talk.

Extend your reach beyond the room and the event – Many of the people interested in the content of the event won’t be there, or they may want to look at the information after the event. You can’t connect with everyone during the event. But if you publish content about the event, you’ll be able to connect with them afterwards.

The event producers will love you – Any coverage of the event brings more attention to the event.

Focus group surveys and business development – Get some free consulting and advice by interviewing event attendees about issues your company is wrestling with.

Greater bang for the buck – It costs the same or less than an event sponsorship and you get lots more value.

Are you currently putting your sponsorship money to good use?

Try this exercise. Take a look at the last event you sponsored and all the costs and time you put into preparing for it. Add up all the costs:

The event sponsorship
Design and production of the booth signage
Giveaways
Attending staff including PR reps (salary, flight, hotel, meals, extra registration, etc.)

What did you get out of the event? $10K, $20K, $100K, more? How many people did you actually meet? Did you get the coverage that you wanted? Reporting at a live event can deliver all of the above benefits most often way below these costs.

For your next event, don’t just hope for exposure and connections, create your own.

(Get ready for my company pitch…)

Let Spark Media Solutions make you the life of the party

My company, Spark Media Solutions, can report on the event for you, in your industry voice. We find the influencers, bloggers, and key people in your industry. We ask the right questions and create the stories in print, audio, video, and in pictures that are most relevant for your company and your industry. Here’s what we do:

As the event is happening, we produce quality content quickly while at the same time alerting industry influencers via social media of all the new reporting.
We get key interviews that others can’t get.
All our production is completed when the event is finished. We know that interest is at its highest during the event. That’s why we think it’s important to work quickly.

At one three-day conference, a single reporter was able to produce forty blog posts of which twenty six had video. We’re able to produce so quickly and so well for the following reasons:

We’re always using the top technology, hardware, and software to gather and distribute the reporting we do for you.
We use an endless array of proprietary shortcuts to gather and distribute the stories.
We’re veteran journalists that know how to go after valuable stories. Where an inexperienced person may go after twenty stories and only produce two, we go after twenty stories and produce nineteen.

Read on for a full description of our services, testimonials, and samples of Spark Media Solutions’ work.

Register to download a free PDF of this article here:

If you’re interested in having your company reporting at a live event, please contact me at david AT sparkmediasolutions DOT com or 415-794-9135.

cc photo credit to Steve Rhodes.

Best online resources for "Lost" fans

David Spark — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 00:11:28 +0000

I recently became a huge fan of “Lost.” My wife and I got caught up with three seasons of episodes on DVD in just a few weeks. It was kind of disappointing when we had to be like everyone else and wait each week for another episode. With the eight month hiatus, it was like torture. Now that we finally got our “Lost” fix, we have to go through the arduous task of waiting once every week. What are we supposed to do the other six days?

I started to scour the Internet for some Lost resources and first realized that there are a ton of fans out there and a ton of resources. I only wanted the best, so from my JV fandom estimation, here are some of the best resources I found out there for “Lost” fans who are looking for additional discussion and information about their favorite show.

Top resources for Lost Fans

Watch episodes online – If you forgot to set your TiVo (you mean you don’t have “Lost” on Season Pass?) or you didn’t get home in time Wednesday night, not to worry, you can still watch episodes for free (with short commercial breaks) on the ABC.com site, or you can pay $2.99 per episode on iTunes for a commercial free episode.

Lostpedia - It’s everything you ever wanted to know and not know about “Lost.” For example, there’s a page on all the appearances and references to polar bears on the island. In Wiki format it can be edited by anyone, even you.

Podcasts – The official podcast can be found here (direct iTunes link), but even though it’s official, it’s kind of lame and there are never any major reveals. Instead I started looking for some fan podcasts. From the community perspective, it appears that Lostcasts.com (direct iTunes link) is the most popular one. I like their overused tagline: “We read the ‘Lost’ forums so you don’t have to.”

Online chat – Honestly, I’m not sure where the best “Lost” chat is. If you’re looking for hardcore “Lost” fans, you’re best bet is to hit the IRC chat rooms. Lostpedia has a full list and links of all those chat rooms. But I’m eager to find a really good Web-based chat. If anyone can recommend a better Lost chat room, let me know.

Fan sites – These sites have pictures, articles, and pretty much everything a fan could hope for. I recommend Lost Media and Lost TV.

Twitter users – There are a few Twitter users that Tweet almost exclusively about “Lost.” Tip of the hat to a great “Lost” blog, daily LOST, for compiling this list.

Easter eggs – Hidden references inserted in the background that only appear briefly on screen or pass by in the background. The fan site, The Tail Section, has been pulling up great Easter egg articles from BuddyTV.com. Here are the Easter eggs from episode 5.1, “Because you left” and episode 5.2, “The Lie.” If you’d like to see all Easter eggs from past episodes, check out Lostpedia.

Gifts – There’s a lot of “Lost” branded items out there. If you’re looking for a gift for a true “Lost” fan, check out this article.

If you can recommend any other good “Lost” online content, especially a good chat room, let me know.

This post is sponsored by
Direct SAT TV – An authorized DIRECTV dealer

This news item is for the Spark Minute week of 1/26/09 which can be heard daily on Green 960 and 910 KNEW in San Francisco, CA.

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